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Published: March 22nd 2006
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Copacabana Beach
Copacabana Beach After the traumatic journey to Rio, with countless layovers and a slight losing of my way in Houston airport leading to passing through security twice... I finally arrived in Copacabana beach in Rio. The Mellow Yellow hostel is fantastic, 5 floors of fun (the stairs are a killer) with loads of great people. The first night had a pub quiz, which my team (all Brits, Katy, Rachel and Terry the hostel owner) did not do to well at, the highest score was less than 20 out of 40 though, followed by a search for a salsa club which ended quickly when we found a gay club with a Cher act. What more could you want after 24 hours of travelling??
Day 2 was sight seeing, the views from
Sugar Loaf are amazing, this is a really beautiful city. The cable cars are a sweat pit though, it seems like the local's game, how many sweaty tourists can you fit in one cable car! And the pay by weight restaurants are excellent, R$11 for a mound of food with excellent meat. If only I had realised the hostel also had an all you can eat barbq the same night... I couldn't
Sugar Loaf
Me up Sugar Loaf move by 9pm, but managed to struggle to a few pubs with some Aussie mates, Sarah and Tracey.
Day 3, a relaxing day of shopping with the girls with a failed attempt at buying a bikini. The Brazilian idea of a bikini is not a lot of fabric and a whole lot of skin on display... The Barra beach was fantastic with great waves in the warm ocean. I also became familiar with the term
'Budgie Smugglers', aka boys in speedos. Not pleasant and us girls have no idea why the Brazilian (and continental Europeans for that matter) insist on this kind of swim wear!! Dinner in the most reccommended restaurant ever -
Marius with the girls and more Aussies, Marcus and Bluey. Very expensive (R$77) but well worth it. Unlimited buffet of fruit, salad and seafood including scallops and oysters followed by huge skewers of meat! The waiters keep bringing meat and slicing the juciest portions onto your plate until you say stop. And I even said stop so they gave me a new plate to make me feel like I had only just started. Then finally a picture of a cow, point to the bit you want
Budgie Smuggler
Boys, don't do it!! to eat! It is the best meat I have ever had, everyone should go there.
Day 4 was the free boat tour with unlimited food (fruit and hotdogs) and drink, the
strongest Caipirinha's I have ever tasted! The water was manky with a few warm patches... but severly needed in that heat. I obviously haven't changed while away so fell over a few times and have a sore ankle. Hardly anyone remembers leaving the boat and getting back to the hostel, so fun all round!!
Day 5 had to involve lots of water and sleep, but led to the
Lapa street party for the Carnival warm up. We followed a procession down the streets with a drum beats going. If only we could move as fast as the locals, their dancing is fantastic. The street party was buzzing, thousands of people ready for Carnival, drinking, dancing and being merry.
Day 6 The moment I had been waiting for in Rio, the football! Went to the
MaracaƱa, biggest stadium in the world, to watch Flamengo vs Botofogo, 2 rival Rio teams. Some of the Aussies with us had never seen a football game live in their lives!!! Sat
Marius
More meat...? on the Flamengo end where the crowd were going wild, drums, chants, dancing... Great game, but Flamengo were losing at half time. The second half led to 2 fantastic long range goals at our end so the singing continued out of the stadium. Luckily the ipenema party had not been good to the gang were back in the hostel waiting, ready for clubbing. We had heard Help was good so gave it a go, luckily Bluey paid as it was R$70 each and once we got in, Tracey and I would not have paid anything to go in... Old men and half naked prostitutes, unbelievable. Bondage, school girls and one girl in a piece of string! I had caught a stomach bug so had to go home early, shame...
Day 7 Due to illness I spent a lot of the day in bed, but woke in time for the carnival preparations. Typical Brazilian time, so told to turn up at 4 for a samba lesson, but the teacher did not arrive, so told to come back at 5 latest... Got back at 5 and told we were leaving at 5.30, this fun continued until we left fully costumed up
Boat Trip 1
Me and Tracey at 8... The costume was great but so hot I fell out of the tube and just caught myself before passing out! Nightmare!! We met about another 200 people in the same costume as us which made it even more exciting. Managed to cool down before we started to parade at 10, and even more lucky the heavens opened and we samba-ed in the hugest storm. The atmosphere was electric, thousands of people cheering for our dancing. Unfortunately our school (one of the best) may get relagated as 2 floats broke down, we were 6 minutes over and the gringos danced like crazy people... The straight lines went out the window and we all just span around, great fun. At the end everyone just dumps their costume! I still have mine but have no way to get it home yet so may have to dump it 😞 Finally got taxi's to take us home with costumes so got back at 12.30, just in time to go to the beach party in ipenema.
Day 8 Lazy day, recovering from the heavy costume but this night we had tickets to the
Sambodrome, thrown in for free from our hostel! Excellent party
Boat Trip 2
Me, Katy and Rachel (Qunicy get out the photo!) atmosphere and the costumes were amazing, looked much more professional than the parade I had been in. Each school has 80 minutes to parade the whole school and they start with fireworks. There are supposedly themes but I couldn't work any out, each school has about 5 floats and about 20 different costumes of 200 people each, so amazing sights. We watched until 2am but it went on well into the night.
Day 9
Christ the Redeemer, last chance to see the Christ on the hill but unfortunately it was a bit misty so could only see his face in fleeting moments. Made an eeiry feel though.
Tomorrow I am getting the bus to Belo Horizonte and hoping to get to Diamantina. Hopefully it's cooler there will less mossies. My back is so bitten I look like I have some disease!!
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Susan
non-member comment
who knew you had such big shoulders?