I’m ahead of schedule—I started crying tonight while packing.

Carnival is ending, we’re taking the bus to São Paulo in the morning because the guys are flying back to Canada on Saturday, and I’m starting the last chapter of the riveting novel I started when we arrived in Rio de Janeiro—for someone who has a hard time with endings, this is a bit too much.

It’s been a good day, though, and we ended Carnival in the best possible way.

Nothing is really clean, no one is really fresh on the fourth day of Carnival—we don’t even drink but I feel hungover. The sun is too bright, the streets too crowded, and the music too loud.

“I don’t think there’s any bloco going on right now,” Feng said when I woke up. “I mean, it started at 8 a.m. in Centro but…”

“Yeah, no, I’m tired.”

We decided to go to Copacabana to enjoy the beach. It was a lovely day actually, with not a cloud in the sky. It’s quite miraculous, it didn’t rain at all during Carnival, even though chances of rain were very high according to my weather app and Rio logic.

Half of the city was also on Copacabana beach where the waves were very strong. It must have been a lifeguard nightmare—the red chopper kept on flying low above the sea to make sure the few crazy people venturing into the winter weren’t drowning.

We left around 4 p.m.

“This is it?”

“I guess it is.”

But of course, it wasn’t. A bloco was forming on Avenida Princesa Isabel in Copacabana, and when we got off at Largo do Machado, we realized another bloco was… starting? Finishing? Impossible to say. The entire neighbourhood was packed.

I wanted to go to Centro where, guess what more blocos were scheduled. I didn’t really have the energy to party but this was an opportunity to explore parts of Rio we don’t know well because they’re not typically super safe.

Feng and I took a quick shower and got dressed—by that, I mean glitter and Carnival clothing, obviously.

“Have fun, guys!”

Mark was staying home for this one.

We took the subway and got off at Uruguaiana, right in the downtown core. It was already 6 p.m.

The vibe in Centro is “you really shouldn’t be there”—empty streets, abandoned buildings, urban decay and a sense of despair. Mind you, at the same time, it’s oddly beautiful and fascinating.

We started looking for the bloco and I started questioning our sanity.

We found it quickly enough otherwise I would have turned around.

The mix of people was fascinating, with quite a few “rich” kids getting off taxis—probably their first time in Centro as well.

We decided to walk back all the way to Largo do Machado and to stop at the Museu do Amanhã, a good photo opportunity. A few blocks further, we stumbled upon another… wait, it wasn’t even a bloco, more like a giant crowded mess with Carnival floats parked in the middle of the streets, people in sambodromo parade costumes, tables full of booze and more. Suddenly, a group started drumming, while another was busy drawing white tribal symbols on their skin before the show.

We wandered around—the crowd was quite rowdy, hence the picture quality, taken with my phone.

We ended up in Cinelândia where apparently all the sambodromo parade participants had ended up as well, many of them still wearing their bulky colourful costumes. It was quite chaotic in a lovely way but it was also time for us to go because we still had to walk back in the dark through some dodgy areas.

We made it to Catete, where we had to cross yet another bloco.

Then it started raining. This was probably the only way to end Carnival for good.

We took a shower and started a last load of laundry—the “very dirty” setting was a good idea but it took forever for the machine to do the job, which gave me the opportunity for a good cry between cooking and packing.

We have the six-hour-long bus ride to São Paulo tomorrow to recover from Carnival.