Carnaval

Carnaval is one of the most recognised of Brazilian events around the world, yet also probably one of the most misunderstood.  Everyone is familiar with pictures of samba dancers wearing next to nothing, with large elaborate feather displays taking part in a samba procession, but this is a very small part of the story.

This procession is actually a competition between various samba schools, held around the country, but the most famous being in Rio de Janeiro and another big competition in São Paulo.  The different samba schools have fans as passionate as any football team and the competition is taken very seriously – in fact the one in São Paulo nearly always seem to end in fights when the scores are announced! 

I am far from an expert in the competition, but basically, there is the bateria (rhythm section) which has singers and drummers that play a catchy, repetitive song for the duration of the parade.  The procession is then made up of several participants, including the flamboyant Rainha de Bateria (Queen of the rhythm section) that scantily dressed dancer in high heels and feathers, the Baianas – women dancing in costumes based on the traditional dress of Bahia – and a multitude of dancers in costumes, some of whom are members of the public that pay the school for a costume and a chance to participate.

A large part of the procession is the huge, elaborately and creatively designed.  The entire procession and song is based on a certain theme and tells a story through the dance, the costumes and the design of the floats.

Points are awarded in several categories and scoring is quite complex.  The timing of the procession must be very precise as many points can be lost if the procession reaches the finish line too early or too late.  This means that should a float break down, the school will get together to try to push the float along without losing any time.  No matter what school you support, it is impossible to not feel sympathy when this happens with the potential to ruin a whole year’s worth of preparation.

Although this is my first year living in Brazil, for the last few years, I’ve been able to follow Carnaval on Globo Internacional and it’s difficult to not get sucked in by the catchy music.  One of the most memorable parades (to me) was that of União da Ilha do Govanador in 2012 (see video below) with the theme of Great Britain and several British characters, including multiple Queen Elizabeths and Dukes of Edinburgh (not entirely sure how to pluralise that!) a handful of Sherlock Holmes’, St George along with various characters representing the British Empire. 

The competition is extensively covered on tv, and performances of the songs regularly appear during advert break in the month preceding Carnaval along with lyrics so you can learn the lyrics of the school you support!  Absorbing though it all is, I personally can’t stand to sit through the hours of end of samba (each school has just over an hour) of the entire carnaval, but it is interesting to do into.

Bonecos de Olinda

But this is only a small part of Carnaval.  Every region in the country has its own style of Carnaval, all of which is also televised, throughout the holiday.

Carnaval in Bahia is characterised by a parade of trio elêtricos, open floats designed for live musical performances (more on that later).  In Olinda, Pernambuco, a parade of giant “Bonecos de Olinda” (literally dolls of Olinda) takes place in the historic centre of the city and the celebration includes several musical styles, among them Frevo – a fast style of music accompanied by acrobatic dances incorporating small, colourful umbrellas.

For my first carnaval we went to the beach, like many others that live inland.  We went to the island of São Francisco do Sul, in Santa Catarina and rented a small house with friends in Ubatuba, one of the beaches along the Atlantic coast.  The house was quite basic – consisting of a kitchen/living room, a bedroom with a double bed and a bunk-bed and a bathroom – but that’s all you need during carnaval – a bed, a roof and somewhere to have breakfast, maybe even lunch.

We spent the mornings at a small beach called Capri, hidden away in a corner of the island and mostly visited by people with houses there or members of the yacht club.  Being further away from the major tourist centres of the island, the beach was quiet all day long with several groups – mostly families – scattered along the sand with plenty space in between.  The sea was shallow and the warm, gentle waves make the beach perfect for people with young kids or that want to wade out a bit further to where the water is deep enough to swim – a good few hundred meters, I reckon.  From there, the only sounds are the waves, the birds and, if you dipped your head under water, the soft hum of boat engines being carried through the water from the port on the other side of the bay.

Capri

If you’re not lucky enough to have a house in Capri, the only options for lunch are to bring your own or visit the yacht club restaurant, which is open to the public.  There really is nothing quite like having lunch looking at some of the massive luxury yachts moored outside to make you feel poor, but there are worse things in life than enjoying a nice, cold beer in the sunshine by the sea.  After lunch, we strolled along the street to the beach, where I spent most of the afternoon in the sea.

Eventually, it was time to go, back to the house for a quick shower, then out to the supermarket for supplies.  The owners of the house had left us some break, butter, milk and coffee to get us started, but this would not be enough for the long weekend, especially with the barbecue beckoning outside. 

