Down and dirty at Brazil Carnival

Source: Reuters

Near one of Brazil's most traditional colonial towns, a bizarre Carnival craze erupts each year - a "parade" in which the only costume required is layers of thick, dark, sticky mud.
"I feel very primitive. You feel like running through the woods and doing war chants," said 23-year-old Chris White, a tree surgeon from New Zealand who was covered in the earth-scented goo from head to toe.
He was one of hundreds of foreign tourists and Brazilians who flocked to a beach near the picturesque town of Paraty on Saturday to frolic in the soft blue-black mud which is said to have been used by indigenous Indians for medicinal purposes.
Young couples in swim suits decorate one another with the mud, writing their names or the names of their favorite football teams across their chest. The more creative make skirts or crowns out of leaves and the romantic use flowers to add a splash of color. "Warriors" covered in bush carrying sticks also make an entry on top of mud-covered horses.
While revelers in Rio de Janeiro, some 250 km to the northeast, dress up in elaborate costumes for street parties known as "blocos" and watch dazzling samba parades, partiers here prefer to celebrate more simply with Mother Nature.
"It feels really nice. I keep touching it. I love getting messy," 29-year-old Briton Sally Fordham said with a cheeky smile.
And messy it certainly is. The mangrove area lies flat and still in a smooth and glittery glow in the morning sunlight but looks more like a well trampled pigsty by sunset.
To a background of music ranging from electronic to tribal, revelers dive and splash in the thick dough-like mass, throwing it at those too shy to take part. One enthusiast embodied the primitive spirit with such gusto that he even had a taste of it.
Growing mud craze
The mud craze dates back to 1986 when friends smeared the stuff on their bodies to stave off insects as they caught crabs in the swampy area. They dared each other to run covered in mud around Paraty's historic center, which at more sober times hosts an annual international literary festival.
"It's a totally different thing, lots of people getting dirty and each year they incorporate more things - algae, bull skulls, red smoke," Amaury Barbosa, Paraty's secretary of tourism and culture said.
"It has been growing."
A cross between an electronic rave and a hippy festival, the event culminates in a group parade up and down Jabaquara beach as revelers chant "uga uga ha ha" as red smoke billows.
Some locals say that the mud parade has helped keep real estate construction away from the beach by calling attention to the eco-system.
"We have done talks with children speaking about the importance of the mangrove," said 44-year-old teacher Marcelo de Assis one of the original crab-catchers.
"That area is well preserved because the bloco is calling attention to it."
But development in the popular tourist areas could still come at a pace that risks jeopardizing the region's lush and rich eco-system, critics say.
"The objective of the bloco is to bring attention to nature but that doesn't work because people with money get their
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