Bahia is the biggest carnival in the world with an estimated 2 million people dancing on the street at any one time. bahia is a city by the beach north of rio and is also known as salvador, the state of salvador is about the size of france. I got a flight from buenos aires for an extorsionate 500 dollars, and arrived at lunchtime on tuesday, i had organized with a mate damian, you may remember him from the stories from la paz, to stay in an apartment with him and four other geezers. fantastic apartment right in pelourinho in the historic quarter, the place had just been renovated and was lux with all new furniture, poor things, if only they knew the abuse it would get over the next week,there was two mancurians one swede per, me and a guy from bath he was a total alcoholic nutcase, and the start of the week i was a bit worried he would flip and break loads of stuff, by the end i was like, go for it go on smash the place up, its your deposit, one night i came back and damian was in bed in the main room, shawn was upstais with a girl, and per was on the spare matress, i sat on the sofa and started to read, well it was about 8am i was too knackered to go out again, there was a knock at the door, i thought, yes its jeramy, now were in for some fun, i opened the door and there he was, with blood all over his shirt, fresh stitches on his cheek, 5 mins later a scouse mate of his came round armed with beer and smokes and told us the story, it turned out j had hit and australian geezer for not saying hello, got arrested by the military police and marched through the crowd complete with a big silly hat and a pom pom, eventually he was let out, because the aussie didnt press charges so obviously not satisfied headed to a bar and started a fight with a big black guy, who turned round and smacked him, hence the stitches, we carried on drinking until 1 pm when we finally keeled over Jeramy quote of the week leaning over a girl asleep in his bed who he didnt know, "oi! fuck me or fuck off!" nice chat up line!
Bahia carnival 2000
Check out the picture, me and some of the posse are circled ( very faintly) , click on it for a bigger one, me and alex are wearing brazil bandaners
Trios electricos
Trios are massive trucks, bigger than would be allowed in britain with a stage buit on the top of them, and speakers all the way around them and built in generators, i reacon theres about 60 to 80 k of surprisingly good sound system on board they dont go much on lights, but some have lasers ect, the sound level is massive, an enviromental health geezer from england would freak, each one of these is the centrepoint of the "bloco" where there is between 2500 and up to 6000 nutters dancing in a roped off area safe from the hooligans in the outer crowd, about 40m behind is another truck that has toilets dance platforms bar and more speakers, i joined one of these called"fala goroto" and it was awesome, there is about 70 trucks in total, so it gives you an idea of the scale of the event, i would reccomend bloco timbalada, if anyone goes, they seemed to go even crazier than anyone else, and the music was top class, it takes a bit of getting used to , but the precussion and audiance participation on that scale, you cant help but be sucked in.
Gettin mugged!
Gettin mugged in carnival for a green gringo such as ourselfs isnt a matter of if, its a matter of how and how often, when the blocos pass you as you can see in the photo theres lots of dodgy people and a big crush, on the first night out we set off and saw a big bloco called odolum since renamed "the doom" and we figured we could just overtake it to get nearer the centre of things, bad move, all of us got our pockets searched in the crush, theres just nothing you can do, and there were big fights breaking out, so we shot off down a side alley in the hope we could go round the block in front of it, the others went ahead and i could see them, i thought good chance to take a leak, as i finished 3 blokes jumped me and started pulling me around i just thought there is no way im going out like this and faught like fuck, i didnt realise i had it in me and i guess they had easier prey to get on with so the let me go without getting anything.dont let this put you off though, cos after we sussed out the ground rules, none of us had any more fuss for the other 5 days n nights of fun. the rules are
1. Dont carry anything except beer money and fags, no watch jewelry ect obvio!
2. Aviod side streets on your own, unless your nutter,
3. when a trio comes along get right on the side and let it pass, unless its the doom, in which case run.
4.drink a lots of caiperinas then nothing matters anyway!