Carnival Messiness!

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Down at the Copa, Copacabana...de der de de der der der der duhhhh. We probably should have learnt some more words to that song because thats all we knew and we sang it constantly.

I don't really know where to start with this blog. Carnival was a hell of a crazy week. A lot of the stories work better in person too so I'll probably be boring you all for years to come with them. So much happened!

I was a bit worried that Carnival in Rio was all about the big parades that they have in this stadium that they built especially called the Sambadrome and that the street Carnivals happened in other cities. Luckily this wasn't the case at all, and every day at 4pm everyone from the hostel would meet up and head to some ares in the city where everyone was out on the streets getting drunk and dancing to music blasting out of a soundsystem or some live drummers.

Our hostel turned out to be a very good one. After we got ripped off over the price and everything we were a bit worried, but the only complaint was that it didn't have air conditioning and the temperature in Rio was around 40c on some days. The guy running our hostel was really friendly and would take us all to the blocos (street carnivals, kind of block parties), help us get through the tube or bus or whatever and then try and keep everyone together. It was like being on a very drunken school trip! He even recommended vodkas to try and things, it was great!

One of the most bizarre experiences was on the first day of Carnival when we were just leaving our first bloco experience. There were a big gang of Brazilians walking down the street singing and after our group of about 25 banged out a few tunes in return we somehow ended up singing Hey Jude. Then the Brazilians all joined in. There were about 40 drunk people walking down this hill in Rio singing Hey Jude, it was so strange!

One of my favourite moments was the night we went to see the DJ Erick Morillo in a big kind of outdoor tent. It wasn't exactly a Carnival experience because he's always playing in Europe and stuff but we fancied a change, there's only so much samba you can listen to! The music was brilliant, one of the best gigs I've ever been to. It finished about 6 in the morning and as we came out the sun was rising. There was this amazing sun rise and we seemed to be in the perfect position, you could see Sugarloaf and the Christ and even being that drunk we realised we had to try and take some photos. Paul's got those one's but I'll get his memory card and try and stick them up soon. Not seem them though so no idea what state we were in, haha!

Not going to lie, Rio did feel a bit dangerous at times. I had hands in my pockets about 3 different times but I had nothing in them so they got nothing. They were just kids and we never really felt threatened or anything. None of us got robbed so you can't really complain. It did mean we didn't really take cameras out with us very much, although we did get some good photos. I'd try and add them now but this internet cafe is really rubbish, guess I'll have to do another photo blog at some point.

I really don't know what else to put in here, too much happened! The beaches were brilliant, Christ the Redeemer was utterly fantastic and gave a brilliant view of the city, you don't realise how big a place it is until you get up there! And the women seem to love gringos! I've been told off for mentioning women in every other sentence but I can't talk about Rio and not say that they completely live up to all expectations, they were amazing!

The great thing was, all the locals were really friendly and really up for just having a laugh, even despite the language barrier. They all just wanted to have as much fun and banter as we did and didn't look down at us for being foreign or treat us with any kind of hostility at all, it was brilliant.

Carnival also broke me as a human being. By the time I left I had an eye infection and no voice. Plus because of the lack of air con we'd go to bed at 6 and have to get up at 9 just to get out of the boiling hot room! I've never felt like I was running on empty so much in my life.

Luckily we headed to Iguazu Falls after that to recover and thats exactly what happened. I can now see and speak again, bonus! I'd do the Iguazu entry now too but it really needs pictures. Words can't really do justice to how amazing it is.

I guess thats it for now. We head for Bolivia tonight (I'm a few blogs behind!) and I'm not sure what the internet will be like there but I'll try my best to get some photos up so you can see it all for yourselves.

I'm starting to miss you guys, even the smelly ones!

Love to everyone

x

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Comments

[Mooney]

sounds quality mate, glad you're having a good one. p.s. good effort with the blogs, keep them coming, glad to see your attention to detail is not just in you joke telling!