Carnival finally reborn in full form after pandemic
RIO DE JANEIRO » Brazil's Carnival is back.
Glittery and outrageous costumes were prepared again. Samba songs were ringing out `til dawn at Rio de Janeiro's sold-out parade grounds. Hundreds of raucous, roaming parties were flooding the streets. And working-class communities were buoyed, emotionally and economically, by the renewed revelry.
The COVID-19 pandemic last year prompted Rio to delay Carnival by two months, and watered down some of the fun, which was attended mostly by locals. Brazil's federal government expects 46 million people to join the festivities that officially began Friday and run through Feb. 22. That includes visitors to cities that make Carnival a world-famous bash, especially Rio but also Salvador, Recife and metropolitan Sao Paulo.
These cities have already begun letting loose.
Many Brazilian mayors, including Rio's, were marking the start of the celebrations on Friday by symbolically handing the keys to their cities to their Carnival Kings. And the first street parties of the Carnival weekend kicked off, with revelers' costumes ranging from Pope Francis to the devil himself.
“We've waited for so long, we deserve this catharsis,” Thiago Varella, a 38-yearold engineer wearing a Hawaiian shirt drenched by the rain, said at a bash in Sao Paulo.
Most tourists were eager to go to the street parties, known as blocos. Rio has permitted more than 600 of them, and there are more unsanctioned blocos. The biggest blocos lure millions to the streets, including one bloco that plays Beatles songs with a Carnival rhythm for a crowd of hundreds of thousands. Such major blocos were called off last year.
“We want to see the partying, the colors, the people and ourselves enjoying Carnival,” Chilean tourist Sofia Umaña, 28, said near Copacabana beach.
The premier spectacle is at the Sambadrome. Top samba schools, which are based in Rio's more working-class neighborhoods, spend millions on hourlong parades with elaborate floats and costumes, said Jorge Perlingeiro, president of Rio's league of samba schools.
“What's good and beautiful costs a lot; Carnival materials are expensive,” Perlingeiro said in an interview in his office beside the samba schools' warehouses. “It's such an important party ... It's a party of culture, happiness, entertainment, leisure and, primarily, its commercial.and social side.”