Saturday 14 February 2015

Day 18 - Carnival!

Last night marked the start of the Carnival! The street parades, or Blocos, were organised by districts so we had three to choose from. Rather than race around town chasing them, we waited for them to come to us - one of the perks of living in the town centre!! At around 10pm the air was filled with the sound of drums banging, people cheering and loud Brazilian music blaring from the floats as they made their way down the streets. We quickly grabbed a cerveja and joined the crowd of dancing locals behind the floats, going in the direction of Rua do Mucuge, the gently sloped hill that leads to the Mucuge beach and the centre of the nightlife buzz. Most people were wearing vests depicting which district they came from, but some were in fancy dress, others just with extravagant party wear, feather boas, wigs and that kind of thing on which was great to see. Everyone is in high spirits and party mode, and none more so than the other guests at our hostel who are partying, singing, shouting and generally loving carnival season pretty much 24/7

We feel like we made the right choice coming a little away from Rio as although that would no doubt be incredible we were much happier here strolling inbetween friendly locals without worrying about pickpockets and enjoying the cheap price of alcohol!
 After the parade was over, and once we'd have a few Caiprinha cocktails we made our way to Morocha club, a half indoors-half outdoors club with a live band and great crowd. The fact that neither Max nor I speak Portuguese and the majority of people here don't speak English, the basis of most of our interactions were hand gestures and crazy Brazilian dancing which was an experience to say the least; Max seemed to do just fine, especially with the ladies! 

Overnight the inevitable foreign stomach bug arrived so today was spent moping around the hostel, the weather matching our moods with a little cloud keeping the sun away. We have booked to go to a beach party on Monday so fingers crossed we are back on top form for then! 

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