Yeah, they were there. But not in the abundance that I first expected. I really kind of halfway thought everybody was gonna be naked.

Carol took this shot, because, remember, I didn’t have my camera this first night due to my chickenshittedness. I could have really done some damage with my camera on this particular model. Alas. Lesson learned. Duffel position #1 will take you anywhere.

The shots you see related to this first night are all lies, you know, but play along, because similarities between the two nights are identical. (huh?)

When we first got there, we headed up to the third floor to put our stuff in the condo. There were two elevators in the lobby to service the whole building, and they were constantly in use. They were kind of old fashioned in a cool retro way, because you had to open a regular door to get in, and they just reeked of an existence that OSHA would frown upon. It was scheduled for renovation, because there was a sign that said something in Portuguese like Pardon our Progress. Uh, Not Now. Soon. Each elevator had a maximum capacity of 6 people. A sign was posted saying such. And people actually OBEYED the sign! I couldn’t BELIEVE it! In America, each elevator would have been packed with enough drunk people for a long enough time to assure that each cable would snap and plunge the revelers to their doom. Lawsuits would ensue, blahblahblah.

When I was little I used to think that if you ever were in an elevator that was free-falling due to a snapped cable, if you would just jump up and down, there would be a fifty-fifty chance that you would be in the air when it hit, and after it did, you would return to the ground just as if you had been jump-roping. Har! I’m glad I never mentioned it to Robo. “Mr. Scientist” would have pelted me with words like “inertia” and “gravity” and “dipshit.”

The Cerqueira’s unit at Bahia Flats was cute as hell. It had a little bitty kitchenette-ette, a living room/dining room that consisted of a couch and a little round table. One step up was a king size bed with a big closet. There was an open bookshelf that divided the two rooms. The bathroom was big with new granite appointments (duh), and a great shower. It was amazing, and so freeking cozy, it reminded me of when we were kids and would build “forts” out of blankets and cushions and hole up in there.The balconette didn’t overlook the ocean. It overlooked the street one block back, which was thick with partiers, food and liquor stands, blasting music from distorted speakers, and people weaving through the throng with coolers on their shoulders, selling a beer every so often. You could have spent your whole time watching just that and have a good time.

The best feature of the place was the air conditioning. Oh yeah. It worked. And it was on.

We liquored up and headed downstairs, saying boa-noite to everybody we saw, Jean usually forgetting and saying obrigado instead. Which was doubly funny, because she was using the masculine form of obrigado, which would technically indicate to the listener that she was a man. Ha ha! Oh “Mr. Portuguese” was so cool with his “suado” and “beleza”. She could never keep up with ME!

Once on the first floor, the revelry hit you in the face like a blast of napalm. The terrace area of Bahia Flats was comfortably packed with genial folks eating, drinking, dancing, and knowing every word to every song that was being sung from the trios elétricos.

Uh-oh. Something else to fret about. Not only was the music incredible, and exactly what I was used to and expecting, but I wanted to know every song, too. The Brazilians totally embrace their stars, and rightly so, because they are an amazing bunch of entertainers. Ain’t a lip-syncher in the bunch. And it’s a grueling physical workout to perform live for that long without a break, in 95 degree weather. That probably helps explain why most of the women sing in rich, sexy, contralto voices. They may look like hummingbirds, but they sing like big fat robins.

It began to dawn on me pretty early that the people were there to have fun, but not in a crazy, excess, MTV-style way. I didn’t see anybody dog drunk at all! It may be that it was so hot that the liquor disappeared through their pores. But everybody was happy, not obnoxious. In the parades, there were a few extremists, but not many. And fights were nearly nonexistent. There were a couple, over the span of both nights, but the military police stepped in quickly and nipped it in the bud.

On our terrace, we were watched over by a couple of Bahia Flats security guys. They were incredible. Not only did they wear suits, they didn’t sweat, they thumb-upped you every time they saw you, and they kept everything on the up and up. There were a couple of them in the garage keeping it real down there. Every time we saw them, they smiled and gave us the secret sign. It was so nice to see, after some of the Barney Fife style security people in America that think they have more power than they actually do.

