Carnival, properly

There are two ways to spend Carnival in Rio. One is to attend it. The other is to see it - a balcony, a single night of feathers, a flight that leaves while the city is still hoarse. Seeing it is legitimate. Calling it the same thing as going is not.

Going means the blocos. It means a shirt you can sweat through, a meeting point that does not depend on mobile data, and at least one afternoon in a crowd that is not performing for you. The famous street parades - Bola Preta among them, Simpatia é Quase Amor among them - draw their own cities. They are not a fallback for a failed Sambadrome ticket. They are the week.

Sambadrome tickets for the Grupo Especial are a paid spectacle with good sectors and bad ones. A ticket is not a plan until you know what your sector can see. Buy from official channels. A parade night rewards punctuality and punishes the belief that you will feel it out at the gate.

Dress for heat, even at night. Eat earlier than you would like. Keep the next morning empty. Use the judgment you would use in any dense, joyful, slightly overloaded city: pockets, friends, an exit. None of this is fear. It is how you stay long enough to actually hear the bateria.

And if you are covering it - a journalist, a host, a person with a camera and an audience - the standard is higher, not lower. Ask before you make a person into a costume. Credit the school, the neighborhood, the year of work. The feathers are the easy part.