It was a last minute decision – getting away for a long weekend before Henry starts his profesorado program at the university. We decided to return to Brazil for Carnival. Being last minute, however, options were limited – it’s a popular tourism destination and time to visit. Our first choice, Rio de Janeiro, was immediately out of the running, as the only remaining flights cost over $1000 apiece, for a 2½ hour flight. Normally it’s about $250-300. A few other options quickly eliminated. In the end, a return to São Paulo, which, although the flight was more than back in January, it wasn’t a lot more. And the same hotel had the same rates as then, so we booked it and hopped on a plane two days later.

Street festivals, basically big drunken block parties, are everywhere in the city. The biggest is at Praça Republica, near the city center, and on our first afternoon, we headed there to “experience” it. Anyone who knows me well knows that sticking me in the middle of a sardine-packed, drunken crowd, is not a good idea. I lasted about an hour and then headed elsewhere, Henry decided to stay for a bit, and also went back the next day for more.

The following night was more my “cup of tea”, as we grabbed some last minute tickets to the big Carnival parades/processions at the Sambodromo, basically a stadium built along a long walkway that’s designed exactly for this. I assume they must find some other uses for it during the rest of the year, as building an entire stadium for a 3-day, 6-7 hour a day, festival of parades seems a bit extravagant otherwise.

I have dozens of pictures from one of the parades, and, managed to film one entire parade that was themed around the era of colonization and slavery… if you’re up for a half hour extravaganza, it’s pretty amazing….

I also hit up a couple of museums, we did a bit of shopping, explored a couple of neighborhoods we didn’t see last time, and even got in a little time to relax. And, of course, eat. Coming up in the next post.