A tourist and a participant in Brazil’s Carnival

It was near midnight and the rain-drenched streets had already stained my white satin slippers. A Napoleon-style hat, adorned with golden beads and white plumage, was perched atop my head. Stepping delicately in my soggy shoes, I gripped my ruffled lace pant legs to keep them from dragging on the wet cobblestones.

“Qual escola de samba?” people called out in Portuguese. “Império da Tijuca!” we answered, shouting back the name of our samba school.

From their plastic chairs, those who couldn’t afford tickets to Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival competition packed Avenida Presidente Vargas to enjoy the camaraderie outside the Sambadrome. They stared with amusement as our group of gringos hurried past.

Among the eight of us, the Dutchman was tipsy and the Danish girls complained about the suffocating heat, but I didn’t care. I had made my pilgrimage to Carnival specifically to see the decadent display of dancers and floats parading in all their pageantry. For one month we’d volunteered with a Rio-based social service organization, which, for a fee, enrolled us with a samba school.

Now I wouldn’t just watch a Carnival parade, I was to be in one.

Each year, an estimated 500,000 foreigners revel in Rio during one of the sexiest celebrations on Earth. During the four party days (this year, Feb. 13-16) of “Carne Vale,” literally “farewell to flesh (or meat),” leading to Lent, all of Brazil seems to relish carnal pleasures before the deprivation.

Though I was born in Brazil, it wasn’t until I took samba dance classes in my 20s and later performed with an amateur troupe that I became smitten with my birth country and its sensuous samba, and I have been ever since.

For months before this trip, I’d pored over Internet videos of parades, mesmerized by the dancers who strutted through the Sambadrome in their bejeweled bikinis. But any thought of portraying a sexy sambista was shattered when our costumes arrived.

Sporting those tricorn hats and frumpy white suits, our section of the samba school would dress as students of the Royal Academy of Medicine, in honor of the first university established in Rio. Each samba school illustrates a theme, or enredo, through its song, floats and costumes, so ours would tell the story of the Portuguese royal court moving to Brazil to evade Napoleon 200 years before.

Lost between floats -- one depicting a large golden ship and another a tropical forest -- I was relieved to recognize this assemblage as Império da Tijuca, our samba school, distinguished by the gold-green hues of the ornate décor.

Hearing the unmistakable call of the caixa drums, one Brazilian woman showed me her samba steps. All those years of dance lessons culminated in the moment when, to her delighted surprise, I copied her right back. Communicating playfully through our movements, we shared a common culture and a language beyond words.

Fireworks exploded into the night sky, signaling the start of our procession down the parade route. More than 70,000 spectators filled the concrete stands and box seats on each side of the Sambadrome. Throughout our 40-minute march, there was no mistaking our contingent of tourists for the real thing. But it didn’t matter. So what if my cumbersome costume more closely resembled the Michelin Man than any samba queen? I had experienced Rio’s Carnival at its core.

travel@latimes.com