For anyone planning to go to a supermarket by the beach during carnaval, my only advice is don’t do it!  If at all possible, stock up before you get there as the supermarket was a scene of pandemonium.  São Francisco do Sul is a city that covers the island and between its 13 beaches, has a population of just over 40,000, which swells massively with the influx of visitors for carnaval.  The infrastructure can barely cope with the sudden increase and while the small supermarket we visited is sufficient for most of the year, this week it was woefully inadequate.  Poor planning leaves a bottleneck between the entrance of the supermarket and the beginning of the first aisle.  This aisle is where the beer is, which I quickly discovered is one of the key products in demand, with soft drinks taking a close second place.  After capturing our supplies (beer and guaraná) we headed to the other busy part of the supermarket to pick up some meat for the next day’s barbecue.  Between getting stuck in bottlenecks, hunting and hunting for sun cream (it turned out it was at every till, but nowhere else in the shop) and endless queues, we must have spent about an hour shopping for a weekend’s worth of supplies.

We managed to struggle our way out of the car park and onto the main road back to our little house, thankfully against the flow of traffic.  Our friends were travelling down that afternoon but were severely delayed by heavy carnaval traffic, exacerbated by an accident.  By the time we were ready to go out, it was approaching midnight, but we headed out to experience my first carnaval.

My wife had grown up spending summers in Capri and remembered having a good time at the carnaval in Enseada, just up the road from where we were staying.  Even at that time of night, the traffic was still heavy and all heading towards Enseada, which we took as a good sign.  I had no idea where I would park, but in the spirit of things, I decided not to worry about it and cross that bridge when we got there.  As we approached the town, the traffic slowed as people hunted for parking spaces and people dressed in anything from shorts and t-shirts, through cocktail dresses (men that is) to a surprising amount of people (again, men) wearing nappies (for any Americans reading, nappies are diapers) crossed the road heading towards the seafront.  But for all this, there weren’t many signs of carnaval; no parade of trio elêtricos, no big crowds and no loud music – my Brazilian companions were baffled.  Soon we came upon a train of tricycles all linked together, covered in bright, colourful lights and – bizarrely – making slow, winding progress along this insignificant back road that ran parallel to the seafront.  Feeling the party spirit, my friend wound down the window and shouted in his best gringo accent, “Yeah, carnaval Brazil!  I love Brazil!” to the cheers of the pedalling revellers on their tricycles. 

Soon, we reached the end of the road and were brought around onto Avendia Atlântica, a one-way road that runs along the seafront back the way we can just come.  It was surprisingly easy to find a parking space (ok, it was after midnight, but it was carnaval) and we got out our phone trying to find the carnaval of my wife’s youth.  All maps showed the road ending where we were, leaving us to conclude that we must have found carnaval.  Ok, let’s go then! 

Enseada and its lackluster carnaval 

We took the cooler of beer (sadly, none for me as the driver) and walked along the seafront.  You could tell it was no ordinary night as there were random groups out and about, but it was a strange scene.  We encountered more people as we made our way along, some in fancy dress, some in normal summer clothes, but the most celebrations seemed to be coming from a guy playing guitar in front of a house with a small crowd gather round and the odd club with their own carnaval inside.  We asked the most normal-looking person we could find where the main carnaval was and she told us to carry on along the road.  Eventually we found a small stage which was playing cheesy music to a moderate but mostly indifferent crowd.  I wasn’t particularly impressed, my wife was wondering what happened to the fun carnavals of her youth and our friends reassured me that this wasn’t what carnaval was supposed to be.  When it started raining, we decided enough was enough, no point getting soaked standing around listening to crap music and avoiding dog shit so we went back to the car. 

My wife remembered that the centre of São Francisco do Sul was supposed to have a carnaval parade, so we decided to give that a try.  From where we were on the North East tip of the island to the centre, which is on the western side, it was a half hour drive with a not inconsiderable number of cars going back and forth.  We had to stop to allow a freight train across a level crossing before reaching the centre of São Francisco do Sul, which appeared to be deserted.  As one of the oldest cities in Brazil, the streets of São Francisco do Sul are cobbled, narrow and winding, with a very oppressive atmosphere in the middle of the night.  The only signs of life were occasional groups of shifty characters walking along the streets and a patrolling police car.  That was it, get me the hell out of the city and back to the house, at least we could drink some beers and watch carnaval on tv!  We were getting a bit hungry, especially our friends, who had barely eaten since lunchtime, so we tried to find a bar or snack shop that was open.  We found one place that was packed and looked promising, but the owner told us in no uncertain terms that it was closed.  In a last ditch effort, we found a place on the other side of the road where we could eat and see what carnaval was supposed to be on the small tv in the corner.  I did genuinely enjoy my first night of carnaval, but I can only attribute that to the company and the laughs we shared about the carnaval de cocô (dog-shit carnaval.) 

