Still half asleep, I did briefly wonder if it was normal that I wasn’t alone in the Airbnb.

Oh, right. Feng, Mark.

I smiled and got up.

“Bank and haircut, right?”

Feng needed reais and Mark really needed a haircut. He has my thick Western hair—a great built-in insulated system for Canadian winter, awfully hot when it’s 35°C.

And these are probably the last normal things we’re going to do for a week.

Pré-Carnival is over, Carnival is starting, and we’re committed to going to as many blocos are possible. A bloco is a seemingly chaotic but, in fact, pretty organized themed street party—actually, most of the time, it’s the other way around, but never mind. In Rio de Janeiro, most blocos are massive. A few thousand to a million kind of massive. There are dozens of blocos from Friday to Wednesday all over the city so whether you want it or not, Carnival is taking over and you’re basically going from one bloco to the next. It starts at 7 a.m. and it doesn’t fucking end for five days.

The Carnival is a marathon, not a sprint. It pays off to organize. I filled up the fridge, we loaded our subway cards, we withdrew enough cash and, yes, Mark, this is a great haircut. Now we can forget about normalcy for a while. Thank God because normalcy really sucks these days.

At 2 p.m., we headed for our first Carnival 2025 bloco.

Foreign media and any Brazilian not living in Rio may have warned you that Rio de Janeiro is dangerous. It’s… kind of true. I wouldn’t say it’s dangerous per se but it’s definitely one of these “know where you’re going” kind of city. Rio proper isn’t that big. It’s an explosive mix of very rich people living in very rich neighbourhoods with favelas right above them, apparently not weighing on their conscience. Add drug trafficking, corruption, and plenty of clueless foreign tourists who are sometimes looking for more than nice beaches and a cultural experience, and you have a recipe for disaster.

I think I’ve been pretty much everything in Rio, including in a favela with someone who was living there. However, I do choose when to go where. For instance, it’s not a good idea to wander around downtown outside business hours and on weekends. It’s best to stick to the streets you know. And it’s wiser to avoid going uphill unless you know what you’re doing.

Well, one of the cool things about Carnival is that it’s the chance to explore unknown or more “dangerous” neighbourhoods. There are blocos in the most unlikely places. There’s safety in numbers, plus some police around—chances are, you will be fine if you can handle big crowds.

And this is why and how we climbed Santa Teresa Hill, close to downtown Rio.

Santa Teresa was an upper-class neighbourhood in the 18th, then anything but. Over the past few years, it has become somewhat of a cool bohemian chic neighbourhood but it’s still sketchy outside the main area. But hey, during a bloco, the many steep staircases, slopes, and tortuous alleys are safe, and the view is amazing.

We climbed uphill, which was more tiring but arguably safer than taking a moto-taxi.

And we waited for the bloco das Carmelitas.

Santa Teresa was once home to a Carmelite Covent. The story goes, that one of the nuns used to escape from the covent every year to party during Carnival. Carnival revellers would wear a religious habit so that no one would spot the naughty nun in the crowd. And of course, today, you will find plenty of “nuns,” “Pope” and other “clergymen” in the bloco.

The bloco was massive, especially for the small streets of Santa Teresa. It was hot, sunny, and the perfect way to kick off Carnival!