O Brasil É Lindo Maravilhoso

Of the five of us who went to Carnaval in Rio, the one in sparkly shorts was my husband.

Three friends, one week, zero chill

Some friends send a postcard. Mine got on a plane.

This week Yvonne, Tamara and Missy came to Brazil to experience the ride, and I am still a little stunned that three people I love rearranged their lives to stand in a street with me and lose their voices. I am honored, humbled, and frankly flattered. Amazing humans, all three.

And then there is Jay, who looked at the dress code for the biggest party on earth and answered it in sequins. You rock the sparkly shorts, my love. Nobody else could have.

The biggest party on earth (I checked)

It gets called the biggest party on earth, and it did not disappoint.

A small confession from the fact-checking department: Recife, up the coast, holds the Guinness record for the single largest Carnaval bloco, the Galo da Madrugada. So I will choose my words carefully. Biggest party. Not biggest parade. Rio has the numbers to back that up anyway: the city counted roughly 8 million people across its 2023 Carnaval, about 6 million of them out in the street blocos.

And 2023 was not just any year. It was the first time in two years the street blocos had come back, after the pandemic cancellations, and you could feel it. We cheered on parade-goers of every background and every age, which is the whole point of a bloco: there is no audience and no stage, just a band, a route, and everyone who decides to follow it.

Why Carnaval keeps moving (blame the moon)

Here is the thing nobody tells you when you try to plan this trip: Carnaval does not have a date. It has a formula.

Carnaval ends on Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, and Ash Wednesday opens Lent. Lent leads to Easter. So Carnaval is pinned to Easter, landing exactly 47 days before it.

And Easter is pinned to the moon. The rule goes back to the Council of Nicaea in 325 and was rebuilt for the Gregorian calendar in 1582: Easter is the first Sunday after the first "ecclesiastical" full moon on or after March 21. That moon is not quite the one in the sky. It comes from church tables that track the real moon more or less, and the equinox is fixed on March 21 whatever the sun is actually doing. The result is that Easter can fall anywhere from March 22 to April 25, and Carnaval swings with it, from early February to early March.

In 2023 the math landed early. Easter was April 9, so Fat Tuesday was February 21, and on Ash Wednesday, February 22, the scores from the Sambódromo judges were read out. Imperatriz Leopoldinense won with a parade about the afterlife of the outlaw Lampião, its first title in 22 years, by one tenth of a point.

Fun twist for those of us who live in Denmark: Copenhagen runs on the same formula. Fastelavn, with its buns and the barrel you whack open, is the Danish branch of the same pre-Lent family tree. Same moon. Considerably fewer sequins.

Everything else we packed into one week

Carnaval was the headline, but the week had a whole supporting cast.

Poolside mornings, to recover. Beach walks, to recover from the recovering. We ate food none of us had tried before and drank caipirinhas, which in Brazil are not just a cocktail but a legal category: the federal beverage regulation in force at the time defined a caipirinha as cachaça, lime and sugar, and nothing else gets the name.

Then we went looking for the green. The Atlantic Forest, the Mata Atlântica, is the rainforest that runs down Brazil's coast, and it is where we snorkeled off coastlines that looked retouched and showered in waterfalls, which is the only shower I have ever taken where I did not want to get out.

And we saw Jesus. Specifically Christ the Redeemer, 30 meters of Art Deco concrete and soapstone on an 8 meter pedestal, standing on top of Corcovado at about 710 meters, arms open over the city since October 12, 1931. Everybody's photo looks the same up there. Everybody takes it anyway. So did we.

Then we danced. All across Rio, in every neighborhood that would have us.

If you go

• Check the moon before you book. Carnaval moves every year with Easter. Fat Tuesday falls on February 9 in 2027 and February 29 in 2028, so build your dates from that, not from last year's.
• Pick blocos, not just the Sambódromo. The Sambódromo parades are ticketed and spectacular. The blocos are free, everywhere, and where the city actually dances. Riotur publishes the official bloco schedule each year, with times and meeting points.
• Book a bed early. Hotels in Rio were about 87 percent full over Carnaval 2023.
• Ash Wednesday is not a rest day. It is results day. If you are still in town, the reading of the scores at the Sambódromo is its own kind of spectator sport.
• Christ the Redeemer has weather. The statue sits high enough that clouds can swallow it whole. Go early, and have a backup morning.

The drums do not stop when the party does

The moon decides when Carnaval starts. As far as I can tell, nothing decides when it ends. I still have samba drums beating in my head, and an appreciation for the culture of this beautiful place that I suspect is permanent.

O Brasil é lindo maravilhoso. Bring sparkly shorts.