Fellas,

Great info on this site! Hombrecito's reporting was a masterpiece! I am definately going to Rio in the spring. For a 10 day trip is it worthwhile incorporating the 4 day carnival or will it be too crowded and overpriced? The hotel prices go up by 275-300% for the 4 days from my initial research.

On one hand Rio is a blast at any time. However Carnival, regardless of the expense, may be worth it. Any thoughts and opinions appreciated.

FunPaddy:

Carnval in Rio is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.. as in once is enough! on the other hand, gotta do it sometime or other, just to say you have, get it out of your system ;-). Here's my usual spiel on Carnaval in Rio, excuse me for those who've read it before:

Rio, during Carnaval, is drunken chaos, imagine Mardi Gras in New Orleans x 1,000,000 (on the bozy insanity meter). Honestly, a lousy time for the pro action. On the other hand, pre-AIDS, the sky was the limit for non-pro action... why do you think everyone goes there? The parades? Nope.. there was literally sex with strangers in the middle of the street. Again,operative word is WAS. Things are a bit more careful now. The place for wild sex is (and always has been) the big carnaval "balls" "baile de carnaval" - Vermelho e Preto, Scala, Clube Nautico, Metropolitan, Concurso das Panteras, Sírio e Libanes, Monte Líbano, Noite em Bagdad (notice the arab theme here). Old days... couples dancing while fucking... these days, more discretion, they do it in the corners and on tables. Some of these (Vermelho e Preto, Nautico, Panteras) have a reputation for being wilder than others (and some are predominantly gay.. Noite G and Gala Gay being the most famous), you'll have to ask around. To get in, you just buy a ticket, which can get expensive - US$50-100 is typical for a "good" baile, but it's easy to find cheaper and way more expensive. In general the prices are there to set the tone of the crowd - more expensive keeps out the "riff-raff." As a hobbiest, you want middle-class wives out for a fling and little daddy's girls out for the same, so the fifty to a hundred-dollar range is about right, but remember to ask around. It's all strictly non-pro action.... and portuguese will help a LOT. Anyway, this is all very nice very good, but do you feel like competing with 1,000 other drunken tourists for every piece of ass around? And sweaty public quickie sex is not really my thing, dunno about you. Also, latest reports is that the bailes are simply over-run with tourists. Hundreds of guys to every elegible gal, not worth the trouble. Whatever happens, the street Carnaval (people partying in the streets for 4 days staright) and the Sambodromo are great fun (no sex, though).

back to sex, all in all, the non-pros are a LOT more promiscous during Carnaval, everyone is in a party mood, any bar or street corner is a pick-up spot. "Romance do Carnaval" - carnaval fling, "Sem alianca ate Quarta-Feira" - Wedding band comes off untill Ash Wednesday, Ninguem eh casado no Carnaval", No-one is married at Carnaval... those old sayings still hold true.

Of course, a lot of cariocas (not just the pros) high-tail it out of town during Carnaval, too much craziness and anyway it's a good excuse to be at a beach resort for 4 days (or go visit their families upstate). If you want to go where the cariocas go, try Buzios, Porto Seguro, any beach town within a day's driving distance really. Just make sure you have reservations beforehand! Also, most Brazilians don't consider Rio to have the "best" Carnaval, outside of the organized blocos in the Sambadromo. The best Carnaval is undoubtably in Salvador for the general street scene and music, followed by Olinda/Recife and Laguna, Santa Catarina (no pro action at all in Laguna, don't even think about it... but it's close to Florianopolis).

However, as I noted before, Carnaval is chaos, and you will be just another tourist face in the crowd (and competing with a lot of carioca guys too!). If you are going to Rio for the girls, and not for Carnaval itself (the parties, the music, the sambodromo), then IMO, you are really better off going there sometime else. Mid-October untill Mid-December and after Carnaval until Mid-March is best (again, in my opinion), it's not high summer, so the prices are reasonable, but the weather is still great. March to October is fine also, but it's raining more often than not and it can get cool - 60F - not that there aren't some good beach days in between (Cariocas define the weather as one of two states - "Got Beach" "Don't Got Beach" - Da Praia/Nao da praia). Anyway, it's still fine weather for our INDOOR activities....

