Carnaval in Salvador - paaartay central!

Elbows
Parades
Intense
Carnaval

* majority of photos are thanks to Steve, Karen, Pete and Graham as I was not brave enough to risk my camera most evenings.

A little bit of background for those of you unaware of Salvador's Carnaval. It said to be the "World's Largest Party" and attracts over 2 million people annually. The parade in Rio is a more beautiful spectacle, but if looking for real fun, then Pete assured us Salvador was the place to go. Salvador Carnaval is completely different and bigger than its more famous counterpart. In Rio you are a spectator of the parade, in Salvador you are the show. In Rio it's all about the glitz and the glam, in Salvador it's all about the music and the crowd. In Rio the parades are done in two days, Salvador's lasts one week! Parade in Rio is just 700 meters of closed streets while Salvador takes kilometres of open streets.

The Salvador Carnaval consists of being behind the "Trio Eletrico", which is a big truck, driven very slowly, loaded with thousands of watts of sound equipment and with a band playing on the top. Surrounding the truck, there is a big rope carried by hundreds of security guards. This structure is organized by a private company, called a “bloco”. Each Bloco sells a different T-shirt called an “Abadá” and this is your entrance ticket which allows you to get inside the rope area. The biggest Blocos can have over four thousand people, dancing, drinking and having fun. The people who aren't in blocos, and are outside the rope areas around the trios, are called "Pipoca" (Popcorn). Inside the rope the security is good and the situation is reasonably organized, that cannot be said for those that choose to Popcorn on the sides. Another advantage of taking part in a Bloco is that you have access to a second truck, which trails the main one, and this consists of a moving bar and more importantly a toilet - which is understandably a lifeline considering the amount of drink being drunk.

A rough, text diagram of a Bloco (best I can do unfortunately) is as follows:
Popcorn Popcorn Popcorn Popcorn
Ropes - Crowd - Ropes - Truck with Band - Crowd - Ropes - Truck with Facilities - Crowd - Ropes
Popcorn Popcorn Popcorn Popcorn

There are 3 Carnaval parade routes in Salvador:
1. Barra parade
The trios start at the lighthouse and go along the ocean until Ondina. The course takes about three hours. The bigger names tend to play on this parade. This is the route we took when participating in both our Blocos and where we chose to watch Blocos most evenings.

2. Avenida (Campo Grande) parade
A route through the rougher streets of Salvador. This is the route we ended up unintentionally participating in on our first night.

3. Pelourinho unpluged parade
No Trios here, just a lot of marching bands. Atmosphere there was more relaxed and less crowded than the other two routes. Spent a lot of time here.

For our first night in Salvador we decided to ease ourselves into Carnaval. The keys of the city were being handed over to the festival at midnight, so we headed to Pelourinho, old downtown, to check out the smaller marching parades. Pelourinho is a stroller's dream with narrow streets and cobblestone alleys that open into large squares with baroque churches, little restaurants, handicraft shops, galleries. Late on in the evening Mikkel managed to get himself an Abada for a reggae Bloco called Diamanté Negro. A handful of the group headed down to watch him set off and unintentionally ended up dancing along as Popcorn. Without realising it we had traversed most of the way down the dreaded Avenida circuit. As the night began drawing to a close a more sinister element crept into the parade; we seemed to be one group of a handful of Gringos in the area and I became very aware of many eyes watching and scoping us out. Sadly the night did not end without incident, one of the group had her St. Christopher necklace ripped from her neck as we made our way along the streets. We had been warned beforehand not to wear or carry anything of value when taking part in Blocos, but since we hadn't intended on joining in the parade initially, a few of the group were not prepared for Popcorning. It was a slight mar on the night's events but thankfully it didn't affect the rest of Sue's experience of Carnaval.

Night two involved us taking part in Bob Sinclar's Bloco, called YES. The experience was intense, terrifying, exhilarating, sweaty, and great fun. There were thousands of youngsters in the Bloco, it felt a bit like being herded like cattle. We started out gathering in front of the first truck, but at the back of this section, avoiding (or so we thought) the crush of people pushing their way forward. This was not a good idea as the guys holding the ropes were quite forcefully pushing you forward relentlessly so that the truck could progress. Most of the time you had nowhere to go as there were people in front of you, yet still the marshals pushed you forward with the ropes. It was a bit claustrophobic and extremely mental - think massive mosh pit, no give whatsoever and being expected to move forward. The heat was immense and sweat dripped off us profusely. Had someone gone down they would surely have been trampled on as there was no space to move. After surviving numerous surges we decided to forge our way to the very front of the Bloco, so we Congo-ed our way up, Pete at the front forcefully pushing folks out of his way, elbows being your best friends. Thankfully from the front our experience improved tenfold, we had loads of space to dance and bop to the beats of Bob Sinclar; we also felt refreshing, if somewhat fleeting, breezes that temporarily helped alleviate our sweaty selves and made the night more tolerable. It was quite the experience and one I'm not likely to forget for a while.

Most evenings we headed down to the lighthouse and simply watched the Blocos pass by, dancing along and enjoying ourselves. We also tucked into numerous roasted cheese on sticks. We had three separate pickpocket attempts on guys from the group over the week; two would-be-thieves went away empty-handed (treated to not so gentle shoves) and the third just got some tissues and a map for his trouble. All in all we were quite fortunate.

A traditional, and hugely popular, aspect of the Salvador Carnaval are the Afro blocos, which are important for the resurgence of African-Brazilian identity. We joined the Olodum Drums Bloco one afternoon and danced our way through some amazing African percussion with Carribean reggae and Brazilian energy. We were by far the largest gringo group in the Bloco and all the locals were very welcoming and delighted that we chose to join their Bloco. The vivid colours that surrounded us were simply awesome, people went to great extremes to coordinate their hair, jewellery and even the braces on their teeth to the Olodum colours. Only downside for me was that the Bloco set off at 3pm and so we were marching along in the melting heat - still, the sunscreen did its job and I didn't get sunburnt. Towards the end of the Bloco we witnessed an impromptu demonstration of Capoeira, during which Karen's camera got a bit too close and was accidentally kicked out of her hand - thankfully it still worked afterwards. Security were on the case in seconds checking to see that the camera had all its bits (battery, memory card) and even made the poor dancer apologise to Karen. Capoeira was developed by Afro-Brazilian slaves as a means of maintaining self-defence against their masters. Its practice was prohibited by slaveowners and so in an attempt to disguise this act of defiance, it developed into a kind of acrobatic dance. It's mesmerising to watch and apparently always a crowd-gatherer and crowd-pleaser! Unfortunately we did not get to see any proper demonstrations of this dance as practically everything stops/closes during Carnaval. We even had to do a week's worth of shopping the day we arrived as the supermarket was closing for Carnaval - staff would simply not turn up. This meant queuing for over an hour and a half with about a hundred other people who had the same idea. Utter madness!

We all really enjoyed our time in Salvador - still, most were ready to leave on the final morning, longing to give their livers a break and find some peaceful hideaway away from the chaos, and the stench of ammonia and portaloos! Onward to Lencois we roll...