8 of Brazil's best festivals beyond Rio

In a country known for celebrations – chief among them the Rio Carnival, which takes place annually between February and March – there’s plenty to look forward to throughout the year. From the riotous to the muddy, here are some of the best festivals and celebrations.

1. Bloco de Lama, Paraty

This unique festival, held in the photogenic Costa Verde town of Paraty, coincides with Rio’s Carnival but couldn’t be more different. Instead of vibrant sequinned costumes in every colour of the rainbow, revellers wear a suit of grey sludge: the mineral-rich mud found in Paraty’s surrounding mangrove lagoon. The tradition began in 1986, when party-goers took a dip in the mud to cool off during particularly hot weather; nowadays, participants seek to accentuate the swamp-creature look with garlands of seaweed. Most of the action happens on the beach, with sound system trucks blaring samba music to accompany wrestling and tug-of-war matches in the mud.

2. Festa Junina, Campina Grande

The traditions of rural Brazil are celebrated each Festa Junina, on 24 June. Revellers dress in the traditional outfit of the caipira (country folk) — checked shirts, straw hats and colourful dresses — and the festivities always feature dancing. Junina jollity also includes performances of forró, a folk music genre making use of the accordion and triangle, and fun competitions like three-legged races and ring tosses. Festival foods are a part of the celebration too — specifically cocada, a coconut candy, and caldo verde, a hearty soup of collard greens and sausages. Festa Junina is marked across the country, but a particularly big celebration is held in the city of Campina Grande, in Paraíba state.

3. Semana Santa, Ouro Preto

To experience a taste of the more serious, traditional side of religious celebrations in Brazil, make for the Minas Gerais town of Ouro Preto in the week before Easter. Here, Holy Week is celebrated with huge, colourful ‘carpets’ – actually made from dyed sawdust and sand – which are arranged on the town’s cobbled streets, depicting Biblical verses and stories. These carpets point the way for a lavish procession on Easter morning, the last of eight processions over the week, which carry holy statues between the town’s churches. Ouro Preto’s Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its 13 churches are built in an exquisite baroque style.

4. Bumba Meu Boi, Parintins

Translating as ‘dance my ox’, Bumba Meu Boi is a vibrant folk ritual revolving around the performance of a play in which a dancing ox is killed by cowboys and then resurrected by Indigenous healers — a satire of Brazil’s history of colonialism. The most prominent Bumba Meu Boi performance is held at the Parintins Folklore Festival across the Amazonas city of Parintins in the last weekend of June. It features fireworks, lavish costumes and competing performances of the story by different Indigenous groups. The Parintins festival is the biggest, but traditional Bumba Meu Boi celebrations are held all over Brazil twice a year, in late December as well as June.

5. Cavalhadas, Pirenópolis

Brazilians are passionate equestrians, and they pay homage to their horse-riding heritage at the Cavalhadas, the centrepiece of which is a mock battle between horsemen representing Moorish and Christian soldiers. The battle is a dramatic affair, with the Christians in robes of royal blue jousting against the Moors dressed in blood red – but the outcome is predictable, with the Christians always victorious. The festival was started in the 19th century by a Portuguese priest and takes place 45 days after Easter. Although it’s celebrated across Brazil, the most spectacular battle takes place in Pirenópolis, a town in Goiás state famous for its waterfalls.

6. Bahia Carnival, Salvador

Brazil’s former capital, Salvador, gives Rio a run for its money in the carnival stakes, with 2.5 million people descending on its streets each year, beginning on the Thursday before each Ash Wednesday. Six riotous days follow, filled with samba, street food and trios elétricos – truck-bed floats equipped with sound systems and a stage on which musicians perform. Although these trucks can now be found at carnival celebrations across Brazil, they were invented at the Bahia Carnival. Another uniquely Salvadoran phenomenon to look out for here is samba-reggae music, a fun Brazilian-Jamaican fusion typified by groups like Ilê Aiyê, who are instantly recognisable by their yellow, black and red Carnival costumes.

7. Réveillon, Rio de Janeiro

Not content with having the world’s largest street party, Rio also hosts the biggest New Year’s Eve celebration on the planet, with as many as three million revellers descending on the Copacabana neighbourhood. The iconic Copacabana Beach is the epicentre of the festivities, with musical performances from big-name Brazilian artists and spectacular fireworks displays launched from barges in the sea – 2025 alone saw 15 tons of fireworks launched into the night sky. Uniquely Brazilian New Year traditions involve dressing all in white and releasing flowers into the sea – practices which originated with the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé as a way of attracting blessings from Yemanjá, the orixá (deity) of the sea.