Prainha

The next morning, we had a quick breakfast and headed to the beach at Capri for a morning of relaxation.  We all joked about how back the carnaval was the night before, but I think in reality we were all a bit fed up.  It was cloudy at the beach and threatened rain, but it was warm and the sea was inviting.  After lunch, my wife was determined to find the carnaval she remembered and got a message from another friend that had travelled down for the whole holiday which reinforced our belief that we must have gone to the wrong place.  Looking again at the map of the island, we could see that after a headland to the East of Enseada, there was a beach running southwards down the island, Prainha.  This seemed familiar to my wife so we decided to try it, we must be able to find something!

There was no parking by the beach, so we parked in a side street.  There were numerous coaches parked in the streets from all over the South of Brazil, as well as from Argentina and a steady stream of people were heading to the beach.  When we turned the corner, we could see that we had finally come to the right place.  Avenida Brasilia, the road that ran along the sea front was closed to traffic people were enjoying carnaval however they liked; on the beach, playing in the waves, further out at sea, surfers were waiting for the big waves and all along the street people were talking, singing, dancing and drinking. 

There was still the mixture of clothing, between regular summer clothes and people in fancy dress; before long, it no longer seems strange to see a group of men wearing nappies!  The atmosphere was very relaxed and just seemed like several parties all mixed into one enormous party with everyone out to have a good time.  Some people arrived in groups and stayed around a cooler of beer and stayed where they were, others filled the bars and restaurants along the beach, others went to a club that was holding its own carnaval and others had joined one of several blocos carnavelescos (or blocos for short.) 

A bloco is an organised group where people pay a single price to participate and celebrate carnaval as a group.  Food, drink and accommodation for the carnaval is included in this admission price and everyone wears a matching t-shirt with the name of the bloco.  We knew our friend was in one of these groups, so we walked up the street examining every bloco for her, having ruled out the phone as useless.  Eventually, we found her and her bloco around a cart with a flag just in front of the trio elêtrico. 

A bloco following the trio elêtrico

In cities like Salvador, Bahia, the carnaval is much bigger and more tightly organised, in Prainha, it was much more informal.  In Salvador, we wouldn’t have been able to stay with a bloco, as they would be in a closed off area; here, they let us keep our cooler of drinks with their cart and even carried them along when the trio elêtrico started to move.  (By the time we left, we had a lot of beer left over – our friends were driving back to Curitiba that night and I had to drive as well – so we donated ours to the bloco, to the surprise and delight of the group!  The leader told me that next year I should join the bloco, let’s see!)

A trio elêtrico in Salvador

Trio elêtricos are large floats, typically converted lorries, which are designed for live music performance.  Salvador is famous for its parade of trio elêtricos, which is televised and always attracts big stars and big crowds.  The crowds are divided into blocos and the general public, allowing everyone a chance to see the parade, but giving preferential access to those that have paid to join a bloco.  In recent years, the arrangement of blocos and general public sections have been alternated to improve access for everyone, although it is still seen as elitist and favouring richer people over the poor.

Prainha had only one trio elêtrico, an old converted blue lorry which gradually made its way from one end of the beach, along Avenida Brasilia to the other end.  The float had a covered top deck with live musicians, although the music varied between live covers of popular songs and recorded music.  The sides of the lower deck were given over to massive speakers ensuring that the music carried along the street and across the beach.

Trio elêtrico, Prainha

People followed the trio elêtrico on its way along the beach, singing, dancing and drinking each time it stopped.  About halfway along, it broke down, but the party didn’t stop.  We were in front of it at this point and there were mechanics all over the engine and one underneath, occasionally letting out clouds of smoke until eventually, it was fixed and the parade continued. 

By the end of the evening, I was exhausted!  It had been a long day and a long party, and the weather warm and humid.  Even though we were calling it a night, the party showed no sign of stopping and I have no doubt it continued several hours after we left.

No comments - carnaval!

Monday morning was mixed with happiness that we had finally found carnaval, but mixed with sadness that it would soon be time to leave.  The sun had come out from the clouds, so we made one last trip to Capri to say goodbye to the beach.  Beneath the blue sky, the sea felt warmer than the previous days which made it all the more difficult to leave.  The previous evening had been thoroughly enjoyable and we all agreed that I could write off the first night and call this my first carnaval in Brazil.  What really stuck with me about it was how easy going it was and you were free to celebrate your own way.  If you wanted to wear a swimsuit, that was fine.  If you wanted to drink beer in the streets, that was fine.  If you wanted to wear a British-style police hat and a big bushy moustache (for some reason – I wasn’t drunk, I was drinking water!) that was fine, if you wanted to relax on the beach, that was fine, if you wanted to wear a nappy (what…? Oh yeah, carnaval…) that was fine too.  As well as all this, the music varied hugely between pop, rock, reggae, dance and anything else to ensure that everyone was included.  What’s not to enjoy?