Day 4: Bloco party!

After bedtime at 6am this morning, we were up at noon for the next event!

Walked through Flamengo park, along the beach to a bloco (block/neighborhood party, which, as you will see, puts our block parties TO SHAME!)


Coolest tree! Called a bomb tree (don't recall the translation). The unique flowers are very fragrant but the fruit is not good.


Pickle ball court on the beach, with Sugar Loaf Mountain in the background.


Sgto. do Pimenta Bloco in Flamengo area.



We got there about 2pm; there were a few thousand people there... But within a few hours we found out THAT was just the beginning!






Corn!


Cute costumes- nurse and patient!


Hello, Beef & Barley Days! I'm going to make these tasty treats instead of jello shooters this year... In all kinds if fruit flavours, they're basically frozen fruit Popsicles with booze... Equals YUM!


By 4:30pm there were probably 20,000+ people, and still a constant flow of people going in. Above shows just one side (there were about double this, at just 4:30pm).

We then decided to head back to the Sambadrome, as it was night #2. Although we have tickets to the second night (where the second group of six schools compete), we wanted to take in the atmosphere outside the Sambadrome that we missed the first night.

There were all kinds of street music and food. We tried three puff-pastries; one stuffed with meat, one with cheese, and one chicken. We passed on the hot dogs and popcorn, as those are everywhere here. Next was a skewer of fried cheese... Yum! (You can't seriously ever go wrong with cheese!) Then we had some crepes (not to be confused with creeps- thank you, spell check (not!), for an almost-hilarious error.) One crepe was filled with chicken, and one with bacon and cheese. Mom tried a really cool thing; a skewer with ham and melted cheese on the inside, with a light batter overtop (think melted ham and cheese sandwich in corn dog form, but even better!)

By now the first school of tonight was done performing, and they were beginning to ditch their costumes all along the road (whatever they don't want to take home that doesn't make it in the garbage trucks at the end of the parade route they just put on the street for people to take, reuse, clean up, etc). So, we found Mom an AWESOME costume!!!



Haha!!! LOVE IT! I really think she should wear it to the Gay Ball Scala tomorrow night (after all, we are on live national TV when we enter the Ball!)

We then made our way to the gates at the end of the route, where the paraders exit the Sambadrome...


We found an alternate hat for Mom's costume...


I found a hat of my own! This baby should keep the sun off my shoulders! Yeehaw!

We waited for the second school to finish- many cool costumes, but none fitting for the Gay Ball. It was very neat to see the people and costumes so up close, though... What a lot of work!


Then a Pinocchio float came out this way (they usually go opposite).


Also very neat to see up close.

They use cranes to get people off the tops of the floats!!

At 2-3:00am we called it a night. Tucked into our cozy room (of four single beds lined up against the wall) it was bedtime!

(Thank you, again, spell check... "Single beds" almost became "agile beds"... You might be entertaining but you're not very good at this, Spell Check! Lol)