Carnaval

If you saw the recent animated movie "RIO"you know all about Carnaval in Brazil. It's like Mardi Gras on steroids PLUS! Like Mardi Gras, it's a reason to party big-time before Lent. Rio de Janiero and Salvador have the biggest celebrations, but Sao Paulo isn't far behind. In fact, there's a big Sambadrome near the CTM where the competition is held. Yes, competition.
The various Samba schools work all year planning a theme, Samba music, and costumes for the once a year event. They are judged as they dance, sing, and parade through the Sambadrome (above). Many schools are followed much like a sports team. Amazingly enough, it's the people in the favelas that are the biggest participants and supporters of this event.
 Anyway, this is the biggest celebration of the year here and tourists are encouraged to join in by buying a costume (anywhere from $400 to $980) to march in the parade. You can see that these costumes are a costume designer's dream come true as they try to design the most colorful, gaudiest, over the top outift possible. As you can imagine, there's lots of immodest outfits, drinking and partying going on.

Is it any wonder that the LDS Youth Conferences are all planned for this weekend?
 Get them out of town!

This head dress is displayed in the mall near us.

Another head dess from last year's Carnival

One of the very colorful outfits.
(Doesn't show as much on real people)

I'm not sure how they walk in some of these.

This would also be hard to walk in.

These dresses are coated in jewels and must be unbelievably heavy!

Parading down the Sambadrome