The runway is alive with colour and music. Samba dancers fill the stadium, their sparkling, feather-bedecked costumes painting the scene in blocks of neon green, fuchsia pink, lemon yellow and glittering gold.
In between each flock of dancers, floats the size of buses glide by – a giant turquoise bird, a nodding, pawing lion, a palatial carriage, and a cat in sunglasses are among the creations that pass as I watch from the stadium seats, energy palpably on fire as the crowd dances, cheers and sings.
I’m at the Sambadrome – Rio’s 90,000-capacity stadium, purpose-built for Carnival’s world-famous samba parades – watching as four of the city’s most elite Special Group samba schools compete for a place in the final the following weekend.
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Each night across the main Carnival days, more than 15,000 samba dancers grace the floor of this open-air arena, twirling with rapid dexterity along the 700-metre runway. It’s spectacular, the joy so contagious a smile is involuntarily etched on my face from beginning to end, and the atmosphere in the crowd doesn’t wane – even when it ends at 6am.
I’m here on a six-day Rio Carnival: Sequins & the Sambadrome group tour with G Adventures, and this is just one of the many festivities across a week that’s all about freedom, energy and joy.
Street parties and samba
More than 400 blocos take over Rio’s streets across the Carnival period
(Image credit: Fernando Maia / Riotur)
Built in 1984 to provide a dedicated space for Rio’s competing escolas de samba, the Sambadrome has become a mainstay during Carnival – but the city’s blocos (street parties) are just as fundamental.
These moving, samba-playing processions have been running since the early 1900s, though the origins of Carnival go further back still. Portuguese colonisers brought their celebratory traditions to Brazil in the 17th century, marking a time of revelry in the run-up to Lent (‘carne vale’ means ‘farewell to meat’ in Latin).
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Samba – which emerged among West African slaves in northern Brazil before spreading to marginalised Afro-Brazilian communities around Rio – became a key part of the Carnival festivities in the 20th century. Official samba schools began forming in the 1930s, bringing the (previously criminalised) dance into the mainstream and celebrating an art form produced by Rio’s favela communities (Afro-Brazilian heritage is still at the heart).
Today more than 400 blocos take over Rio’s streets across the Carnival period, turning the entire city into a giant festival day and night, and estimated to attract around seven million partygoers in total. Revellers from across Brazil and beyond don their best glitter, feathers and fancy dress as live samba bands parade through the streets, starting as early as 8am.
At the Bloco do Sargento Pimenta, we bopped along to samba versions of The Beatles songs as the sun streamed down on an estimated crowd of 100,000. We followed as stilt-walking, ribbon-strewn performers paraded along the street, while an 11-piece brass band, Orquestra Voadora, blasted out classic samba songs and pop hits like “Billie Jean”.
At Cordão da Bola Preta, we experienced the oldest and biggest bloco in the city, dating from 1918 and today attracting hundreds of thousands of attendees; and at Banda de Ipanema, we chugged along the beach, stopping intermittently to cool off in the sea.
At other times we caught smaller processions with just a few hundred revellers. There are so many blocos it can be a little overwhelming; our G Adventures guides helped us navigate and took us to the best ones, so it’s worth considering a tour here if you want to take the hassle out (it’s also ideal if you’re a solo traveller and want to enjoy the festivities as part of a group).
All were electric, energy-filled extravaganzas that had the crowd dancing and singing along for hours, fuelled by caipirinhas and summer sun, and it was an extraordinary atmosphere – topped off with a special ‘purple party’ one night at a local beach bar, arranged exclusively for our group as part of the tour.
Having a ball
(Image credit: André Queiroz)
“The greatest party on earth” doesn’t end with its blocos and Sambadrome parades, though; Carnival balls have long been another key cornerstone of the celebrations, from small, modest affairs to all-out, extravagant ones.
The most famous and exclusive of them all is the Baile do Copa, which has been running at the landmark Copacabana Palace Hotel since 1924. Brazilian celebrities and politicians are known to frequent this exceptionally lavish event, with a black tie, long-dress dress code; tickets start from £600 and go into the thousands.
I managed to snag a ticket and felt like I’d stepped into another world, with room after room decked out with elaborate, carnivalesque metallic sculptures, open bars offering free-flowing champagne and cocktails, and displays of lobster, oysters and macarons overflowing from decadent tables. Live samba bands played throughout the night and into the early hours in an immersive, surreal spectacle that went on until 5am, and there was the same sense of vibrancy, exuberance and joie de vivre I’d felt at the blocos and Sambadrome.
Carnival has long been a chance for people from all walks of life to let loose, and that’s what felt special about it to me: a sense of everyone coming together to celebrate life. I’ve never felt so alive, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it if you want a chance to let your hair down and escape the world for a brief, joyful and uniquely liberating – and memorable – moment in time.
