Carnaval in Rio's Sambódromo!

Rio's Carnaval.

I'm getting chills just remembering it!

This was absolutely the most extravagant celebration of life and culture that I have ever seen. The entire place was bursting at the seams with raw energy and excitement for this incredible event. There was so much joy, singing, movement and color on display. My eyes were always popping out of my head and I was laughing, screaming, and dancing from 9pm-4am. My face hurt from smiling so much by the end and the superglue that held my shoes together was hopelessly outmatched because I couldn't stop dancing.

(Arriving to the Sambódromo was an interesting experience, we were advised to take the metró as the most time-efficient way because traffic around the stadium is horrendous during carnaval. Well... that was an interesting experience. I use the word interesting in the context of an ancient Chinese curse... "May you live in interesting times..." We were jam packed like sardines into the subway cars for 30 minutes, doesn't sound like a lot I know. Each stop more and more people tried to cram in, and I was wearing a minidress, uncomfortably crammed against some interesting people, most of which had their sweaty armpits exposed trying to hold onto something... which was pretty much useless because we all moved as a unit whenever the train started and stopped anyway. Longest 30 minutes ever, and not an experience we will repeat on the way home!)

I've packed this post full of pictures because there is no way to adequately describe how incredible this parade was. And let me just say that live performance is never truly captured in image or even video. As a performer myself, I have always been disappointed by the images I see later of it, it seems diminished somehow. That being said... these pictures are awesome so just imagine how great it really was! So enjoy!

I loved this float. Check out all the people dancing on top of it.

Each samba school has about an hour and a half to parade. So between 9pm and 4:30am we saw 6 schools perform. They each have themes and many different sections of floats, dancers, muses of carnaval, passistas, drummers, couples representing their school. All the while every performer sings the school song as they parade and dance through the sambódromo, to be judged and hopefully win for the best performance.

This is one person on top of a float.

Each float has one, it's kind of like the angel on top of the Christmas tree!

This is the side of one of my favorite floats. On one side of these huge paintings was famous works of art from all over the world. Then the paintings would flip and there were pictures of Brasileiros, some well known, and some just average people. I thought it was a beautiful display of pride and joy in the Brazillian life and culture.

One of the Brasileiros on the back side of the picture :)

The carnaval was full of humor, joy, whimsy, and fun.

I laughed out loud a lot!

Speaking of humor...

It's so hard to pick my favorite picture of the night...

this is a competitor.

This float was so strange and funny.

It was like an art-deco, pop-art, comic-strip scene.

People had costumes with huge body parts all over them, mouths, noses, etc.

Man, these costumes are rad!

Here's a good example of some different sections in a school.

The blue angel things are costumes that anyone can buy and parade with the school.

The silver ball guys are people who learned choreography with the school, with the float behind.

Muses of Carnaval

The Bateria, I love their logos!

This float was so fun, check out the guy on the waterslide.

In the back you can see all the slide people, how fun!

Another muse.

Front row baby!!!

Another video.

This is just amazing.

Wheelchairs!!!!!

AAAHHHHH! Sherrie...you're my female body-building expert.

So, man or woman?

I expect a comment below.

Love it! Mom I thought of you for this one.

I wish I had caught the gold painted girl dancing in this video, she was so good!

On the other hand, the muse in the white costume mostly does a lot of walking around.

This was generally true for all of them. More walking, posing, and just existing in a rad costume, not so much dancing on their parts. I was expecting them to be the most talented and amazing dancers of them all to have the honor of wearing those costumes. Interesting.

There was so much joy everywhere. It's contageous!

This little feature was too funny.

This beautiful man is on top of this thing dancing for a while, then out bursts the fat guy with a rediculous entrance, dancing around in the same costume. It was so funny, I wish I had caught the beginning of this part of the performance. But here's the middle and the end ;)

There was a jungle float with a guy throwing bananas off the top.

Rachel caught one and it now lives in my bag.

Delain and I danced continuously for hours.

Our feet were dead and our hearts were full by the end of the night.

We made so many friends, performers would come up to us and dance with us,

each of us feeding off each others energy and passion.

I think I was still shaking my ass as I was falling asleep.

Happy girl!

Get some, girl!

Sambaaaaaaa!

Definitely one of my favorites.

My ladies!

We had such a fun time together. Who needs sleep when you have Carnaval?

Smoking dragons, the heads were animated too!

WOOOOOO!

Even when we sat we kept dancing. HA! I miss you Delain!

We were seated in the front row in a booth with only 2 other people in it. This poor quiet Russian couple had to deal with our loud hilarity. The guy of the couple seemed to have a better sense of humor, so we had a good time messing with him to loosen them up a bit. He kept trying to eat his sandwitch and we were dancing so much the seats were rocking. I think he was trying not to laugh for the sake of his girlfriend but was had a great time of it HA! It's carnaval people... smile!!!!!!

The later it got, the more rediculous everything became.

So glad to have shared this with all of you.

We were so close we could touch it!

Outrageous!

This was my favorite couple, they were so happy and talented and beauuutiful!

Um... wow.

That's a whole lotta woman.

Viva Brasil!

Many schools started with fireworks.

Passistas.

Metallic paint, thong and armbands... costume complete.

It's hard to capture the scale of this event.

Thinking of you, Annie!

I don't know if you can see them but there's tree-ents on this float.

One of the ents passed out during the parade...

I'm guessing from heat exhaustion or dehydration.

Watching the medics trying to get him off the huge float looked very hard.

At the end of the night, we left juuuust before the last float ended to beat the crowds. We had the most frightening taxi ride I've ever experienced on the way home, with the driver going 70mps throught the streets of Rio using only his fog lights. But we made it safe, thank God. We jumped in the pool in the dark to pass time between 5-6am so we could eat our included hotel breakfast before passing out.

The sunrise over Copacabana from the 18th story pool-deck of our hotel,

after one of the funnest nights of my life.

What a beautiful existance!

Good morning Rio, and goodnight!