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The Rio de Janeiro Carnival is the biggest carnival in the world with almost five million people attending in 2011. Since 1723 the carnival has been put on 46 days before Easter to prepare for Lent. People flock to the city to join in the street celebrations and watch the incredible costumes, dancing and floats go by. Accommodation for Rio Carnival fills up quickly – the key is to book early to get the best beds at a decent price or it can get expensive.

How Rio Carnival began…

It was the ancient Greek spring festival in honour of Dionysus, the God of wine, that started it all off. The Romans liked the idea and took the festival as a great excuse for some drunken revelry. The Roman Catholic Church turned it into a festival for Ash Wednesday and it quickly evolved into a week-long celebration of indulgence before the 40 days of abstinence before Easter. Since then the Carnival has developed from once being a street fight with brawls and riots involving mud, water and food, to a masquerade ball to a costumed street parade. All these influences have ended in the Rio Carnival as we know it today.

Rio Carnival is now a huge event that’s televised around the world. The country stops for a week and the festivities run all day and night. Reports state than 80% of the country’s annual beer consumption is washed back during this week and it’s also when 70% of the country’s tourism happens too.

The Samba dance off

One of the main aspects is the Samba school dance off. Each participating school nationwide chooses a theme for their production and the costumes, floats, music and choreography interpret this. Each school could be made up of thousands of participants and a good few floats uniting in their quest to tell a story with their production. As they progress in the school they’ll be put nearer the front with the ‘comissão de frente’. These are the people who set the theme for their school-mates to follow. There will usually be one or two dancers on top of the floats while more will stay on the ground dancing around and working the crowd to impress the judges in their allotted 80 minutes.

The samba schools are not just musical groups – they are neighbourhood associations providing a variety of community needs, including health and educational resources.

When and where is the Carnival held?

The Carnival begins as soon as the year’s King Momo is crowned by Rio’s mayor on the Friday. That night a children’s parade starts things off innocently before the dance, theatre, arts and music get going on the Saturday. Sunday and Monday are the big days, culminating in the top six Samba schools competing on the final day.

The main parade is in the Sambadrome in downtown Rio, but there are always local events in the streets, including a huge ball at the Copacabana Palace and Beach. Everyone joins in in whatever way they can. They bring their percussion instruments to join with the batucada style of samba that is danced in Brazil and they all know the moves to dance along.

Getting around

Taxis are the simplest way to get around Rio during the carnival, although it could be quicker to walk with the amount of people in attendance in the centre. You can of course take the subway to the Sambadrome too. Admission to the Sambadrome is anywhere between $200-1000 – although there are some agencies that can arrange for you to actually be part of the parade, making it free.

The carnival is much safer than it used to be with security stepped up a notch. Plain-clothed police and security officers will be everywhere, but of course, make sure you still keep to the usual safety rules that you would in any situation full of people.

On the Costa Verde, Green Coast of Rio de Janeiro state of Brazil, about four hours south of Rio itself, is found Paraty. Costa Verde coast was one of the first areas of the long Atlantic seashore of Brazil visited and inhabited by the Portuguese. Set in a scenic bay and guarded by a fortress against attacks by pirates, Paraty port provided excellent shelter for the Portuguese ships. With the discovery of gold in Minas Gerais in the late 16th century, Party became the principal port of the Royal Road, the Estrada Real, that started in Diamantina and traversed through the key mining towns of Ouro Preto, Mariana, Congonhas, Tiradentes and Sao Joao del Rey.

Declared as one of Brazil’s first UNESCO heritage sites, Old Town Paraty is laid out in a perfect grid of streets studded with priceless classical colonial buildings and churches. As if part of the grid the port of Paraty was whence Portuguese ships sailed from carrying gold and diamonds back to motherland. In high tide the streets closest to the seashore flood, washing off the ancient cobblestones. Closed to vehicular traffic, Paraty retains ambiance of bygone era, with horse pulled carriages rumbling through. Tour of Paraty remains one of the highlights of a tour to Brazil.

