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 Dutch tourist Drey Urhahn watched in awe from a sidewalk in the historic Santa Teresa neighborhood as hundreds of members of the Carmelitas street samba group danced by him in flip-flops and black-and-white habits to thundering rhythms from a drum corps backed by a booming brass band.
"It's like a well-oiled machine," said Urhahn, 34, as he downed an ice-cold beer on a balmy Rio night after days of pre-carnival partying. "The sun, the naked women, it's crazy. I was drinking for a few days, so when it started, I was already exhausted, but the Brazilians keep going."
Rio's big carnival action comes on Sunday and Monday nights, when the city's top 12 samba groups mount spectacles at the 88,500-capacity Sambadrome featuring hundreds of drummers, thousands of dancers and about a dozen over-the-top parade floats.
Until then, street carnival groups - called "blocos" - own Rio's neighborhoods. As 80 drummers decked out in pink and green marched their way through the bohemian neighborhood of Lapa late Friday, a nearly naked women danced the samba behind them. Bars emptied as men spilled into the street to shimmy behind her.
Unlike the formal and intense competition at the Sambadrome, anything goes at the blocos, and they are becoming more and more popular because fans can join the fun.
Some blocos complain they have become overwhelmed by the huge crowds, who drown out the music and slow down their parades. Some have started keeping the time and location of the parades a secret.
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 Cordao de Bola Preta, one of the city's most traditional bloco carnival groups, expects some 600,000 people to turn out for their parade Saturday morning after drawing some 400,000 revelers last year.
"In reality, what we do is more like standing than parading, but we are a very democratic band and we always do our best to please the crowd," said Pedro Ernesto Araujo Marinho, Bola Preta's vice president.
One of the most popular blocos is "Suvaco de Cristo," or "Christ's Armpit," so-called because it parades in the shadow of Rio's mountaintop Christ the Redeemer statue. The group has stopped announcing when it will parade, and expects only 10,000 to 15,000 people.
"It was a very serious problem the year before last when we had 50,000 people in the streets, it made for an interminable parade," said Joao Regazzi Avelleira, the group's president.
For some, the madness is too much, and many well-heeled Rio residents flee before it starts. Even Rio de Janeiro Mayor Cesar Maia officially opened the carnival on Tuesday, while hardly anyone was partying, so he could jet to France for vacation.
[Associated
Press; By MICHAEL ASTOR]
Copyright 2007 The Associated
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