Middle aged men with dummies in their mouth and wearing nothing but diapers with the text: “No no. Not pee on the street.” Twenty-something guys in neon bikinis and mini skirts, trying to make out with as many teenage-something girls as possible as they wonder the streets. Well-fed, healthy looking women, with bunny ears or blinking devil’s horns on their heads, who are taking the only opportunity of the year to be topless on the beach of Ipanema. Blocos, beer, samba rhythms and the most astonishing outfits imaginable.
This is what Rio, Brazil, and seemingly a considerate fraction of the rest of the world, have been waiting for since about the same time last year. "Let the party begin!" as many of my friends had as status update on Facebook on Sunday morning. The Swedish ones weren’t referring to the Brazilian samba event though, but the traditional Vasaloppet – a 90 km cross country ski race in the woods of Dalarna. Same same but different I guess.
There are tricks to get something else done but lingering around in colourful wigs with a drink in one hand and a whistle in the other, these days though. Tricks to get at least a couple of things done. And it’s all about timing – or mistiming perhaps.
Lagoa is never so quiet as early on a carnaval morning. But you need to time the morning run quite precisely. 7 am is too early; too many party people out still and the cleaning of the streets has just begun. However, if using gumboots for some extra resistance and gas mask for breathing, I guess 7 am is just as good as any other time. After 9 am it’s starting to get a bit hot, but still nice and quiet if you can stand the temperature. Also, if you’re considering buying coconut water along the way, you better wait until about now or there won’t be any chubby ladies to sell you any. 8 am is ideal; streets cleanish again, the carnaval crowd fast asleep and you can enjoy the pleasure of a deserted track around the lake.
After a shower and breakfast at about 10 am – after the tourists booked for early departure day tours and before the rest gets out of bed – it’s time for the beach.
Lunch shouldn’t be an issue and not shopping, walking on the beach front or looking around in general either. However, when it feels like you have to pass P, F and W on your way between A and B at some stage in the afternoon, it’s time to retract to the hotel room, or possibly the hotel terrace if your gringo skin can stand more sun. Now is the best opportunity to catch up on reading, writing e-mails, ironing, doing your nails (guys, feel free), re-arranging the photos from last years holidays and look into the tax return.
The trickiest mistiming of the day is dinner. The safest way to go would of course be to go for delivery of fast food of choice and preference, or sneak in the back way to the hotel restaurant. If you’re up for a slight challenge, you’ll fight the crowds to a nearby restaurant. But again – timing. If you go too early, you’ll be joining the full on bloco loving people who are having lunch before heading to Sambodromo. Slightly too late, ok much too late as of European dinner standards, you’ll be squeezed in by the more average party-pigs having their evening meal.
Last, but not least, to finalize the anti-carnaval day, make sure to have some quality earplugs at hand, or you can forget about sleeping and better get downstairs and join the party on the street. They won’t stop in another 7 hrs or so anyways.
At breakfast the next morning, the tourists are quickly recognised by the classic hangover expressions and sighs, combined with the nice crayfish red colour. It always comes as a surprise how easily too many drinks in combination with too many hours in the sun can cause this award-winning look. Last night’s drag queens cannot hide either since black eyeliner has always been impossible to remove properly from the base of your lashes the morning after. But hey, who would want to hide in a place like this anyways? And who on earth wouldn’t want to join the party of all parties?
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