Rio Carnaval 2014 – Off to Paquetá!

Arriving on Paquetá, we were struck by the tranquil atmosphere due to the lack of cars and motorbikes.

Well, I’m officially in a full-on carnival state of mind! Last Saturday, some friends and I went to a bloco called Pérola de Guanabara (Pearl of Guanabara) which was held on the island of Paquetá. Paquetá is a small island in Guanabara Bay that you can visit by taking a 1:15hr ferry ride from Praça 15. It was my first visit to the island so I was already pretty excited, but to combine it with my first bloco of 2014 was an extra bonus. Little did I know that the highlight of this special day would be the ferry ride home!

The island of Paquetá. Map from Google.

The ferry ride itself is pretty cool – you see the Rio-Niterói bridge up close and you also get a real feel for just how massive Guanabara Bay is. We piled off the ferry and wandered the car- and motorbike-free streets – with sun filtering through the leafy trees, everything felt very calm and tranquil.

With no cars or motorbikes, the streets are ruled by bikes, rickshaws and pedestrians (and pigeons).

Of course once we got to the bloco, all that tranquillity evaporated, replaced by noisy carnival fun and excitement. I won’t give you a blow-by-blow account of the day but I will say that everyone had a great time – hopefully you can see that from the photos.

I always like these Estandartes (standards) and it was nice to see someone had made one to honour Nelson Mandela. Given our location, Iemanjá (goddess of the sea) also seemed appropriate.

Look! Someone dressed as cheese! More of him later…

An estandarte from 2011.

This year I’ve been so busy in the run-up to carnival that I didn’t have much time to sort out a fantasia (carnival costume), but just as we were leaving the house I was hit by a stroke of inspiration. A foam goldfish (cannibalised from a previous carnival costume), a piece of bamboo, some sparkly string and a hat meant that I was just about recognisable as a fisherman. It wasn’t until I got to the bloco that I found out how much people enjoy playing with a goldfish on a string! Kids (of all ages!) would grab the fish, bat it around a bit and generally get up to mischief – having an interactive costume really adds to the fun!

After a long day in the sun, we finally caught the 8.30pm ferry back to Rio. Now then, here’s a recipe: Take several hundred happy bloco attendees, all dressed up and excited from the day’s partying, pack them onto a ferry and sprinkle in a few musical instruments. The result is a slice of pure carnival gold. At first a couple of guys took out their cavaquinhos (a stringed instrument resembling a ukulele) and started playing, then some pandeiros (tambourines) appeared and in 2 minutes, everyone was singing along and dancing. Here’s a little taster:

It’s moments like these that make Rio Carnival such a magical experience. Now I am left wondering if I just had my best moment of carnival 2014 before the main event got going, or whether this is going to be the best carnival ever!