Saturday Carnaval: Basic beach-and-Lapa

Saturday Carnaval: Just your basic beach-and-Lapa day. I haven't had a beach day in months, so headed down to Ipanema. Dodged bloco parades all the way there and all the way back....

The beach was luxurious. I just love that sun, and jumping in the cool clear water after lying in the sun....

I've decided I'm a Posto 7 kind of person. There is a nice mix of families, little kids, and surfers there. (The surfers because Posto 7 is close to the Arpoador, where there is often a nice point break). I had to wade up to Posto 9 to meet a friend and was pretty turned off by the crowd there. It's supposed to be the posh place on the beach, but it is mostly a bunch of rich 22-year-old posers standing around showing off for each other, it's hopelessly crowded, no surfers, and no little kids digging holes in the sand. What's a beach without little kids digging in the sand? Posto 7's also a little lower-class and Brazilian, Posto 9 more upper class and gringo-tourist. Yeah, posto 7's more my style.

After the beach, that evening I spent a lot of time wandering around Lapa last night with a friend, which was fun but we both tuckered ourselves out milling around, unsuccessfully trying to find cheap tickets and then unsuccessfully trying to find good free music.... we had a good time just wandering through the noisy Lapa street party, but never did find any good music. At 2am we almost went to the Sambodromo to check out the Grupo A parades. We trekked all the way to the Cinelandia metro station - and stood there transfixed by the eerie lunar landscape of the Cinelandia plaza at 2am after a day of bloco parades. Cinelandia is usually a classy plaza, a long stretch of cobblestones facing the regal Teatro Municipal. But tonight it looked like it had snowed eight inches of Skol beer cans and bright yellow Skol sixpack wrappers. And here & there, amid the Skol snowdrifts, were dark huddles of people sleeping on the sidewalks. Rows of them, just lying around in the open, like dead people. (not just Rio's regular homeless, but also whatever travellers can't afford the outrageous Carnaval prices for beds this weekend.) But no, they were just sleeping. It was peaceful, spooky and alarming all at the same time.

We scuttled out of there down to the Cinelandia subway station, waited for a train north to the Sambodromo.... and then a southbound train pulled in first. South! Toward bed! BED.... Well, suddenly I jumped on the southbound train, and my friend followed me without even the slightest resistance. I felt like I'd let down Rio a bit, reneged on the "But it's Carnaval!" spirit, but I was still sick; and I knew I had to play surdo in a four-hour parade the next day, and would be up all night at the Sambodromo too, so, south it was.

Word is, though, that Sao Clemente did very well and might win Grupo A this year! Uniao da Ilha also had a good parade and the news reports say it's a tossup between the two of them. (Though of course you never know what the judges will think.) Whoever wins will be elevated to Grupo Especial next year.

My friend Olivia ended up parading with Imperio da Tijuca; she'd had a gut-level love for their song all along. I'd barely even heard of Imperio da Tijuca before but maybe she was on to something, because the news reporters have also said that Imperio da Tijuca surprised everybody. Nobody was considering them at all but they had a very nice parade too.

So it was a lazy low-key Carnaval Saturday. I'm not feeling much like chasing all over Rio looking for bloco parades this year.... I'm just taking things as they come.