Hope this helped!

BS

Great post BS, and very informative for many of us that have been comtemplating the Carnaval run...

BadSeed even it you weren't a great guy you'dbe welcome just for the Brazil info.

Thanks.

When did I turn into a "great guy"? I'm not using the handle BAD Seed for nothing.....

But thanks for the compliment, and I'm always happy to spread the BS. You're welcome.

;-)

BS

Well, you're using the handle BadSeed but look at the rest of us!

Hey, Cole Younger thought Jessie James was a nice guy. It's a matter of perspective...

Hi All,

I'm flying into Rio on January 19th for 4 days. Is anyone else planning on being there at that time?

Trent

BadSeed, some people used to abbreviate me as BS, this will get confusing.

Trent, I will be around in Rio at most times. 1234567@innocent.com

About Carnivals: my favorite are off season carnivals, which happen every month of the year in varying cites in the north east of Brazil. Full blown carnivals, but only in one city. I prefer the northeastern Carnivals.

I prefer axe music (tchan etc) to samba. If interested I can look up an old post of mine on off season carnival to post.

BS:

I think our fellow Hombres are smart enough to read the author name at the top of the post, so there won't be a problem.

BS

Fucking right badseed! Sorry for the long awol!! I will be in RIO Feb 15-24 for the pre-carnival. I'm open to beers and thermas

To my fellow hombres:

Here are some pictures of the goings on at a typical Carnaval ball. I don't know the ball where the pics were taken, but I don't think you could get me to wear a corset and garter belt. No way. Hee. Hee. Thank you very much. Here's the link:

http://www.pbase.com/android/carnaval_2003

Enjoy.


Turk

Turk,

It looks like those photos were taken at a party here in the U.S. None of those people look Brazilian and there is a big "Coors Light" banner hanging in the background in some of the photos. It does however look like an interesting party.

The party was in Austin, TX. Not quite Brazil but it beats most U.S. parties.

Sterling

NYTimes had a good article today about Carnaval in Rio. I'm going to chew up Hombre's disk space by posting it here, but the bottom line is that Rio's "official" Carnaval parade (in the Sambodromo) is an over-comercialized pain in the ass (about time someone admited this!) and the street blocos is where the fun is at. For once, the Times gets it right!

Carnival in Rio Is Dancing to More Commercial Beat
By LARRY ROHTER


IO DE JANEIRO, Feb. 24 — Picking the King of Carnival here used to be easy: find the city's fattest, jolliest man and stick a crown on his head. But after being reproached for weighing in at nearly 500 pounds, the current Rei Momo has succumbed to critics, begun exercising, changed his diet and lost 175 pounds over the last four years.

To connoisseurs of Carnival, the heretical emergence of a "Rei Momo light" is one of the many indignities recently inflicted on the spectacle that natives of Rio once regarded as an expression of the character and creativity of their city. As they see it, the annual bacchanalia, which begins this weekend, is becoming less a people's festival than a tightly controlled industry.

"It's natural for any form of folk culture to evolve and change, but the official Carnival parade is turning into a pasteurized product, confined to a cold environment in which the creators of the samba no longer make the rules," said Fernando Pamplona, a renowned choreographer and judge of the Carnival competition. "We live in a capitalist society, so even something like folklore is subject to massification and commercialization."

As always, the focal point of the five-day celebration this year will be the Carnival parade, with its scantily clad dancers, pounding drums and elaborate floats. Over two nights, 14 associations, known as "samba schools," will compete in hopes of putting on the most dazzling show and winning the championship that will give them bragging rights for the next year.

But in place of knowledgeable samba fans, the stands along the parade route are increasingly filled with tourists, celebrities and high rollers, many of whom are guests of corporations that have spent huge sums on luxury boxes. And instead of choosing parade themes developed by their members and based on folk or mythological subjects, many samba schools now are paid by large companies to choose topics that are thinly disguised commercials. Outsiders are even infiltrating the parade, to the point that a majority of those parading with sections of some samba schools are not even members. Tourists as far away as Japan or Scandinavia can now buy package tours that include the right to parade with a samba school, wearing a tailored costume at a cost of an additional $300 or so.

