One word is needed: CARNAVAL

As Emily and I sit here trying to reflect on Carnaval we really do not know where to start.  To say the least Carnaval is AMAZING!  Street Parades, Parties, Samba, Music, Guys dressed up as girls, Parades of floats, general feeling of excitement, etc.  Really we have absolutley no way to describe it all so we decided to just upload a few pictures as a preview on the blog and even though we weren't planning on uploading any pictures to facebook until we got back from South America, we decided to make an exception for Carnaval Parade Picture.  The rest of our Carnaval pics somewhere near 150, I think, can be seen here... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2861229&id=13900087&l=c1dde39e28

-Brett

Street Party in the city that was about 6 square blocks big (aka HUGE)

One (of many) amazing floats during the parade, note: it is covered in dancers

Another Amazing Float, and yes that is an actual working fountain in the middle and the lions arms all moved

A sample of the many groups (probably more then 100) that danced in crazy costumes between the floats. 

One of the couples of Samba Dancers which also went along in the parade

Each Samba School (Emily will explain in her post) had a band who walked the parade route and sang the whole time for their Samba School (usually around 1.5 hours) and accompanied by a large drum corps. 

One of the used costumes that Emily found discarded after the parade (about 6:30am)