Diamond Carnival, Tue, 13 Feb 2018 | written by Simon
Simon at a City, Temple in Brazil, South America

Tonight is the main parade night. Well, the one I got a ticket for, the parades have been going since Friday. But everywhere I read said this one is best, so high expectations! 

I got up late, which is wonderful. I packed for the day and went off to Rio town centre to do some sightseeing and not necessarily carnival stuff. Yeah right. I got out of the underground and within ten minutes of walking I was in a middle of an Afro-Raegge Bloco party. I only stayed for a bit though, and moved on to see some places and… Find another Bloco! Throughout the day, I must have stumbled upon at least six. I stayed at each for a bit and moved on, with some vague plan but mostly going wherever there was something shiny. I love spontaneous travelling!


And spontaneity rules here – little parties form all over the place whenever someone brought some music, started singing, or put up a beer shop. People party in the metro, on stations, on streets, beaches, shops – no place is safe! The costumes most in this season are Mario and Luigi, Wonderwoman, and the classics – angels and devils. Oddly enough, not as much drumming going on as I expected. I’ve seen only a couple drum only bands, most have all sorts of untrimmed and are playing covers. Everybody wins along and all music is in Portuguese, nobody sings any English pop hits.

The largest party spaces smell of hot beer, which gets spilled, because so would drink hot beer?! But the streets and beaches are impressively clean. They are wrecked completely every day, with people throwing cans and bottles and rubbish everywhere, the bins overflowing, but the cleaners appear as soon as a parade moves away and it doesn’t take long to look like nothing ever happened. 

Anyway, enough about parties. I’ve seen some fancy buildings, including Teatro Municipal, the Carioca aqueduct, the Olympic boulevard, Marina da Gloria, and most importantly, the famous cathedral. I heard so much about it, but seeing it was just amazing. The masterwork of heavy concrete architecture of the 60s, it had so much bad press, but I think it’s great. One of a kind, a futuristic structure that looks nothing like a church, but has an amazing, mysterious atmosphere inside, created by this massive space and huge floor-to-70m-high-ceiling stained glass windows – it is breathtaking. So much better than yet another baroque basilica like that in Sao Paulo!

I started heading towards the Sambadromo early to make sure I find everything ok. Are a massive dinner before (it’s all beef here, but it’s all really tough…), bought a bottle of vodka and a big red bull and mixed them in two water bottles. You can bring two bottles in, you see. This way all ill have to buy in there will be more mixers. I got in and wrote most of this in the 1.5h that I had until it starts. 

Oh. My Gods.

The parade was… there is just nothing like it, this is so completely and utterly over every top I know with awesomeness that I’m not even sure where to start! Every detail is fantastic, the costumes are fun and imaginative and so many feathers, and the vehicles are just astounding, pirate ships, underwater palaces, giant turning hourglasses, planets, screeching eagles, sniffing armadillos, and all covered with people, and the dancers, and the samba drums and music, and the bodies just out of this world, and the dressed up procession crowds, a sea of costumes, and the feathers, all the feathers!!!

I just can’t even… I don’t know if this is possible to describe, it’s just such an overwhelming experience, utter madness of costume and music and fun! I sort of knew what to expect, but the sheer size of it is incredible! There were six samba schools performing that night and each one must have had a couple thousand performers, all in incredible costumes, six or so massive moving structures, and some hundred drummers. It takes a single procession an hour and fifteen minutes to do their thing! Incidentally, each procession performs to a single tune, so they play the same tune for an hour fifteen minutes. And the Sambodromo is so massive, it took the performers over 20 minutes to even get to where I was sitting (sector 10 is towards the end, perfect seats right next to the judges and cameras). With a 9pm start, I wasn’t home before 6am. This thing was worth every penny of the little fortune I spent on it, and I think I will want more!

I just don’t know what else to say. Just see the pictures, it’s just beyond words.