Axé Rio! (3 of 5)

Day 3
10 a.m. Did I just turn over in bed and the doorbell rang with Izzy standing there with beach towel and umbrella? Apparently so, because we were off to the beach.

We met another friend of hers at the beach, and met some others that she knew. I can't remember their names, but they seemed very friendly and helpful with the suntan lotion.

After a couple of hours the world started spinning, and it was apparent that I needed some big shade and about 10 gallons of water. I pussed out, no other way to put it.

After a few hours Adaí came knocking. He had the tickets to Sambadromo for that night, the last night in our stay, so I bought the last two tickets his bookie had. Bad, because Izzy wanted to come with us, and Chris wanted her to come with us, and worse, she evidently had a sister that wanted to come with us. No dice though. Izzy took her leave of us, and Adaí as well.

We chilled out for a bit and got ready to head down to get some food, and then head off to the Carnaval. We ate at a place called Mabs. This was no ordinary restaurant, but a very unique restaurant indeed. After ordering, Chris and I began to look around at the restaurant guests and noticed something hilarious: much older men, with young, hot and scantily clad young ladies. A rocket surgeon I'm not, but this was without a doubt a "professional" restaurant.

About the time that realization hit, we were approached by some of the finest the place had to offer. We bartered and found out that just bargaining could be entertaining. Demeaning for sure, but entertaining.

They had business cards and convincing smiles. It wasn't happening though; we were on a mission for the Carnaval, the ultimate in parades. We ordered some awesome crab cakes, and a prawn-and-rice mix that had little bits of fruit and meat mixed in. Very wonderful. Of course Caipirinhas, the usual by now. Off to Sambadromo.

We entered into sector 3 and walked over to sector 5, just about directly in the middle of the thing. Not bad seats I suppose. From there we could see the entire parade, and it was about 20 minutes into the first school. No words can describe the costumes, the headdresses, the dancing and the crowd.

"Spectacular" barely would be a kick in the ass compared to what was going on in the street below. The competition: as it was each school had approximately 3,000-5,000 participants, and each did their best to win the hearts of the crowd and the judges. Giant floats, with prom queens planted firmly on top – wearing just enough feathers to silhouette their round brown figures – danced their hearts out for the allotted time per school. The first one was great. Meanwhile in the stands, we met some of the coolest people. Germans, Brazilian, and English, just to name our immediate surrounding party-goers.

After catching a couple more parades and loving it, we headed out of the Sambadromo back to Leme Beach near our apartment. The English dudes came with us, and we were off to the stomping ground to find some trouble. We found it, and found plenty. We partied with the English guys and over with our buddies at the street vendor till near dawn.

Jamie and his passed-out buddy staggered their way off back to their hotel, and Chris and I headed back up the beach towards Sugar Loaf. We figured that we should just stay up all day and do some tourist things, which seemed logical at the time, but halfway up the beach towards the mountain we ran into two young ladies who were directly behind us in the Sambadromo. Figure the odds of that. 9 million people in Rio, over 100,000 people in Sambadromo, and we run into Nadja and Ceilia on the beach. We abandoned the Sugar Loaf for fate. They were really cool and funny – lawyers from Sao Paulo as it turned out, and, fortunately, much better at the English. We hung around the beachside café, or beer vendor dude, till the sun began to warm us.

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