Carnaval

As everyone probably knows Carnaval is a big deal in Brazil. I watched most of it on television. I couldn’t believe the enormous and imaginative floats that stretched for miles on the streets of Rio and Sao Paulo. The breathless television commentators called the floats “fantasies;” truly they have to be seen to be believed. There was nothing like that in Porto Seguro; though one day the municipal street cleaners—who do a great job of keeping the city’s streets clean—marched up our street dressed in colorful orange costumes. The big draw in Porto Seguro is the music. Thousands of youths from all over Brazil come for the beaches, the parties and the “trios”. Several of these groups perform every night beginning around ten and lasting until dawn. One night a small trio passed in front of Elci’s balcony. The major trios play along the waterfront on top of tractor trailers with speakers the size of small cars. Though we only went out one night near the end when the crowds had left, during the ten nights of Carnaval the music was so loud I hardly slept. Every year there is an official Carnaval song, but the unofficial song that summed up the whole Carnaval experience for me had these lyrics: “Beber, cair, levantar—drink, fall down, get up”, repeated over and over.