This truly is the world's largest party. We rented a hotel room down by the lighthouse on the main street, where the more modern parade floats go by, and spent about half the time on the street and half in the hotel. We had a balcony on the fourth floor with an excellent view of the street. The streets were extremely well policed, absolutely not "safe" from pickpockets and minor robbery with several other WARC people having their cameras, money or cell phones taken from them, but if you are smart and go to the street with NOTHING but small bills on you, it is a very fun and exciting experience and well worth going to. Beer is 3 Real, which is about 80 cents so you don't need to bring much. We went downtown about 2pm, had lunch, and wandered the parade route as they were setting up, and then took a position by the sea wall to watch the first seven trucks go by. The experience is indescribable but I'll try. These trucks are very long and expand to double wide, and they have a complete sound stage on top, about a million watts of sound, mostly bass, and are covered with LED screeds on all sides, showing the performers on top or advertisements. They are surrounded by a large rope enclosure fore and aft manned by about 200 people that moves with the truck, and you can buy a ticket to walk along with the truck inside the rope, or you can buy a spot at an elevated balcony stage erected alongside the route, with inclusive drinks and food, where you can watch the parade. Or you can just take your chances on the street. The sight of over 1M people walking along the parade route or along with it, waving their arms, dancing and singing along with the performers, accompanied by the loudest mobile sound systems I've ever seen...perfectly tuned with no feedback...it shakes your very soul and you just have to dance! We stayed on the street from about 4-7pm until it got so crowded you couldn't move easily, then we made our way to our hotel balcony and watched the performances until midnight...it was simply awesome. The night before, we spend the evening until 11pm wandering the streets of old town with nothing on us, in much quieter conditions and enjoyed more local walking samba bands and performers in smaller parades of more traditional style. It was much less wild and another once in a lifetime experience. For those of you future WARC crews that read this blog...do not pass Salvador and miss the opportunity to experience this. The rumors of safety are true, but with proper precautions, this is an experience you will treasure for a lifetime