Many months have passed since the actual event, but at long last I’m posting the photos of day 3 of our Carnaval for 2009! This was the one we were waiting for, because our favorite bloco for the past few years was set to parade in the morning. It’s called the Cordão Umbilical do Boitatá (“The umbilical cord of the Boitatá”), which is a play on words from the bloco Cordão do Boitatá (“Cordão”, or “big cord”, is a traditional designation for blocos). The “umbilical cord” is a version they do especially for kids.

The Cordão Umbilical is great for us not only because they’re kid-friendly (they start out the parade with an “ala”, or contingent, of babies in strollers), but because all of our old friends go there. It’s a pretty small gathering (only a few hundred people, as opposed to the tens of thousands that show up at the real Cordão do Boitatá), so it *almost* feels like a private party. As far as G-rated Carnaval goes, it doesn’t get much better than this!

The bloco marches on up the hill to a hospital. When we get there, everyone starts to sing and play in a whisper so as not to disturb the hospital patients (it’s part of the annual ritual). Then we turn a corner and immediately start making mind-bogglingly loud noise again as if, by virtue of not facing right at them, they won’t be able to hear us.  The bloco proceeds back down the hill on a separate street to end up where we started.

We headed back home, got ourselves cleaned up, and spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool (sorry, no pictures). And that was pretty much it for our Carnaval: Dada had to spend day 4 doing a shift at the hospital, and I joined her there for an emergency ecocardiogram (long story, nothing to worry about). The rest of the week was spent visiting Dada’s cousin down in Campinas, São Paulo. Hopefully I can get around to showing you that some day… or any of the other 2500 photos we’ve taken since Carnaval.

Updated: I finally have some time to give some background on these photos…

On the Saturday of Carnaval, we woke up suuuper early (for us – 7AM) so that we could make it to our favorite “bloco” (neighborhood band/parade), Céu na Terra (Heaven on Earth), up in Santa Teresa. Every year, the word spreads a little more about how great this bloco is, which plays in the more traditional “marchinha” style of songs for Carnaval, goes through one of the most scenic places in Rio, and is itself one of the most scenic parades, since it’s frequented by the more “artistic” Carnaval-goers, and the band itself occasionally even plays while riding the famous yellow cable car of Santa Teresa. About 4 years ago, the crowd started getting unbearable, so they moved their first parade to earlier in the morning, and then started an hour earlier than people were reporting in the papers – you had to know someone to really know what time they started. This year, they didn’t lie, but they chose to go at the same time as Bola Preta, the traditional bloco that more or less marks the official beginning of Carnaval. By doing so, they guanteed that at least 500,000 people would be somewhere else during the parade.

Unfortunately for us, it wasn’t enough. Getting crammed in with thousands of people on narrow streets on a hot summer morning in an even hotter costume is great when you’re drinking, whooping it up and haven’t a care in the world, but having to watch out for a princess (in this case, an Indian princess) changes everything. We got close enough to the band the see and hear them playing and sing along, and then soon regretted it. An hour or so of compulsory revelry later, we were finally able to slip out a side street and head back home.

You sure this is a good idea, daddy?

Hell yeah!

I know where I want to be...

...up there!

Close enough...

Daddy, are you supposed to step on their toes like that?

Next year, I'm trying out for the band

My fine feathered family

Just us kickin' back with a beer on the way home (hey, try this in the land of the free!)

We headed home and went straight for the pool (sorry, no pix!). In the evening, we decided to go for something a little tamer, and went to a little samba fest for kids at an open mall called “Downtown” (far from downtown Rio, of course). A samba troupe made up of pre-teen kids was playing there, and they let all the visitors come and bang on their different drums. We met our friends Lina and Daniel there, with their daughter Helena, and we all hung out through dinner.

She sure likes to bang on those drums... maybe I should rename this blog

Helena in her Bola Preta ballerina outfit, with mom Lina

Throwing confetti in her makeshift Tinkerbell outfit (shh! Don't tell her it's not official)

And, as a final treat, here’s a quick video of Carolina learning to samba from the experts: