Rio Day Two—Carnival!

Well, we made it. Please excuse any typos, spelling errors, grammar mistakes, or poor sentence structure, as I’m typing this up on about three hours of sleep.  Carnival was nothing as I imagined.  For one thing, it’s highly organized.  The twelve districts of Rio de Janeiro compete to see which can mobilize and choreograph the better parade, including floats, dancers, singers, and myriad marchers.  There must have been thousands in each parade, which are spread out over two consecutive nights.  We managed to stay for the first four full parades of the second night, leaving the Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí only well into parade five and after a soaking rain that began halfway through parade three and which lasted through all of parade four.  But by 5:00 A.M., we’d had it.  We got back to the hotel just before 6:00 A.M. and slept the sleep of the dead until 9:45 A.M.

Because of the rains, I was only able to photograph the first two parades extensively, and only part of parade three.  The following photographs should whet your appetite until I can get some more ready for a later blog entry: