RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) – Thousands of plumed dancers kicked off a second night of parading Monday in Rio’s pre-Lenten carnival.

The Porto da Pedra group opened the festivities with 3,720 dancers who delighted the 70,000 people packed into the Sambadrome stadium.

“This is the biggest Carnival ever,” said Ailton Guimaraes Jorge, president of the Independent League of Samba Schools, which organizes the two nights of parading that are the centerpiece of Brazil’s Carnival celebrations.

Expectations were running high for Tuesday night’s parade featuring many of samba’s traditional heavyweights.

The Mangueira school, which was the first group to be declared Carnival Champion back in 1932, was presenting a samba honoring Brazil’s Sao Francisco river, known as the river of national unity.

The winners of the parade competition will be determined on Ash Wednesday, when a panel of judges will grade each group.

Brazil’s second most popular carnival is in the northeastern city of Salvador, 750 miles northeast of Rio.

Unlike Rio’s carnival, no one keeps score in Salvador and the party is out in the city’s streets, with huge crowds gathering around bands who play atop amplified sound trucks.

While organizers of Rio’s Samba parade like to call it the “Greatest Spectacle on Earth,” Salvador appeals to those who want to get right into the fray.

Reports in the local media say this year the revelers have take to using an antiseptic mouth spray to protect them from transmittable diseases – the Health Ministry, however, has declined to endorse the product.

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