Carnaval

SCENE 1 – STREET IN RIO – EVENING

[Liz and Chris are deciding whether go to the Carnaval parade]

Chris: ...no ... I don´t think it´s a good idea
Liz: Oh, come on Chris ... it´s Carnaval, we´ve got to do it ...
Chris: But it´s too long, overly expensive, and frankly – far too camp.
Liz: Pleeease. For me?
Chris: OK fine ... just this once, I´ll wear the flowery necklace, but you´ve got to promise to get rid of it after. Right – now let´s go to the parade ...

END

Liz has covered most of the rest of the night – lots of colours, people, ridiculous costumes, amazingly shaped mechanical floats and an annoying abundance of the French flag (couldn´t quite work that one out ...) but there´s one thing she missed. In the last Samba school that we watched (the one at around 4am) the centerpiece of their performance was a gigantic jungle float complete with 2 huge mechanical jaguars (picture above) that moved from side-to-side and reared their heads from time to time. This was impressive indeed, especially when fake mist started pouring out of the back of the float. Except that it wasn´t fake mist. It was smoke. The float then began to move slowly and inexorably towards the railings at the side of the avenue, with one of the jaguars finally making contact right below the judge´s viewing booth. About 30 helpers then rushed onto the scene pushing the float backwards and trying to get it going in a straight line again. After 15 minutes it was back on track, but sadly the injured jaguar never did rear his head quite so high again.

We also worked out that as there were 7 Samba schools performing each night with 5,000 participants on average per school, and the stadium itself can only hold 30,000 spectators, then there were actually more people in the parade than watching it. A bit like lawn bowls...