Carnaval 2009: Florianopolis, Brazil

We were told that the Carnaval parties in Florianopolis, Brazil do not compare to the scale of the ones in Rio, and if that’s true, all I can say is that the ones in Rio must be amazing!  In Floripa, the Carnaval parties started on Friday and went until Tuesday (just before Ash Wednesday).  There were many ways of celebrating carnaval here:

  • All the nightclubs had international DJs playing (Armijn van Buuren, Kaskade, Dave Seaman, and Erick Morillo to name a few) and crazy cover charges!  It was US $150 for guys at Erick Morillo.
  • There were a lot of street parties and beach parties.  The beach near us, Pantano do Sol, had a live band, food and drinks for 4 nights straight.
  • In Centro (downtown), there were 4 nights of samba parades.  They started at 9pm and went until after 5am in the morning!  Each samba school would parade through a set of bleachers and boxes to show off their music, dancing, costumes, and floats.  They were judged and the winners came back on the final night.

The parades were pretty spectacular and we’ve included some of our photos here. Enjoy!