Adventure, natural wonders and a dreamer’s paradise are some of the words that can best describe a tour of Latin America. Spending a few weeks travelling in the South American continent was not only thrilling but a rewarding experience for me. My idea of a Latin American tour never really comprised of visits to the popular tourist spots – it was all about delving deeper into the culture, language and people of the countries I visited. Argentina, Chile, Panama, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Brazil – tours to every country was an enriching experience. Of all the Latin American countries, the one that I probably can never forget is Brazil.

My Brazil tour was nothing short of an enigma, with surprises in store at every place of my visit. Brasil or Brazil is the largest South American country that has everything from football to Carnaval on the offing. The colorful city life of Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Recife and Olinda, all the highlights of a classic tour of Brazil, made me fall in love with the country. The rich cultural heritage of Pernambuco and Bahia, the unexplored Amazon rainforest and natural extravaganza of Iguaçu Falls left an indelible imprint on my soul.

The charm of the Brazilian cities is accentuated by the presence of vast coastline. The golden beaches present a breathtaking view of the sea. A major part of my time during the stay in the cities like Rio De Janerio and Sao Paulo was spent either enjoying a lazy stroll on the beach or playing beach volley ball. A visit to the Floresta da Tijuca or Tijuca Forest was an amazing experience as I was really interested to know how skyscrapers and a forest can co-exist in an urban setting! The three overwhelming sights at Rio are of the Sugarloaf Mountain, the Corcovado, and the sweaping panorama of the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, with the peak of Dois Irmaos as backdrop on the south and the sparkling lights of Niteroi on the far side of Guanabara Bay to the norht. Above all the towering statue of Christ the Redeemer atop Corcovado simply captured one’s senses!

In the north, along the coast, the bright and colorful colonial architecture of Brazil and heritage of Salvador thrive. The state of Bahia, located perfectly on the mouth of the huge bay of Todos os Santos, needs to be sampled for its Afro-Brazilian rituals, customs and traditions. With vibrant culture, exquisite colonial architecture and last but not the least the mouth watering cuisine of Bahia, the cobblestone streets of Salvador just deepened my love for Brazil.

A visit to Manaus, the chief port and heart of the Amazon basin, marked the close of my Brazil tour but not before I had got a taste of the monumental river. Visiting Manaus, one gets to experience one of the major attractions of a tour to Brazil-  a visit to the amazing Amazon rainforests that stretches over six countries. I got as close as possible to nature by taking small boat tours to the interiors of the forest. The outings leave one spellbound by the beauty and biodiversity of the Amazonia.

Samba, Carnival, lip-smacking Brazilian seafood, Christ the Redeemer, Amazing Amazon, great beaches… Do you really need more reasons to include Brazil in your next trip to Latin America?

Get an overview of Brazil’s culture with this 3-city vacation package. In addition to the vibrant Rio, you’ll experience the 18th-century colonial town of Ouro Preto, a historic town full of beautiful Baroque churches, and an UNESCO World Heritage site, and last visit the charming 17th-century colonial town of Paraty and anotjher UNESCO heritage site. Once an important gold and rum exporting center, Paraty, its center a vehicle-free oasis of cobblestone streets, is now the main attraction of the Costa Verde, a 175-miles long coastline of stunning beaches, clear water, and dozens of islands offshore waiting to be explored.

Rio de Janiero, BR/Brazil for 3 nights
Hotel: 3 Nights Rio de Janeiro- Windsor Miramar Hotel-Standard (part ocean view) – breakfast
Transfers Transfer Rio International Airport to Hotel w/guide – Private
Transfers Transfer Rio Hotel to International Airport w/guide – Private
Tours: Shared Half Day Sugar Loaf City Tour
Ouro Preto, BR/Brazil for 2 nights
Hotel: 2 Nights Ouro Preto – Pousada Do Mondego-Ametista Standard Room – w/breakfast
Transfers Transfer Belo Horizonte to Ouro Preto – Private
Transfers Transfer Ouro Preto to Belo Horizonte – Private
InterCity Air: Air Transportation Published Fare
Paraty, BR/Brazil for 3 nights
Hotel: 3 Nights Paraty – Pousada Porto Imperial-Standard Room
Transfers Transfer Rio to Paraty w/o guide – Private
Transfers Transfer Paraty to Rio w/o guide – Private

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