MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil: Last Day of Carnival.

Street bands snarled traffic across the city as tens of thousands of paraders took to the streets Tuesday for the final day of carnival.

In the Ipanema beachfront district, drag queens jostled with little children in superhero costumes as the sun set in the distance. Traffic was backed up for miles, as those who fled the city during the celebrations made their way back at a snail's pace.

After two nights of parades in a specially designed stadium, Rio's streets offered the last chance to celebrate before Ash Wednesday, which opens the 40-day period of penitence, sacrifice and reflection that precedes Easter in Roman Catholic tradition.

Parades wrapped up well after dawn in the Sambadrome, with the Beija Flor group mounting the final performance in a bid for its third straight championship.

The stadium competition has become the centerpiece of Brazil's carnival, beamed across this nation of 183 million people who root for their favorite samba groups with a passion usually reserved for soccer teams. Fourteen of Rio's top samba groups vied for a distinction that brings little more than bragging rights.

Fact mingled with fiction in one parade. The TV Globo network placed several actors from its telenovela "Senhora de Destino" among the members of the Grande Rio samba group and filmed them as members of a fictional samba group, Vila Sao Miguel.

Although the stadium's 60,000 seats sold out long ago, crowds milled around the entrances in hopes of a glimpsing the festivities and the TV stars.

The Portela samba group, which sang the praises of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for tackling poverty, attracted a handful of U.N. representatives from Brazil.

Their presence, however, was overshadowed by British supermodel Naomi Campbell, who paraded in a skimpy blue sequined costumed atop one of the floats.

In Sao Paulo, the samba group Imperio da Casa Verde was declared this year's champion.

In the northeastern city of Salvador, street revelers celebrate well past sunrise. After pausing to let street cleaners pass through, the party resumed around noon.

Beija Flor Samba Group Is Carnival Champ

The Beija Flor samba group won carnival champion for the third year in a row Wednesday for its parade celebrating the story of Indians, priests and pioneers in southern Brazil.

Beija Flor, which paraded in broad daylight Tuesday morning, closed out the annual samba parade, which is the centerpiece of annual carnival celebrations in Brazil.

The group won with a near perfect score of 399.4 out of a possible 400. The Unidos de Tijuca samba group came in second, just one tenth of a point behind.

Rio's samba parade is actually a hard fought competition where the city's 14 top-tier samba groups mount 80-minute long parades featuring thousands of dancers, drummers and singers. The champion wins a trophy and the possibility of lucrative sponsorships but no cash.

A panel of 40 judges examines everything from the music and lyrics to how much enthusiasm the group generates among the 60,000-capacity Sambadrome crowd.

The top six schools will remount their parades on Saturday night for the Champion's parade, a final gasp for carnival celebrations staged across the country since Friday.