Oh didn’t we have the fun? Even the stupid Bacardi Gold wasn’t too bad, and the knot seemed to be mildly diverted with something else, so I got a little buzz and reveled in the music. I know when we got there late, there were some guys going down the street. Carol had casually mentioned that we were gonna see blahblahblah who was a big star in Brazil, and she was looking forward to blahblahblah coming by. I nodded, figuring it would be good, whatever it was. We went back to wiggling around to what turns out to be Alexandre Peixe followed by Guig Ghetto.

They were fun to listen to, and were rhythmic as all get out, but I didn’t snap to attention until Margareth Menezes came by with her Os Mascarados show. THIS was who Carol was waiting to see.  All of the blocos and pipocas had a name, and I figure that Os Mascarados must mean something like “the masqueraders”.

Wow! When Margareth appeared, I almost fell out. She had powerful Brazilian legs, and did that constant fast samba step that was not only sexy, but invigorating. She had a short dress on that looked like chocolate mousse around her waist. Her hair was a sienna mass of curls lit by the evening lights. In constant motion, she was a sight to behold. In her incredible contralto, she samba’ed and exhorted the crowd to action. On this first night, we didn’t know what all the entertainers were hollering, but we learned the next night.

Margareth’s music was part axé, part samba, part African. Her CD is called Afropopbrasileiro, and she means it. I didn’t know it at the time, but one of the songs that had transported me to nirvana that night was one of her big hits, “Dandalunda.” Yippee!

Here’s a picture of Margareth that Pettus took with her small Canon.

I’ll talk about the blocos and trios elétricos more in the second Carnaval installment, but I’ll show you an example of the vendors that roved through the blocos.

Guess who was next! VoaDois! Yeah! I couldn’t wait to see Katê and Fred! And hell yes they looked just like their pictures, and hell yes they were energetic as hell, and hell yes, at times I couldn’t tell when Katê was singing and when Fred was. They were great, though, and the sound was incredible. As a matter of fact, EVERYBODY’S sound was unbelievable. It was like the biggest, friendliest stereo of your fantasies traveling at a snail’s pace right in front of you, filling you with vibes that you could only get in that manner.

We were partying our asses off by this time. I was so incredibly suado and carefree! And here’s the kicker: there was no vomit ANYWHERE! Nobody was throwing up! You’d expect to see people by the tens marching down the street, spewing as they went. But NO. These people had fantastic governors on their bodies, I guess. They could party to the very maximum without ever really going over the edge. I could be totally wrong about this, but I don’t think so.

Meanwhile, VoaDois was kicking ass on top of a massive, corporate-sponsored machine that was propelling this party into the stratosphere.

I didn’t see Katê’s braces. I looked.

It was eventually time to go home, being about 1:30 or so. They do everything in military time there, so combined with the fact that I had no idea what time zone we were in, and never wear a watch, I’m only guessing. I just know it was late, and we still had to penetrate the human mass for a good twenty blocks before breaking free.

And we did! Carol’s expert piloting of the SUV, a fresh Bacardi Gold and soda, witticisms aplenty from Robo, Pettus, Jean, Daniel and Patricia, and we were home to a thumbs up and a soon-to-be-air-conditioned bedroom.

Nelson was up when we came in. We fixed another drink and Robo and I went into his library to see what was an until-then unseen part of the house. WOW! He had everything. In all languages! Robo and I marveled at every part of it. First of all, it was catalogued and shelved appropriately. I saw a bunch of books that I have actually read, many in two other languages. I was also able to bullshit my way through a few titles that I had heard of but not read. An advantage of hanging around a lot of English majors. I didn’t see any Hardy Boys. And he calls himself a “scholar”!

Off to bed in a cooling environment. Then there’s Jean setting that gol-durned Blackberry for God-knows-what hour. I hate that thing.