Photos

Carlos Estevam as Chaplin

Every New Year's Eve (December 31) there is a race in the most important avenue in Sao Paulo - Brazil (Avenida Paulista). Most of people go there to run or watch, but a few go there to appear in TV. To attract TV attention they dress some strange custumes and start to act in the streets.

This is the third year I capture some shots of those guys to put here in TrekEarth.

This one, the Chaplin, performed by Carlos Estevam, was found the last two years at almost the same place, wearing exactly the same clothes (see those pictures of 2006 and 2005).

This year he gave me him card and e-mail address, so, if you want to contact him for some kind of event, try +55-8521-1734 or estevam-eventos@bol.com.br.

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The Saint Silvester Road Race (official name in Portuguese: Corrida Internacional de São Silvestre) is a long-distance running event, the oldest and most prestigious street race in Brazil.

Regarded as the main international event in Latin American athletics, the Brazilian competition is held yearly in the city of São Paulo on December 31. This day is Saint Silvester's Day, as it is the day in which the Catholic saint, who was a Pope, died in the 4th century of the Christian Era.

São Paulo's race was originally known as a "marathon", although the course of the race, whose length has varied considerably over the years, was never that of a full marathon. Because of that, the organization eventually dropped the term "marathon", starting to refer to the event as a "race", "international race" or "road race". There was never an official effort on the part of the organization to address the change in the nomenclature, which causes many, including some media outlets, to continue using the term "Saint Silvester Marathon" when referring to the event. Its course is only 15 km (9.3 miles) long, less than half the length of a marathon but the race is made more difficult by the intense heat of the Brazilian summer and the geographical obstacles that have to be surmounted by the athletes.

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Carlos Estevam as Chaplin by Jáed Fonseca Toledo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Brazil License.