First Signs of Carnaval

We were on our way to the beach Saturday when Chris remembered that this was the day that the Banda de Ipanema was to hold their first march in preparation for Carnaval. This is one of the first celebrations of Carnaval and apparently a small indication of what the actual event will be like. I'll have more on Carnaval in a future post, but I wanted to share our fun from yesterday.

From my Lonely Planet guide:

Attending a Banda is one of the best ways to celebrate Carnaval. BANDAS, also called BLOCOS, consist of a procession of drummers and singing, followed by anyone who wants to dance through the streets. To join in, all you have to do is show up.

And, this entry about Banda de Ipanema in particular:

This longstanding BANDA starts from Ipanema. It's a wild crowd, complete with drag queens and others in costumer. Don't miss it.

Well, that was an understatement. Take a look...

I'm a little disappointed that I didn't have my larger, SLR camera with me, but I have been shy about taking that out in public. So, the photos and the video below were taken with my smaller Digital Elph. Hopefully, they give you a good feel for what we experienced today.



The party in the street went on for hours, though we only stayed for a short while. The parade was a series of start/stops inching along a few feet at a time. When we returned to the neighborhood about five hours later, the party was still going strong.