The smell of beer permeates the city and sobriety was last seen five days ago.

I look at people wearing plain a t-shirt and jeans suspiciously—bunch of outcast…

I’m starting to question the traditional concept of gender and my own sexual identity.

My feet start moving every time I hear drums, even if it’s just a cellphone ring.

When I see two people close enough, opposite or same sex, I feel like shouting, “BEIJA, BEIJA!” (“Kiss, kiss!”).

I can’t remember the last time I saw someone drinking water.

Empty streets scare me.

Carnival is the new normal but it’s the last day of it—at least, until the weekend, when more blocos de rua are scheduled.

Fat Tuesday was packed with blocos. I started to make a list but it was pointless—too many of them happening at the same time. I just went to Centro and hope for the best. Mind you, crowds of hundreds of thousands aren’t terribly hard to find.

I started with Bloco da Massa Real, featuring pretty good Bahia music and a live band. Then I bumped into the feminist Bloco da Pagu with its 140 drummers, all women, of course. This bloco was so big I had to climb on top of street furniture to just… survive. I caught it again a few hours later and this time I was able to make my way closer to the drummers.

Meanwhile, the Bloco da TchaKa was starting to gather a fun crowd around the eponymous drag queen.

I ended the day on rua August, partying with the Bloco da Salete Campari and didn’t quite make it to the Airbnb before the traditional evening downpour.

Even though blocos are largely a daytime event, I need a good night’s sleep…

Bloco da Massa Real, Largo do Paissandu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Massa Real, Largo do Paissandu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Massa Real, Largo do Paissandu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Massa Real, Largo do Paissandu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Massa Real, Largo do Paissandu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Massa Real, Largo do Paissandu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Massa Real, Largo do Paissandu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Massa Real, Largo do Paissandu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Tchaka, Centro, São Paulo
Centro, São Paulo
Centro, São Paulo
Centro, São Paulo
Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco Pagu, Centro, São Paulo
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
Bloco da Salete Campari, São Paulo rua Augusta,
The 5 p.m. downpour, Brigadeiro, São Paulo
The 5 p.m. downpour, Brigadeiro, São Paulo

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9 Comments

  1. Barry Robinson February 27, 2020 at 7:56 am

    C’est dans quelle ville?

    Reply
    1. Zhu February 27, 2020 at 12:59 pm

      Check the title 😉

      Reply
  2. Shandara February 27, 2020 at 3:25 pm

    Beautiful pictures… tu es en vacances ou tu es partie vivre là-bas? Je vais de ce pas voir les autres billets 😀

    Reply
    1. Zhu February 28, 2020 at 12:16 am

      Just escaping winter, home is still Canada! 😉

      Reply
  3. Martin Penwald February 27, 2020 at 10:00 pm

    > I’m starting to question the traditional concept of gender and my own sexual identity.

    We have been educated in a strict binary world, and it fucked a lot of people. I don’t have doubt on mine, but by some ways, it is slightly off standard cisgender heteronormativity that still fills most current cultures. Example: when I was young (en école primaire), I like rather play with the girls because i didn’t like boy’s games, but i didn’t have any doubt that i was a boy. I was maybe a little bit bullied about it, but nothing awful.
    Boys learn early that they have to show they are Real Men™, I annoyingly see that in my nephew. And it’s learned at school, not at home. I didn’t pick that, but it seems not that common.

    Reply
    1. Zhu February 28, 2020 at 12:20 am

      Yeah, I was being ironic, I’ve been questioning the traditional concept of gender for longer than this. I also see with Mark that kids are taught (or they pick it up) that some stuff are “girl stuff” and other “boy stuff”. It does make me proud that he finds me strong (and he doesn’t add “for a girl”!) and that Feng does his share of housework.

      We would have never played together at school… I had way more guy friends than girl friends 😆 I hated being with girls, so much gossip…

      Reply
      1. Martin Penwald February 28, 2020 at 10:45 am

        Ah, no, no gossip. Just playing.

        Reply
  4. Cara March 9, 2020 at 8:57 am

    I love that you show us another side of carnival in Brazil – I mean, when I think of carnival there I picture women wearing shiny bras and thongs and a lot of feathers… you probably know what I mean (kind of hard to explain in English for me 😉 Now I know that carnival is so much more ! Or does every city / region have different traditions ?

    Reply
    1. Zhu March 10, 2020 at 2:29 am

      There are basically two Carnivals. The official one, the most famous one abroad, is the parade of samba schools at the “sambodromo” (basically a long stadium built for parades). This is what you have in mind 🙂 It’s a competitition and its held in most major cities, Rio being most famous abroad. Tickets can be super expensive and the parades last for hours. We got cheap tickets a couple of times, last time in 2018: https://correresmidestino.com/rio-carnival-2018-day-1-samba-schools-parade-at-the-sambodromo/

      Then there’s the “Carnival da rua”, the street Carnival. It developed over the past twenty years mostly because so few Brazilians were able to attend the official Carnival at the sambodromo. Street Carnival is made up of “blocos” (street parties), some of them huuuuge, like hundreds of thousands. Salvador is famous for its Carnival da rua, the biggest street party in the world.

      Reply

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