For an entire week last month the city of Rio succumbed to Carnival fever with thousands of party-goers thronging the streets to dance, drink and be dazzled by the outrageous costumes, dramatic spectacles and displays of samba skills on Parade. And Dragoman was there! Along with over 230 clients all wanting a slice of the fun. Luca, our award-winning guide, was there to offer a helping-hand and he had this to say about his ‘loco, loco’ week.
“It was a manic time trying to ‘guide’ over 230 party-goers around the streets of Rio during the craziest time of year. Most were staying in our ‘standard’ package hotel (we offer three packages using three different hotels) and there was a high percentage of Australians all looking to maximise their seven days there.
Most people were only there for Carnival which was a shame as you can get a really good discount on our overland tours if you travel into or out of Rio in conjunction with our carnival packages. People may not realise that you don’t need months to take our South American tours – our Buenos Aires to Rio is only 19 days and you get to see the Iguazu Falls, the Pantanal, chill out off the coast near Parati AND party in two of the world’s greatest cities!
Rio Carnival really is just one long party but we try to offer as many elements as possible (those we know people can cope with having partied all night!) - Sugar Loaf Mountain, a sunset cruise on Guanabarra Bay (the perfect way to end our time here), a visit to an award-winning favela project and a special early morning trip up to Corcovado where we book the dawn ‘sweep’ train exclusively and can then enjoy Christ Redeemer statue to ourselves. We were also lucky enough to enjoy perfect weather the entire time we were there with not a drop of rain.
However it is really all about the Carnival of course. A typical night would start at around 6pm when we would leave the hotel and make our way to the metro station. We actually got caught up in a ‘blocos’ – organised and also impromptu street parties where police cordon off an area and locals and bands take over the streets in a kind of massive dancefest – en route to our metro station. Some bright spark had decided to arrange a blocos around every entrance to the station – bar one. Which we eventually found at the last attempt! The journey on the metro itself is totally crazy as well with fully-costumed carnival entrants getting into the swing of things early.
On arrival near the Sambadrome we would grab some tapas then head into our Sector (Sector 13 – the Mad Sector) to watch the Parade which consists of various samba schools all competing to win this year’s Samba Parade – and it goes on all night! The earliest I managed to escape back to the hotel was 3am....
A number of our clients we had organised to actually join the Parade itself and they enjoyed themselves to the max. Their costumes were delivered the night before and it was brilliant fun watching them transform from traveller to crazed ‘carioca’ (local). One poor chap discovered that the shoes he had been given were way to small for him so he cut them open and spent the entire Parade in flapping footwear – he still had a ball though!
Alongside the two days of actual parading there are other major events such as the Gay Ball. All our clients who took part in this said they absolutely loved it – and they really got into it as well. One chap I saw check into the hotel wearing his costume for the Ball – quite a bizarre sight watching a receptionist try to extract passport details from a gaudily-costumed male wearing an enormous feather-heavy tiara. Feedback from the Ball was that it was “insane”....
In the clients’ words, the crew were “awesome”, the Sambadrome “crazy, hot and hectic”, and the whole event ‘Wow, just wow”.
Care to join us next year for the biggest party on earth....?!!!” Take a look at our tours
