So… another installment in the Rio Carnival story; an (almost) complete recounting of one evening. The evening started innocently enough. After spending most of the day on the beach in the sun, we all went as a group to a Brazilian Churrascaria, think Fogo de Chau. For ~$13 you get access to an endless meat parade. Guys with spits of beef, pork, buffalo, and assorted other meats walk by your table and carve off whatever you point to. Ummm. After dinner it was back to the apartment for drinks. You would be amazed at how many Caiparinas a group of 13 can go through.

With everyone suitably primed it was a little early to go out (11pm) but we wanted to make the most of the evening so we headed off to the club we had picked out for the evening. Fortunately it was close enough that we could walk from the apartment. On the way there RJ and I and two English girls made a detour to find an ATM. After some searching we had found nothing open, there was one (HSBC) that said it was 24 hours and appeared to be open but the door was locked. The girls and I had given up and were walking away but RJ decided to try and force it open (pretty obviously a bad idea). After some jostling, he gets it open and beckons us back. About 5 seconds after entering the lobby (predictably) lights and sirens start going off. One of the girls tried her card and it didn’t work so we decided to scram before the police showed up; not the kind of story that you want to explain in Portuguese. So if you hear things about the crime rate in Rio, I can say that I made my contribution.

After the bank robbery (not something I thought I would ever start a sentence with), we met up with the rest of the group at he club, unfortunately since it was early it was slow, so we decided to go searching for the best party. We walked along Ipanema beach and saw a big party, things looked promising. As we got closer and closer I became more suspicious... rainbow flags… mostly dudes… way too enthusiastic dancing… I didn’t think it was out kind of party. The rest of the group insisted on checking it out, I waited by the road and when they came back about 5 minutes later I had the chance to say I told you so.

What is a group of 13 to do? That is at least 3 taxi’s and trying to get them all to the same place can be quite a challenge. Solution.. illegal mini-bus. We flagged one down and all piled in. And so began our transportation odyssey for the evening. Next stop… another beach party of the non-gay variety. However, it seemed really mellow and the common theory among our group is that everyone was stoned out of their minds. So after a while there, we all got back in another mini-bus and headed to another club (minus 2 people from the group who decided to “hang out for a while”).

This club was not exactly what we were looking for either. There seemed to be a disproportionately high number of old people and Japanese tour groups coming out. We didn’t want to pay the cover so we stood out on the street and had a few beers while we were deciding what to do. There was this crazy old dude with a cute puppy hanging out of his backpack who kept lurking around and trying to get us to finish our beers because he wanted the empty cans. He and this old lady almost got into a fight about who got to keep our empties. About this time the idea of paying prostitutes to have sex with bums came up out of nowhere. Mercifully the conversation moved on and we decided to find away back closer to home.

Not being able to find a mini-bus and having no success negotiating with the taxi drivers, we managed to find yet another mode of transportation for the evening. There was a tour coach parked out in front of the club. I am sure that the driver was waiting for a group of Japanese grandmas to come out all sauced up on caiparinas ready to be shuttled back to their hotel. However, right now he was just waiting there and you know what? He could use an extra $20. After a bit of negotiating we were off again only this time were rolling in style. This coach came complete with nice seats (one for each person, amazing!), air conditioning, and a tour guide microphone/PA system. After some insanely fast driving and a few rounds of sing along we were guess where? Right back at the club where we had started the evening.

Fortunately since it was ~2am at this time the party was in full force. We spent the rest of the night dancing to mostly hip-hop. Around 3:30am a samba band and dancers showed up and started doing their thing. It was quite a show, costumes and the whole bit. My favorite move was when a guy who looked like an older, skinnier Samuel L Jackson, used one of the female dancer’s backside to hit a tambourine. Like I said, quite a show. They actually pulled one of the girls in our group up on the stage and had her shakin’ it like a pro. Finally, as happened every night on the trip, the sun started to light the early-morning sky to let us know it was time to go home and get a little sleep before doing it all over again.

That was just one night, it tired me out just typing it here. If you’ve never been to Carnival, you really need to go.