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Rio abuzz with Carnival parades

An army of Carnival revelers lead a brightly lit float, complete with fireworks, for the "Portela" samba school up the runway of the Sambadrome stadium during a late-evening parade in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. PHOTO: REUTERS

Sabre-toting Moors in blue and gold feather turbans and African slaves surrounded by three-storey camels and giraffes burst into the sweltering Rio night on Sunday, marking the start of the city's fanciful Carnival parades.

Swept along by deafening drums, giant floats shaped like a mosque and a Jewish temple rumbled down the Sambadrome -- a 700m-long avenue lined with spectator stands.

"We have a destiny to fulfill -- to shine in Carnival," the thousands of paraders belted out in unison as swarms of dancers wearing little more than feathers and body paint left clouds of glitter behind them.

Over the next two days, Rio's top 14 samba schools will compete for the champion title of Brazil's showcase Carnival parade.

Rio succumbed to the annual five-day pre-Lenten period of dancing, singing, sex and drinking on Friday by handing the symbolic key to "The Wonderful City," as Brazilians lovingly call Rio, to the 135kg Carnival king Momo.

Before Sunday night, the bulk of festivities took place in the streets, where hordes of fun-seekers danced in wild, thunderous street processions to the sounds of hundreds of drums.

Now Rio will shine in the famous two-night pageant of elite samba schools, which will be broadcast worldwide.

Thousands of paraders will dance tirelessly down the Sambadrome strip to a chosen samba tune performed by armies of drummers as they show off shining costumes that often reveal the perfect bodies of bare-breasted "beauty queens."

King Momo will preside over the parades and present an award to the winning school at the end of the jamborees. Movie stars and sports icons were expected to view the colorful show from the Sambadrome benches and VIP stands, including Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen, action film hero Arnold Schwarzenegger and Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona.

This year the world's most famous Carnival also promises to be the biggest ever in terms of visitors, according to organizers. They expect some 336,000 tourists, many of whom will parade at the Sambadrome after buying costumes that range in price from US$75 to US$15,000.

Apart from dancers and musicians, thousands of people work in the Carnival industry, sewing costumes, gluing together fiberglass parts of the floats or simply helping to push them along Rio's avenues toward the Sambadrome.

Carnival, which captured attetion of the whole nation of 170 million, has eclipsed a series of political and prison crises in Brazil, some of which were reflected in Carnival themes.

One float showed the figure of a man in prison zebra stripes sitting on a wall.

The design was a clear reference to Brazil's biggest-ever massive prison rebellion, which left 19 people dead a week ago and yet again underscored such perennial issues as filthy, overcrowded jails and police brutality.
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