Capital da Alegria is the slogan that the council of Salvador da Bahia
came up with for the city, and uniquely for such exercises in management
self-pleasuring, it entirely lives up to its name. Ive totally lost my
heart to Salvador, where Carnaval was one of the most unforgettable
weeks of my life.
Its hard to describe the feeling, because Carnaval was most of all a
physical experience and they tend to be fleeting and indefinable. Maybe
not speaking the language contributed to that impression, but ours are
all of these legions of tactile, laughing people, and the long-limbed
grace they display whether dancing round the floats in their thousands,
sitting still or even just sprawling asleep on the pavement, as the
favela-dwelling beer-sellers spend the days. Unlike the events in Rio,
which are utterly visually spectacular, but with the emphasis on
spectating, its impossible not to get involved in Carnaval in Salvador.
A lot of foreigners opt to pay to go in the 'blocos', the groups of
dancers surrounding the floats and protected by ropes and people, or in
the 'camarotes', raised cabins by the side of the road where you pay an
extortionate amount for free drink and a good view, but we wanted to get
right into the thick of it and didnt like the idea of being confined to
one group (in a bloco) or being detached from the crowds. Two million
people line the three city routes, dancing and drinking and kissing...
the men are always ready to dance with you, and whatever else they can
get away with, so you end up having to avoid many of them, especially in
the crushes, where things can get really physical and Mischka and I
often had to rescue each other! Its all high-spirited and good-natured
though and we never felt threatened - in fact the very men who are on
your case one minute will help you out and look after you the next.
The crushes also pose a slightly more sinister threat; we were both
pickpocketed on the first night, which wasnt much of a problem as wed
followed advice and werent carrying much cash. Also on the first night,
one enterprising young man had just slid an arm around Mischka when I
felt something tugging at my watch, which turned out to be his other
hand - I couldnt help but laugh at his nerve, and said Get off, you
cheeky bugger! - he understood the sentiment at least and disappeared
into the crowd. Mischka had a worse experience the following night when
we were following one of the most popular floats; someone went for her
watch in a crush and gouged some nasty fingernail marks in her wrist. I
thought shed want to stop following the float after that, but shes
made of sterner stuff, and we dived right back into the fray, and after
that stopped being so stupid and left our watches at home, and had no
problems at all for the rest of the time. When you think that hundreds
and hundreds of adults and children are poor enough to spend the entire
week walking barefoot through the crowds, picking up discarded drink
cans to sell back to the companies (we assume), the loss of a few reals
seems like a fairly minor deal.
The place is crawling with police, anyway, who march through the streets
in single file groups of five or six. Even the densest crowds part
before them like the Red Sea before the Israelis, as they are
extraordinarily humourless and ready to pile in with batons flying at
the first hint of trouble. Typically, however, even the police have
another side here - we were enchanted to pass the main police area early
on our second night and find about sixty off-duty officers relaxing
before their evenings work, not by beating up random vagrants or even
putting babies on spikes, but... by line-dancing, with their helmets and
batons on the floor next to them and in full view of the public.
And the good times were legion... one of the best things about Brazil is
that all the men dance and many of them stunningly well, and just
watching them is completely mesmerising - but they grab you all the time
to dance with them, and for every sweaty beast we had to forcibly
repel, there was a smiling, friendly and occasionally stunning guy who
whirled you away, danced like a dream and left you out of breath, head
spinning, and grinning like a loon with the whole heady craziness of it
all.
Its the people in Brazil we really fell in love with... they are so
genuinely happy. We spent the last night in the enclosed area where the
TV cameras were, and their cabins were guarded by huge security men who
were under instructions not to allow mortals like us to use their
toilets. But even the most stony-faced refusal only lasted a few seconds
of our pleading desperation before they let us in with a smile, and the
best thing was this attitude wasnt just for rich tourists... I saw a
bus conductor laughing at a group of shouting, singing, drunken boys
trying to climb through the windows of his bus and eventually letting
them on for free, and loads of other similar incidents.
In other South American countries, when they ask where youve been and
you tell them Brazil, they smile and shake their heads and say that
Brazilians live only for Carnaval. And who are we to argue? We just
danced and drank all night, and lay on the beach all day, and consoled
ourselves for having to leave by promising wed be back next year.
Gees, it must be love - I cant stop going on about it. The last few
weeks have been a mad rush round the southernmost bits of the continent,
and inevitably slightly anticlimactic after such a blinding experience.
So Im going to have to bombard you with two emails in as many days to
catch up, as we leave S Am in a couple of days, but I promise to sound
less like a tediously besotted newlywed in the other one...
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