GringoView: Escaping from Carnaval – My Annual Ritual

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) The sound of drums and amplified singing in the street below my São Paulo apartment, even a week before Carnaval, is a noisy reminder of the need to escape, the annual ritual.

It’s as much a mental exercise as a logistical one and certainly not the choice of the vocal majority.

A good Brazilian friend and colleague was adamant that the best – in fact, he insisted, the only way — to celebrate Carnaval was with a glass of good pinga or grappa in one hand and the ‘off’ button of the television remote in the other. That was his great escape and one to which I became a fervent follower.

Some of you must share my perhaps too jaded view that managing this escape takes some significant won’t power – you agree not to think how much fun it used to be to: Feel crushed by too many bodies squeezing through Olinda’s narrow streets; Wait and sweat in endless queues to get anywhere near those boombox trucks “trios elétricos” in Salvador; Wrestle with trying to get to sleep against the endless frevo beat, blasting all night in Jeri.

Remember which samba school you choose as ‘best’, when after just a couple of hours and a lot of beer, it has all become a blur of deliciously undulating boobs and bumbums, decorated with more feathers than all the birds in the Amazon and smiling, always smiling.

I’ve got to admit it wasn’t always this way. A decade ago, Carnaval, seen from a VIP booth in Rio was spectacular, at least for the first night. I thrilled following the gigantic balloon figures bobbing above the throngs in Olinda and sang my heart out with the pop-star-led bands threading sambaing crowds of skirt-swirling “baianas” through the streets of Salvador.

It was certainly fun back then. Maybe I’m just getting too old, but like so much of our modern life, perhaps Carnaval has become too ritualized and commercial, the personal passion that used to celebrate the last days before Lent now giving way to habit and the possibility of being seen on TV, – paraphrasing Andy Warhol’s famous remark, ten seconds of fame.

Twenty years ago on the dirt road that was the main street of Praia do Forte, a tiny parade of locals danced the samba to the beat of a drummer and his cousin, strumming his fingers bloody on his guitar. It was real and unforgettable, an expression of a Carnaval of the heart. I wonder if it still exists.

For this Gringo, that is all a fading memory. Now the secret of my Carnaval escape is to find a special place in the middle of nature where the only samba is on the box (and the reception isn’t all that good) and the very best way to find happiness is to celebrate the sunset and sunrise to the sound of silence and birdsong.

Suggestions for next year’s escape will be appreciated.