Brazilians we talked to kept insisting that we would be mugged, raped, and slaughtered, not necessarily in that order, if we had the chutzpah to not take an obscenely overpriced limousine service directly into the Sambodromo, instead daring to venture across the public street outside the stadium where the unwashed cannibal mobs were congregating. No wonder, given how much bling the average Brazilian woman seems to wear on a night out. Nobody got mugged, everyone was in a great mood.
The Sambodromo is a road lined with grandstands — private boxes on one side, bleachers for the commoner likes of us on the other. On the final night, the best groups participated in the “Desfile”. Some of them had fairly bizarre themes, such as “photography” (the giant demon in the pictures, holding an old-fashioned flash plate. It caught fire. Somehow the dancers on top got off in time, despite having to take care that their negligible costumes didn’t move more than half an inch or so. The fire brigade got a big cheer.)
The black gentleman in the orange cleaner’s outfit was among one of the sweeping crews; he had been a humble street cleaner before being discovered as a passionate dancer. The cleanup crews follow the various carnaval groups, and he’s apparently a local tradition; at one point, he started putting the moves on his broom.
Antony Baker Photography
Paper Shadows Photography
Peter Norby Photography
In Focus
The Big Picture