experience in a carnival essay
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This past week flew past in a blur of music, drinking, dancing and general carnival fun. Each carnival day (in fact each bloco) has its own personality – different music and locations, different mixes of friends, chance encounters – all these things contribute different highlights (and the occasional low-point – more on this another day). Well this year, one specific moment stood out, and I’ve been dying to tell you all about it!
A little while back I explained a little about the carnival bloco and one thing I mentioned is that some of them change their names each year. One such bloco had got a bit of a reputation for unusual routes or daring locations. A few years back the entire bloco took the ferry across Guanabara Bay from Niteroi to Rio – that year they called themselves Se melhorar afunda – “If it gets any better it’ll sink”!
Last year (my first carnival) the bloco was called O Sertão vai virar mar – “The Sertão is going to turn into the sea” (Sertão being a very dry area in the northeast of Brazil). People came dressed as fish, octopuses, hammerhead sharks, you name it. The bloco swam through the downtown streets until it reached a fire engine at which point the bloco leader hopped on top and started spraying everyone. It was pretty cool.
OK, so that is the background to my favourite ever carnival moment. To summarise, these guys have past form for a bit of mayhem.
OK, so that is the background to my favourite ever carnival moment. To summarise, these guys have past form for a bit of mayhem.This year the bloco was named Baianada and a lot of people came dressed as Baianos (people from the northeastern state of Bahia). The music was great and as we roved around the streets in the Centro neighbourhood, spirits were up. There was a short pause and then suddenly the bloco started moving again. Next thing I knew we were all piling into Santos Dumont Airport!
OK, so that is the background to my favourite ever carnival moment. To summarise, these guys have past form for a bit of mayhem.This year the bloco was named Baianada and a lot of people came dressed as Baianos (people from the northeastern state of Bahia). The music was great and as we roved around the streets in the Centro neighbourhood, spirits were up. There was a short pause and then suddenly the bloco started moving again. Next thing I knew we were all piling into Santos Dumont Airport!It was an amazing moment – many of us had lost our bearings and hadn’t realised we were even close to the airport. Next thing we knew the whole bloco was passing through the revolving doors. You could sense the feeling in the crowd – it went from Are they going to let us do this? to a realisation that There is no way they can stop this many of us.
There were people waiting for flights who were taking photos of us as we danced and sang our way into the airport. There were security guards variously laughing, pretending they had everything under control (the guy at the top of the escalator) and getting angry (as I got to the bottom of the escalator).
There were people waiting for flights who were taking photos of us as we danced and sang our way into the airport. There were security guards variously laughing, pretending they had everything under control (the guy at the top of the escalator) and getting angry (as I got to the bottom of the escalator).But more than anything, look at the faces of everyone going up and down the escalator – they’re all waving and smiling like they’re famous! It was as if everyone recognised this rare moment of magic and were just celebrating the fact that they were part of it – that’s how I felt anyway.
There were people waiting for flights who were taking photos of us as we danced and sang our way into the airport. There were security guards variously laughing, pretending they had everything under control (the guy at the top of the escalator) and getting angry (as I got to the bottom of the escalator).But more than anything, look at the faces of everyone going up and down the escalator – they’re all waving and smiling like they’re famous! It was as if everyone recognised this rare moment of magic and were just celebrating the fact that they were part of it – that’s how I felt anyway.As we reached half way up the escalator, everyone started singing the song of Rio de Janeiro – Cidade Maravilhosa. It was an amazing moment.