The entire city shuts down for almost two weeks. Lots of students have already stopped coming to school. Many of their families go on vacation and leave the country. Even after Carnaval, some don't make it back until March.
Traffic is impossible. Forget trying to make a doctor's appointment, have your phone line fixed, basically get anything done.
Dan and I considered going to see the music and the parades, but finally decided against it. It's expensive (a couple hundred dollars, once you count transportation), and once you're there, you can't leave. I don't do well with crowds or hours of loud music. From what I hear, squalor and sexual harassment are other big draws.
My thinking originally had been, Oh, you're in Salvador, you have to at least see it once.
But the older and more curmudgeonly I get, the more I think, I don't have to see anything for the sake of crossing it off my list. If I know it will be more trouble than it's worth, why bother?
And after the past few weeks we've had, the only thing I want to do during these days off is catch up on sleep. And maybe go to the pool and the beach a few times.
4 comments:
I raise my glass of bitters to a fellow curmudgeon. Fuddy duddy, stick in the mud, homebody, goody-goody---I've been called them all. And you know what? My life is (mostly) happy and calm. I'm with you: serenity and rest make the best Carnivale of all. Hope it's a great one.
I understand your reticence to go out in the madness, but Carnaval is not necessarily an expensive endeavor- one of the things I love about it is that it can be enjoyed for absolutely nothing- you can see all of the biggest names in Bahian music for free, putting on shows of up to six hours long. Of course, you have to be right in the thick of things to do it that way. Paying the hundreds of reis can buy you a degree of comfort and security, although it can still get pretty crazy. Yeah, if you don't like crowds and loud music for hours on end then you did the right thing.
Markuza--yeah, that's the problem. We didn't want to shell out the money for (relative) comfort and security, and certainly couldn't see doing the mayhem of the alternative. I know people love it. More power to them. Just not for me.
Whitney: hear, hear. To serenity and fuddy duddiness.
Here's to curmudgeons!
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