Sympatia e quasi Amor, one of Rio's moost famous blocos, is being transmitted live online by globo, right now..

Follow this link http://g1.globo.com/videos/carnaval/v/transmissao-ao-vivo-g1/606348/

Carnival isnt here yet, but in Rio 75 street parades are scheduled ths weeked alone. On Friday the biggest will probably be Cordao da Bola Preta, Saturday sees Simpatia é Quase Amor, on of Rio's other really popular blocos, parading in the afternoon in Ipanema. On sunday here's anothe huge bloco, Suvaco da Christo, starting at 9am in a geerallu unsucessful attempt to discourage enormous crowds. For full details of these and many more blocos this weekend, visit our Rio carnival bloco schedule page.

Update - the press reckon the quarter of a million people participated in street blocos in Rio over the weekend - and carnival is still a week away!

List of Rio carnival blocos 2011

I've posted up the start of the annual list of Rio carnival blocos, part 1. There are so many blocos this year that I'm having to do this in several sessions. Sorry it's so late; he list was published late (mid Jan) and I was away for the first two weeks of February. Even just concentrating on the blocos in the south of the city, the list is longer than ever. You can access it here:

schedule of Rio carnival blocos 2011

click here for Rio carnival blocos 2011

There have been hundreds of blocos (local street parades) in Rio carnival in recent years. Nobody really knew how many. This year the prefetura - Rio's local government - is trying to impose some order on the chaos by insisting that all the blocos register officially. The idea is to try to rationalise the schedule to minimise traffic conjestion, and to predict where and when facilities like mobile toilets might be neccessary.