|
|
Carnaval is the most
important festival in Brazil, but there are other holidays, too,
from saints' days to celebrations based around elections or the
World Cup. When Carnaval comes, the country gets down to some of the
most serious partying in the world. A Caribbean carnival might
prepare you a little, but what happens in Brazil goes on longer, is
more spectacular and on a far larger scale. Everywhere in Brazil,
large or small, has some form of Carnaval, and in three places
especially - Rio, Salvador and Olinda - Carnaval has become a mass
event, involving almost the entire populations of the cities and
drawing visitors from all over the world.
When exactly Carnaval begins depends on the ecclesiastical calendar:
it starts at midnight of the Friday before Ash Wednesday and ends on
the Wednesday night, though effectively people start partying on
Friday afternoon - over five days of continuous, determined
celebration. It usually happens in the middle of February, although
very occasionally it can be early March. But in effect the entire
period from Christmas is a kind of run-up to Carnaval. People start
working on costumes, songs are composed and rehearsals staged in
school playgrounds and back yards, so that Carnaval comes as a
culmination rather than a sudden burst of excitement and color.
During the couple of weekends immediately before Carnaval proper
there are carnival balls, bailes carnavalescos, which get pretty
wild. Don't expect to find many things open or to get much done in
the week before Carnaval, or the week after it, when the country
takes a few days off to shake off its enormous collective hangover.
During Carnaval itself, stores open briefly on Monday and Tuesday
mornings, but banks and offices stay closed. Domestic airlines,
local and inter-city buses run a Sunday service during the period.
|
Three Brazilian carnivals in particular have become famous, each
with a very distinctive feel. The most familiar and most spectacular
is in Rio , dominated by samba and the parade of samba schools down
the enormous concrete expanse of the gloriously named Sambódromo. It
is one of the world's great sights, and is televised live to the
whole country. However, it has its critics. It is certainly less
participatory than Olinda or Salvador, with people crammed into
grandstands watching, rather than down following the schools.
Salvador is, in many ways, the antithesis of Rio, with several
focuses around the old city centre: the parade is only one of a
number of things going on, and people follow parading schools and
the trio elétrico, groups playing on top of trucks wired for sound.
Samba is only one of several types of music being played, and, if
it's music you're interested in, Salvador is the best place to hear
and see it.
Olinda , in a magical colonial setting just outside Recife, has a
character all its own, less frantic than Rio and Salvador; musically
it's dominated by frevo, the fast, whirling beat of Pernambuco.
|
Some places you would think are large enough to have an impressive
Carnaval are in fact notoriously bad at it: cities in this category
are São Paulo, Brasília and Belo Horizonte. On the other hand, there
are also places which have much better Carnavals than you would
expect: the one in Belém is very distinctive, with the Amazonian
food and rhythms of the carimbó, and Fortaleza also has a good
reputation. The South, usually written off by most people as far as
Carnaval is concerned, has major events in Florianópolis primarily
aimed at attracting Argentine and São Paulo tourists, and the
smaller but more distinctive Carnaval in Laguna. There are full
details of the events, music and happenings at each of the main
Carnavals under the relevant sections of the guide.
Google maps
|
Brazil
guide
Brazil
Where To Go
Weather
Average temperatures
Getting there
Visas,
consulates
Insurances
Travelers with disabilities
Costs, Money And Banks
Getting Around
Eating And Drinking
Street foods, snacks
Restaurants
Vegetarian/natural
Soft drinks, hot drinks
Traveling with
Kids
Robberies, hold ups, drugs
Women travelers
Gays and
lesbian
Best of Brazil
Health,
vaccinations
Info and
maps
Media
Holidays
-Carnaval
-World
Cup, Festas Juninas
Soccer, football
-Going
to a football match
-Football
teams, clubs, shirts
Nature and
Amazon
Brazilian
music
-Bossa nova
-Bahian
sound
-Contemporary
singers, musicians
-Brazilian
rhythms
-Discography
-Live
and recording |
