Rio Carnaval: Super Samba

Posted Tuesday, February 05, 2008, 1:57 PM by Lonely Planet

It's 3am. Our taxi has run up against a strange convoy. The great floats are in their migration from the Cidade do Samba, the vast warehouses where they're constructed, to the Sambodromo, the parade grounds where they will finally have their hour. Black plastic guards their multi-storey secrets, and it takes dozens of men to push them at a speed that's the frustration of our driver. Under the pelting rain, the scene has the solemnity of a funeral procession.



My friend Leland isn't sure he wants to go to the Sambodromo. He hesitates at the price - US$170 for bleacher seats. Then there's his aversion both to large crowds and the percussive cheer of the samba-enredo - the samba particular to Rio's Carnaval. I felt all these things too, before I finally went myself. I promise it'll all make sense once he hears the hundreds-strong drum blocks, sees the mad floats without their shrouds.



The next night, his doubts are completely dispelled. He's gawking at the river of color that floods the Sambodromo's narrow "avenida," the sheer audacity of it all. But what's bursting his heart, he tells me, is the fact a people can come together not to wage war or worship a favored god, but in the cultivation of a collective "alegria". English doesn't have its equivalent, though it might be loosely translated as collective happiness, even jubilation. It must be consciously cultivated and generously shared. It's the fruit of that funeral march we'd seen the night before - and the aim of Carnaval.


- Robert Landon is co-author of Lonely Planet's Brazil guide.

Labels: "Festivals and events", The Americas

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