Rio

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What you have all been waiting for........RIO! - where do I start! What a fantastic place! It´s been 5 days now so I´ll stick to the highlights, but there are loads of highlights!

We were dropped off outside Hotel Regina, downtown Flamengo, Rio De Janeiro about 3ish, the traffic was obviously horrendous, not to mention that the bus had no airconditioning and no windows and it was really quite muggy. I got bus sick 😞 but it´s only the first time in 4 weeks so I haven´t done too badly (I used to get terrible car sickness). And I got to sit up front with the driver and a window afterwards so it wasn´t so bad.

I loved Rio instantly - driving through the city on the bus I knew it was going to be a fabulous five days!

The hotel was lovely, and the shower had amazing pressure so it was nice to be unpacking for more than 2 nights!

We had a quiet day but hit a great buffet feast for din dins - it´s called a por kilo where obviously you pay per kilo. They have anything and everything from Sushi to sweets, we all over ate!

City tour was day 2 Rio, highlights Christ the Redeemer statue - but you will not believe it - that was the only part of the day where the mist came over (of course it was still drizzling intermittently, it hasn´t stopped since Buenos Aires) and we couldn´t actually see it, just the bottom part. It was a bit dissappointing. The statue is in Corcovado National park and literally looks over the whole of Rio. It´s a symbol of christianity and peace and it definitely has that feel about it, kind of like it´s protecting the city!

Second highlight The Seralon Stairway in Lapa/Santa Teresa. Seralon the artist and the staircase, his lifes work! This old man originally from Chile fell in love with Brazil and dedicated his lifeswork to Brazil! One day (in like 1970 something I think) he started to mosaic tile this huge staircase (about 200 steps). The background of the work is red and right up the top there is a huge mosaic brazilian flag. He has collected different tiles from all over the world to feature in his work. It´s hard to explain so I´ll put a picture up! The Brazilian government has given him nothing to help him with costs for his work which is hard to believe because it is one of the major tourist destinations in all of Rio - how unaustralian! So when he runs out of money he makes art and sells it in his gallery (off to the right of the stairs about halfway up). The weird thing is though he doesn´t paint anything except pictures of pregnant women (he claims due to a past experience, it must have been a bad one eh). Our tour guide said he has over 50 different children from countries all over the world.

Anyways we actually got to meet this Seralon, who wears nothing but red, he had red boardshorts and red havianas and a red hat and that was it besides his big moustache. He sat painting on his step and took a liking to Nicole as Nicole Kidman had bought his art previously. Anyways it´s quite a famous spot Snoop dog did a video there blah blah blah blah!

Last highlight Sugar Loaf mountain, called this for not really obvious reasons, it apparently looks like a sugar loaf - I thought they were cubes though...whatever. Took the cable cars (yes two of them) to get a fantastic view of the whole of Rio! It was just on dusk so it was really nice!

That evening Inpanema, just north of Copacabana for Carnival celebrations on the street. We did a group venture and it was a good idea, getting a feel for the place in a group certainly made things easier. We braved the crowds and were front row at the street band. It was fantastic. Everyone (or most) are there for a good/GREAT time - it´s Carnaval, the biggest party in the world afterall. Afterwards we headed back to Copacabana for a little bit of a browse at the market stalls, I got some short brazilian coloured shorts which are deng cute! More street music we even got to borrow one of the little drums and had a little lesson of one of the locals - pretty cool - but I suck!

The next day was the Favela tour. I really loved this, well I wouldn´t say love in an envious kind of way but it really hit home. It was also pretty fun as the Favela which houses 200, 000 people is built on a mountain so you get a lift up to the top on a motorbike with one of the locals. It was raining (as per usual), we didn´t have helmets and it was a really steep climb. My guy wasn´t wearing a helmet either so I felt kind of safe - knowing it wasn´t just my brain! The filth of the living conditions is crazy, everything is self made from the houses to the electricity to the plumbing (if thats what you could call it). There is no rubbish system, it all just goes on the ground - can you imagine! The most amazing thing about this place is the spirit of the people - never short of a smile, hola or obragada, though I´m pretty sure we were in the nicer end. Some kids played us a great set on the drums (a plastic drum and an old metal oil can) and while they were playing you could see two little girls from the house next door stick there heads out the window laughing and dancing along to the music without a care in the world. Really cute! The guy running the tour was really cool and worked in the favela for 2 years helping out kids with school and things. He explained the favelas as really a part of the culture of Rio De Janeiro, but it really broke my heart from the top to the bottom.

After a much needed shower we went to a local soccer game - the first of the season for home team Bogofota. It was cool, and I love the way the Brazilians drum and sing all game long. They took a liking to our group instantly and by the end we had the band right up in our section with our Brazilian crowd conductor giving us the moves! It was really fun!

That evening Nicole and I did a solo mission to Lapa - the nightclub/huge carnaval celebrations place. It was a wonderful idea as we met so many new people, and despite being pick pocketed through my poncho whilst being swarmed by a crowd of boys with there hands everywhere - and I mean everywhere as in I can still hear Nic yelling ´Áaaahhhh Kelly they´ve got their fingers up my bum´..... obviously a great distraction technique. We were kind of prepared for this so I only had about $50.00AU in my little wallet and everything else was stored securely so it wasn´t so bad! We didn´t take cameras either, they were bound to be pinched! We met a great bunch of French students studying architecture, a mix of guys and gals, so we stayed with them til the death. Good times!

The following day was a bit of a write off but that was always the plan as we had our Sambadrome tickets for that evening which was going to be another all nighter! We got to the Sambadrome at about 9. There are 6 samba schools each night (Sunday night and Monday night are the biggest, and we did Sunday night). So the Samba runway is at least a kilmoetre and the schools get an hour to make it from one end to the other Samba-ing all the way down dripping in colour and glitter, you have to see it to believe it really. When there are about 10 huge glittery floats and 4000 people in each school it makes more sense as to why it takes an hour! Absolutely AMAZING! One of my favourite parts is that each school dances for a whole hour to the song which they have picked and it just keeps repeating which is great as we were in the last section of seating and by the time we could see the dancers coming (about 20min post starting) we basically knew the chorus to the song. You should see the costumes and after it´s all over they just get thrown away. We were of course very sneaky and managed a costume each, which Nicole insited on walking home in at 8 in the morning - way to not draw attention to yourself girlfriend! Quite funny once we were home safely, showered and enjoying buffet breakfast before going to bed for the day! Unfortunately due to the size of these costumes we had to ditch them in Rio as they are just not conducive to backpacker life 😞 I´ll def put pics of this up when I can get some more time.

After Sambadrome from memory was pretty much just recovery mode, it´s taken almost a week to write this and thats just the best bits so I hope you enjoyed, expect some pics soon!

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Photos

The Meat Market
Courtesy of Carnavale