Salvador - Carnaval

My head hurts, my body hurts and my feet look like they have been through a war. This is how you can tell you have been to Carnaval in Salvador. Yesterday we decided to try a bloco or camarote instead of following the parade as popcorn as we did the first night. A bloco is a roped off area behind a band that plays on a float, a camarote is a stand at the side of the parade route and popcorn is when you are not in either. Popcorn is great, and we enjoyed it for the first night, but we wanted to see what it was like to do the bloco or camarote. Pre trip we had seen crazy prices on the internet, up to US$375 for a single night in a bloco! There was no way in hell I was paying that, but I figured that perhaps we could scalp or find cheaper tickets. Unfortunately *nobody* can tell you how to get tickets for these things. It turns out to be extremely easy, but unburdened by knowledge we wandered the streets looking for scalpers. We found them and then tried to negotiate with in our negligible Portuguese, but it wasn't looking great. I was really hoping that we could get tickets for a bloco we had seen advertised with Armen Van Burren and Pete Tong. Yes I know, two old, outdated and decidedly non-hip DJs. Whatever, I like their music :) A few taxi rides later, more bad Portuguese, some wrong directions, and finally we found an official sales center in Pelhurino *and* managed to get tickets - which we then had to exchange for our abadas (the shirts that are actually your tickets) way out in the convention center. After spending half a day doing all of this I advise future travelers to just go straight to the convention center. Why the hell nobody can tell you this I don't know, it is extremely easy once you get there. You can buy and pick up the shirts for all the blocos and camarotes, no hassle at all, and they even take credit cards. We eventually got our shirts and had them suitably altered, ours to have the arms cut off and Brice's to be made larger by the tailors they had on-site. After all this excitement we went back to our apartment for a meal of ham sandwiches and a disco nap pre-Carnaval.

At around 8pm we made our way out along the route, pushing through the crowds until we found a place where we thought our bloco was going to start. Waiting around we made friends with four English guys and girls and chatted as a crowd of mostly gringos with our shirts started to gather (already starting to sing Zombie 3000.) Sean decided to meet some of the locals, or rather, they decided to meet him. A Brazilian woman come up to him to tell him something, but realizing he didn't speak portugese she found someomeone to translate for her - to tell him that he has beautiful eyes. Ask Sean for the story after that ;) Eventually, two hours after it was scheduled, the bloco started. Holy. Crap. I don't think I have ever been in a crowd like that. A solid mass of dancing, sweating, crazy people, jumping and screaming behind the truck as it inched forward. In the crowds I got separated from Sean, Brice and Clive, but found the English people, I followed them for a while until I finally met up with everyone again. We followed along for about 4-5 hours until around 3am when we decided to leave, this wasn't even the end of the route, only the half way point, but we were beaten, battered, tired, and *extremely* sweaty.

I wish I had pictures of it all, but unfortunately Brice's camera was stolen in the crowd. Overall a really great experience and today has been designated a day of recovery. A lot of lying around and relaxing will take place.