Carnival Time

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I arrived in Rio de Janerio four days before Carnaval, very excited to be attending the biggest party in the world. My hotel was in Botafogo and had views of Cristo Redentor and the Sugar Loaf Mountain. I was unimpressed by the hostel as it was more like a converted office that a residence.


I wanted to get the toursit activities out of the way before Carnaval kicked off so I went up to see JC on the first day. The views over Copacabana and Impanema were amazing. I was also impressed by the effort it would take to get such a large statue up to the top of such a big hill, apparently it was built in components which were assembled at the top.


The other tourist activity which I was really looking forward to was the favela tour. We arranged this through a company called "Don't be a gringo", whose minibus dropped us off at the bottom of the hill and we went by motobike-taxi to the top and started to walk down through streets which served as open sewers. Our guide was very informative and told us that 200,000 pèople lived there and they just continued to build houses on top of each other. They have the opportunity to live in better areas in the suburbs but they chose to live in the favela to be close to Impanema and Copacabana and the tourists, who are a source of legitimate and illegitimate cash. The drug dealers control the favela and they encourage outsiders to come in, because outsiders bring money (some of them come in to buy drugs). However, if you come in on your own and getted robbed, how do notify the dealers and identify the thief. The police come in to get the dealers sometimes during the day and although the gangs use fireworks as a warning system a bloody shoot-out usually ensues, often with innocent fatalities. The people here live in real poverty.


Other days in the lead up to Carnaval were spent on Impanema beach. Its not particularly clean but the is brought to life by the people. Impanema is a vain area and the women and men young and old strut their stuff all day. Suitable attire is g string bikinis for the chicas and speedos for the chicos. They gay section on the beach is probably the busiest and is funny watching gays posing in pink speedos. At certain points when you look down the beach, all you see is hundreds of footballs being juggled by the Brazilians as they keep it up with their heads, feet, knees, backs and any other body part except their hands.


I managed to hook up with one Australian girl who compliemented me on my kissing and invited me to a party before the Carnaval started. I probably should have followed up cause they had an apartment and some sex would have been welcome.


Before Carnaval started, I bit off a bit more than I could chew in the hostel. I drank a bottle of vodka with a lad from Sligo called Niall on a night when other people were arriving. In my drunked state, I abused a group of ten Irish girls who had just arrived. Not very smart considering I was on my own. I didn't remember abusing them until they told me about it the next day, but we didn't really click after that and I felt slightly isloated in the hostel.



I was delighted my two Dutch friends, Josh and Rik were staying around the corner and they would be my partners in crime for the week. They would arrive into my room each morning with a can of beer and a BigMac. Session on!! The first night, we had a party at the apartment of some beautiful Brazilian girls they had met before. Although they were beautiful, they were not much fun so we dumped them and went to party on the streets of Lapa. This was an incredible experience. The first thing that hit me was, the danger. Lots of rough looking black guys eyeing you up, searching for weakness and a steal. After five minutes I found a guy with his hand in my pocket.

In the midst of the danger, there is alot of fun to be had. The music which continued till 7 every morning was Samba and funk. The way the women move their ass to the funk music was beautiful. We danced under the arches all night, chatting with women who wanted to stand next to us to scare off Brazilian guys who were aggressively trying to kiss them. I can't put my finger on why, but this was an awesome night. All the anticipation exploded and its was mainly the Brazilians who added to this feeling. Before the night ended there was more trouble for Josh, who was mugged at knifepoint when pissing. He was surrounded by three guys and one holding a knife in his back and the other two clearing out his pockets. In fairness to him, he came back with a smile on his face, looking for a Caiparinha telling me he hadn't even finished pissing by the time his pockets were empty. One other incident we didn't see that night was the police breaking up a fight using tear gas at a petrol station.

During the week aswell, there was a hostel held hostage. A gang of locals broke in with grenades and guns and cleared out all the lockers. Josh an Ric saw a local pulling a handgun on another. This city is dangerous and don't let anyone tell you different. My only regret from the week was not having my camera with me more ofter.


We drank all week, every night ending up on this same street, which we discovered in time was apparently the most dangerous street in Lapa, when some Brazilian girls refused to go down there. We spent our days at Blocos and nights dancing on the streets or in clubs in Lapa, drinking tequilas, caìparinhas and beers, chatting up and kissing women. In two nights here I kissed 8 women. In fairness alot of these were due to Rik who was very good for making the move and then I hooked up with one of her friends. I found it a bit frustrating being surrounded by so many beautiful women but not being properly able to talk to the Portuguese speaking fuckers.


One night I went to the Sambodromo, with a gang from the hostel which was awesome. The Sambadromo takes place on a closed road flanked on each side by massive terraces, holding 90,000. Each participating sambaschool has a float which is followed by dancers in elaborate costumes. The floats and costumes are really impressive, extremely bright and colourful, with great attention to detail. People in costume form some floats so they are static and when the people move the float changes shape. For example, a swans head that dipped and raised. Awesome.

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