"Those people can't sing, they can't dance, and they don't even bother to learn the lyrics to the theme song of the samba school they are parading with," said Dulce Tupi, a scholar who has written on the history of Carnival and served on the official parade jury. "All they do is detract from the beauty of the show and damage the performance of the samba school."

Traditionally, the lavish Carnival costumes and floats were put together by seamstresses and carpenters from the neighborhoods around a samba school. But those functions are largely subcontracted to professional companies now: last year, one school had points deducted because its costumes arrived so late that dancers were unable to start their procession on time.

"In the old days, the samba school supporters lived close to where they worked and had time to participate in the life of the school," said Joãosinho Trinta, an acclaimed samba school director. "Now they get up at four in the morning for a three-hour commute to work, and by the time they finally get back home, tired and hungry, all they want to do is sit in the living room and watch television."

Criminal gangs are now in control of most hillside slums where the samba schools were born, and that has also had an effect. Though the schools have been largely successful in keeping drugs out of their popular weekly rehearsals, waves of killings and robberies have forced several to move those performances into middle-class areas. The relocations attract tourists but make it more difficult and costly for their traditional supporters to take part.

Unable to attend the parade, whose tickets are increasingly priced out of their reach and quickly bought by travel agencies, many samba fans are reduced to watching on television. But what they are seeing is a shift away from the samba, which has been sped up to meet the time requirements imposed by networks, to a spectacle that emphasizes the visual over the musical.

A decade ago, the record containing that year's theme sambas of the 14 competing clubs could be expected to sell as many as two million copies. Now the same record is lucky to reach one-tenth that number.

In addition, television has encouraged scores of models and actresses to use the Carnival parade to promote their careers. Many of those B-level or would-be stars are affiliated with the network broadcasting the show or have undergone plastic surgery or breast implants specifically to parade naked in front of 70,000 people at the Sambadrome here and the millions watching in Brazil and abroad.

"People who really love Carnival want to hear the samba sung, see how the dancers are dancing and get a really good look at the floats and decorations," said Antônio Carlos Seiblitz, a 49-year-old lawyer here. "Instead, what we get are endless interviews with celebrities who have no genuine connection with Carnival, punctuated by occasional glimpses of the real thing."

But Carnival consists of much more than the official parade, and as the populace grows more alienated from that event, other forms of celebration are benefiting. Masked balls are proliferating and are more popular than ever, and the informal neighborhood associations known as blocos or bandas, considered moribund just a couple of decades ago, are making a remarkable comeback.

All around the city, local groups with whimsical or irreverent names like Christ's Armpit, Leopard's Breath, Meeting Without a Parade, Affinity Is Almost Love, and Hang On So You Don't Fall Down have already taken to the streets, encouraging residents to dress up and join them. According to a recent study, the number of such groups has doubled in less than a decade, and popular participation in them is zooming.

"With the parade having become an event just for the elite and tickets so expensive, my energy now goes into the neighborhood celebrations," said Isabel Cristina Lopes, 34, a marketing executive who used to parade with the Beija-Flor samba school. "You need to be an important person to get into the parade, but with the blocos, everyone can participate."

Others in search of the true Carnival spirit are abandoning Rio altogether in favor of cities like Recife and Salvador. There, traditional musical forms associated with Carnival, like the frevo and maracatu in Recife and the ear-splitting electric trios that play atop trucks cruising the streets of Salvador, have largely pushed aside Rio's commercialized samba as favorites.

"There is a tendency to try to centralize and domesticate Carnival, but it seems not to be working completely," said Roberto da Matta, a Brazilian anthropologist who has written extensively on the festival and teaches at the University of Notre Dame. "Carnival refuses to be dominated by one form or style, by one parade or event, and is coming to life again outside those ordained centers as old forms reappear and are reconstructed."


BS

Thought I'd add to the post. Spent Carnival week in Rio this past year. The one day I did try a terma they were either all full or closing early because they were full. Help was packed. Prices for garotas were a little high.

I enjoyed myself though. Nice time to see the culture, see the people, enjoy some of the street parades, and see Brazilians on vacation. I wouldn't hesitate to go back the same time next year. Although prices were high (garotas) there were still plenty available. And a good time was available.