Carnaval is a pretty big deal here in Rio. And that might just be the biggest of the many understatements that have (probably) featured on this blog over the last few months. Carnaval in Rio is the biggest deal imaginable. To think cities - London at present being a perfect example - spend years and years planning and organising festivities for the 2 weeks when they host the Olympic Games... and none of them will even come close to the size, scale, or simply fun, that Rio manages to achieve each and every year. Sydney 2000 may be often cited as the "best Olympics ever", but whatever I'd be willing to bet my hypothetical house that Rio 2016 is going to blow it out the water.
Anyway, my pains to stress just how massive carnaval is over here are basically to put things in perspective. Because "carnaval" is 4 or 5 days of street parties, dancing and general revelry, but at its centre - encompassing all of the above and more - is an event that is just epic in every way, from its venue to its duration to its volume of performers. This, of course, is the legendary Samba School parade in the purpose-built Sambódromo stadium, and it is simply mind-boggling.
As an explanatory note, the samba school parade is actually a competition - the 12 samba schools currently occupying the "Special Group" (basically the Premier Division of samba schools) are each given an hour and a quarter to parade through the sambódromo - 6 on Sunday night, 6 on Monday night. Judged on everything from timing to dancing to originality of the theme and music (and 5 other categories), the best school over the 2 nights is crowned the year's champion, and thus gain the right to be the final performing school on the Monday night the following year. The two lowest ranked schools, however, get relegated out of the "Special Group", replaced the following year by the winners from the lower division. Those interested can read all about the history and details here.
In a flurry of internet-based activity shortly after my old camera was stolen in Airley Beach, I splashed out on a couple of grandstand tickets for Anna and myself - at over US$100 they don't come cheap, but I was well informed by countless sources that it was an experience well worth it. "True dat", as they say.
So Anna's already incredible first day in Rio headed for its momentous finale as we hit the metro with Rita and her sister (whose concern for our general safety and scepticism in our ability to find our way on the streets saw them chaperone us to the gates), and soon found ourselves in the midst of thousands of brightly clad, flag-waving and dancing spectators - an eclectic mix dominated by locals whose semi-delirious passion for samba seemed to know no bounds, but with a sprinkling of tourists who were generally found looking semi-awed, semi-bemused by the scale of what was before them. Between the towering stands housing the throngs runs a 750 metre road - the parade route - along which the schools process (fairly well illustrated by the photo on the right). The stands themselves are just big concrete steps, and from the first school at 9pm, the whole thing goes on until sunrise the next morning - a 9 hour bonanza, if you can survive it. The parades themselves have more colour, more sound, more intricate clothing designs and styles than anything I have ever seen before, or probably will see again. Every school chooses a theme for its parad and, with themes ranging from "the history of the carnival itself" to "technology and its development", produce a line of indiviudual dancers, giant themed floats covered with more dancers, and in between groups - each with hundreds more dancers within - separated from one another by a totally new, different, and equally spectacular style of costume. Mirrors, feathers, metals and gems, plus every sort of fabric under the sun - you name it, and it was on display somewhere. But not just in passing - the colours and the details may all blow your mind, but what left the most lasting memory for me was the volume - the number of performers out there. Each school has some 4000 or so performers... and it is only when you see hundreds and hundreds of them, all out there at once; floats, costumes and all; that you can properly appreciate just how many people that is. And as one school comes and goes, you have the whole shabam again, and again, and again...
By 4.30 in the morning after seeing the entirity of the first 4 schools and the beginning of the penultimate offering, it seemed like a fairly good idea to beat the crowds and make an early exit. For sure, it was not so much for want of departure on my part, but having landed in Rio a mere 24 hours earlier, jet lag, general fatigue and a few beers were all hitting Anna like a runaway train... and the fact that she'd manage to sleep through one and a half schools' parades seemed more than compelling a reason to get back to Rita's for some well earned rest. But then it wouldn't be a Baptism of Fire without one more twist in the tale, would it...?
Getting a taxi was easy enough, and being pre-paid we weren't to bothered about the driver making a royal hash of finding his way to rua Caçhaca de Maria in Méier - Rita and family's abode. Méier, while not the "ghetto", is in the north-western part of Rio that is generally bracketed as the more industrial, working class, and generally rough side of the city (as opposed to the rich half down by Copacabana and Ipanema). The houses are built like Fort Knox, with entrance porches surrounded by 10 foot concrete walls, themselves topped with spiked rails and barbed wire. Can't be too careful...
The problem with all this security, however, comes when you arrive at your friend's house in the early hours of the morning, in a slightly dodgy suburb of one still remains a pretty dangerous city, and ring the bell to find absolutely no answer. Sure, next door's disgusting hounds all throw their nut and wake up the whole neighbourhood, but buzz after buzz after buzz produces no answer from the door. Back home, the instinct is to figure out a way to break into your own home (or, harking back to a memorable night on Bidborough Ridge in December 2008, attempting to wake your passed out friends with repeated mobile calls, throwing shoes at windows, getting said shoes stuck on the roof, and finally cutting ones losses and calling the landline, thus waking up Rob's (very, very angry) Dad, and half of Bidborough, at 5am), but here in Rio those options are well and truly closed (if you value your skin) - as Anna was more than quick to point out upon seeing be eying up the concrete wall. Attempts at phonecalls achieved little except emphasising the ridiculousness of Brazil's telephone system, where telephone numbers change depending what network you are calling from, so it was there we found ourselves - Anna, barely a day in Rio, and myself - paranoid as a pot-smoking teenager at a police station thanks to the newer, even more expensive and even less backed up camera I had on my person - wondering what the f*** we were supposed to do.
Various scenarios were played out. Rita and her sister had said, repeatedly, that they were coming straight home after dropping us off, and to ring the door bell when we got back. There was surely no way they could be at home at sleep through the din caused by the loud buzz and the louder uproar of three deranged dogs, which left the possibility of them having pulled a fast one and run away with our stuff (a suggestion I was quick to strike down on the basis of it being possibly the longest of long cons imaginable, what with tracing its roots back to Australia...), or that they'd been mugged, or worse, or their root home and were in trouble somewhere. Whatever way we looked at it, we had absoutely no idea what the hell we were supposed to do - with no telephones, and all our money and documents inside an impregnable house, and with nowhere to go and no one to call in a foreign city where we don't speak the language... well the shit was fairly close to hitting the metaphorical fan.
Thankfully, an absolute shitshow of a 4 months in India had instilled new nerves in young* Anna, and the two of us contented to pass the next few hours sitting on the side of the road, catching up with life a bit and attempting to create vaguely rationale ideas for what to do next, and when. Sunrise... 7am... our cut-off point for sitting on the doorstep and waiting... and then from round the corner we hear "Dean! Anna!".
From up the street appear Rita and her sister... and to cut a long story short, they'd scored free tickets inside the sambódrome thanks to bumping into well-connected friends after dropping us off. And they, unlike us, had stayed till the end.
Welcome to Rio de Janeiro. Baptism of Fire indeed.
* a whole 7 months younger than me
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