Salvador, Brazil

Oh the fun we had at Carnivale!!!

We arrived in Salvador, Brazil Tuesday morning around 6:30 a.m. Jess and I woke up around 6 to eat breakfast and watch us pull into the port, and it was already HOT!! After waiting a few hours, they finally let us off and a group of us jumped in a taxi to buy our Camarote tickets. Tuesday was the last day of Carnivale (I’ll describe that experience later), and the best (and safest) way to experience Carnivale is to be in a Camarote, which is basically a large two or three story balcony that you have to buy a ticket for, where a special ugly/ weird shirt, and then have toooooo much fun! We went to the convention center where we were told we could buy these tickets, and for a pretty penny, I might add. We really didn’t know what to expect, we just knew that the streets were lined with these very private balconies that over-looked the streets and the party going on beneath you, without actually getting mugged. We felt like it was money well spent. The nicest girl helped us buy our tickets; she spoke English and went out of her way to help us figure everything out. After we got our tickets we headed back to the port area to explore Salvador. We walked, and walked, and walked some more, and I’d say it was about 90-95 degrees outside! After eating a late lunch, we headed back to the ship so those of us who had trips the next morning could pack before we left for the Camarote. We met back up with our group of about 14 people and took a taxi to our balcony. At this point, it was still light outside, thank God! I have never, in my life, seen such a huge mob of people in one place! We, of course, were on one side of the parade, as it was going by, and our balcony was on the other, so after waiting 15 minutes for this particular section of the party to go by, we ran across the street to our Camarote, which I should add was sponsored by Skol, the one and only Brazilian beer which is pretty much the only advertised company you see here. We had on our special/ ugly BRIGHT yellow, neon shirts that were completely see-through. People here get really creative when it comes to wearing these things… girls cut them all sorts of ways, tie them with strings, wear them as crop tops and since they are pretty much one size fits all for the ladies, they adjust them many different ways so they can show off their tummies… that seemed to be the goal of the shirts for all of the women. The guys would typically just cut the sleeves out and make them into muscle shirts. When we showed up, there were tons of these Camarotes, so we had to look for our bright yellow balcony, which was pretty easy to find. We found some locals in the same shirts as us and they escorted us across the parade to get into the Camarote. Once inside, we made our way to the edge of the balcony so we could observe the party down below. Now, I’m going to try to explain this “parade” the best I can, but I’ve honestly never seen anything like it, so I’m not sure I’ll do it justice. Basically, you have this parade, and like any typical parade it has float-like things with usually a band, or some sort of music and then people dancing around in between the floats… well this is how it sort of is. Instead of floats, there are these semis (yes, like big 18 wheelers, driving around in the parade), and where the bed of the truck is, they have scaffolding that gives the truck two levels, the top is for the band and singer, and the bottom is for the people who have paid ridiculous amounts of money to ride on one of these things, and they, too, have a heinous shirt on in some weird color or pattern. The bottom floor, where the people are, has it’s own bar, and then behind the truck there are MORE people in the same shirt dancing around to the music it’s playing. From what I gathered, people will pay over 500 dollars to ride or dance behind their favorite band’s truck. About every 15 minutes, a new semi would roll in, and a new band would stop right in front of our Camarote (we had the best location!) and perform for about 15 minutes. Then, after they were through, the balcony DJ would play music, often American music and we’d dance around and wait for the next semi to come. What amazed me was that EVERYONE knew the words to all of the songs, young and old!! It seemed like every band and singer that rode in was as famous as the one before them and everyone loved all of their songs! The singers were very into their performance and many of them had dancers jumping around, which I thought was impressive considering for a lot of the time they are dancing on a moving vehicle! But it was so great, everyone just jumped around, all of the people behind the truck were literally jumping and singing and everyone was having such a great time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many drunk, happy people in one place having such a good time as I did at Carnivale. In our particular Camarote, they served, of course, Skol beer since it was sponsored by them, mixed drinks, and these weird fruit drinks that were probably the greatest thing. Basically, there is a special bar tender, and he puts in the fruit of your choice, I chose pineapple, and they put A LOT of pineapple into a shaker, with ice, water, sugar, and shake it around until it becomes a thick juice, then he adds the vodka, which thins it out. They pour it into a glass and it’s sooo good… it’s like a homemade juice drink and every once in a while you get a big chunk of fruit! Mmmmm. After being at the Camarote for about five hours, we figured we should head home since a lot of us had early trips the next morning. The most difficult situation the entire night was trying to get out of the mob of people observing the parade from the side streets. We were going against the crowd, and everyone was looking at us like where are you going, the party is that way??!! Well I could go on and on about Carnivale, it was SO much fun, but needless to say, we made it back safe and sound and no one had any issues in our group with getting anything stolen! Carnivale has a bad rap, but if you’re smart and travel in a decent sized group then no one really gives you trouble. Next blog: RIO!!!! Xoxo Marissa