The Next Big Gay Party: Brazilian Carnival!
In February, Brazil will stop for five consecutive days. It’s Carnaval, a Catholic holiday that hasn’t been much used to pray.
Brazilians grow up following bands playing typical songs on the streets during Carnaval. Everybody dresses up as angels, devils, ballerinas, clowns, going down to the streets to have fun drinking and dancing with friends. For five days, everybody leaves their problems on hold to celebrate the Carnival. It can also be considered the biggest gay party of the year.
At the beginning of December, people start to make plans for the event, usually in February. Sometimes it happens in March as it follows the Catholic calendar, and it always happens 40 days before Easter. Many Brazilians use this holiday to travel inside the country, so hotels in cities like Rio and Sao Paulo get fully booked fast. In some places, there are big events on the streets. Many of them are created and followed by the LGBTQA+ community. So, if Carnival is itself a good party, in a gay bloco is much better. Bloco is the word in Portuguese for block, and in this case, it is a name given to a group of people following a singer or a band down the streets in the Carnival. Only in Sao Paulo, there are more than 600 of these groups around the city. It’s a diversity in…
