Ihla Grande and back to Rio

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Jordan and I are back in Rio after our short trip to Ihla Grande and have met up with old Gav Wilson today. The amount of stuff that he has brought with him is an inspiration to us all and something to maybe work towards (he only has a small day back). I guess I should start with a few words about Carnival and the whole experience: street parties, skol, and more skol. Everywhere you went you could easily find a guy with a cooler full of skol willing to sell. For 2 Reals, it´s hard to complain. For the most part we just wondered around going from street party to street party, and would eventually end up in Lappa where there was always thousands of people roaming the streets. Down Hippie Alley - named for all the hippies selling all of their crap - you could not even move some nights.

Highlights include:

a crazy bus ride back from Lappa, where the driver seemed to go at a steady 80km, even when taking corners.

the crazy cab drivers who decided to race each other. I know for sure that we got up to over 120. Luckily the streets were empty at 4am.

the Samba drome. Crazy night. We went down there expecting to get some scalped tickets and hopefully a decent place to see the parade. We had heard a lot of people say that the two end sections were too dangerous for tourists but budget dictating we went to one of those sections regardless. I guess it was kind of dangerous if you consider old ladies dangerous. Aside from the rain, they were great seats, and we had a ton of room around us. My shorts still stink from sitting on the stands but it cant all be perfect. At 6:30am, with one more parade to go we decided to head for home and to bed. I don´t know why when we got back to our place we watched the rest of it on TV....We did not wake up till around 4pm that day.

Ihla Grande:

This place was pretty sweet and although it was suppose to be our retreat from partying, we ended up having quite a few good nights. We explored the island - which kind of reminded me of the one in Lost - quite a bit going to Lopes Mendes and Dos Rios. Both about 2 hour hikes from the settlement that we arrived in. Thankfully, and finally, we swam in cold water, the coldest since we have left home. It was in a river on our way to Dos Rios. AS weird as it is to say I miss the cold water. It feels especially nice when it´s 30 plus degress out all the time. I guess that was the only problem with the island: the heat made it almost impossible to sleep.

Anyway, I tried to upload some pics, but it´s not working for some reason. Tonight we go to another football match adn then to the all you can eat place. Tomorrow we´re off down the coast to more beaches adn eventually Argentina.

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