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Published: March 10th 2006
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Hola (Still the same in portugese)
From that you can gather that i made it to Rio. It only took 25 hours on a bus that must have been suspected for havin dodgy people with dodgy substances due to the amount of police stops and bag checks on the way to Rio. No surprise to me due to the look of some of the local passengers. But that doesn’t do them justice, true they where a strange bunch due to watching the weirdest dvds so far on the bus a mix of strange concerts/club nights and kids films. But in broken Spanish they were telling me they were looking forward to the Rolling Stones.
Got to rio and decided to pick the most disorganised hostel i could find, fortunately located in Copacabana, so it was really the handy for the gig. The hostel was in its first week of opening with nothing really ready but I was just glad of a bed for a few nights. The hostel didnt help itself by employing a reception girl who loved to tell you all about the problems she was having etc making it almost impossible to leave the place every day
Sugar Loaf
From Jesus due to her talking on and on and on.
Anyway once i managed to leave the hostel I went to explore rio and see what it had to offer. First stop was the local beach, Copacabana one of the most famous beaches in the world. It was a strange mix of people, lost of locals had the body beautiful mentality and full of tourists which certainly didn’t have that mentality! The beach wasn’t that nice and the water was a touch polluted. Most of the locals describe it as the postcard.
The next day i went back to copacabana, but for a better reason. Decided i should go join 1.5 million people for a free gig. The ROLLING STONES! Armed with a 12 pack and few sarnies i was ready for the day. The gig started with a strange reggae come hip hop brazilian band. A likely support band for the stones, but did quite a good but weird cover of imagine. Then the most cheesy brazilian rock group in the world. They were terrible but really popular with the crowd (bar 1).
Then the stones came on and played for about 2 hours, playing most of
Copacabana
The stones stage the hits. The crowd seemed pretty tame but couldn’t really get a feel for the size of the thing until i saw the pictures from the helicopter. Later on the news they stated the crowd stretched for 1.2km along the beach. Just seemed a crazy idea, i think rio council thought there wouldn’t be enough people in rio round carnival time so well put on a free concert. But i loved it.
After the gig first priority was to leave the hostel and find my place for carnival. It was great to arrive at place which knew what it was doing. So the next few days were spent seeing some of the sights. Went up the Sugar loaf cable car. The one where bond fights Jaws. They had a film of all the famous events at sugar loaf with one being some crazy american free walkin up the cable (didn’t give me any ideas mum).
I then got to see the big Jesus Christ statue, with all the many other tourists. As you’ll see did the traditional pose for the photo. Got some awesome views of Rio and you get a feel for what a crazy place it
Rio
Views from Jesus statue was to build a huge city. The city is full of these hills where you can’t build anything. The statue needs to be renamed lazy mans monument. It was ridiculous you get to the drop off point by car or train and then take the lift up to the next level where you then can get the escalators to the top. An american´s dream.
The next day bought a ticket for the local football game at the maracana. Two rio teams, apparently a big derby. While i was at the stadium I decided to take the tour where you see the history about the stadium and players. You get to see the player’s footprints in cement, hall of fame, dressing room and go on the pitch. This was the same day as carnival really kicked in. The first night i met up with the drago lot again and we all went to the red and black ball. It was based in a massive club with a live band. Unfortunately thats about all i remember (consequences of cheap vodka).
The next day most of the hostel went down to the football. The game was between Flamengo (3) v Botofogo
Rio
Views from Jesus statue (2). Really good atmosphere and an improvement on argie because you could drink in the ground. Standard wasnt great but good to see 5 goals. Then it was back to the hostel for a free bbq and a sort of get to know everyone. I decided to join the swedes and go to a beach party on ipanema. Really good night, dj played some great music (Get Back went down the best) and all the people were really cool. Danced till the morning until i decided it was time to get some kip.
So my last day in Rio, after a bit of kip was ready for the biggest party of carnival. Again a lot of the hostel went to the sambadrome. Unbelievably big, it made the maracana feel small. The sambadrome holds about 200,000 (i think) and then that doesn’t include all the dancers (and there were alot). Each school had about 6 or 7 floats and thousands of dancers. The dancers where in the most amazing costumes and the floats were like nothing ive seen before. I started to understand why they take all year to prepare the event. The sambadrome is on a street which is
Rio
The big guy only ever used for 3 days of carnival. The cariocan´s take their partying very seriously and so did i for carnival weekend!
Again dancing until some crazy hour in the morning, id ran out of time in rio and i decided to leave Rio and head for Buenos Aires again. Packed my bags and jumped on a bus straight from leaving the sambadrome. 2 days later on a bus i´m in B.A.
Hope everyone´s is well and anyone still on their travels is having fun.
See you very soon everyone
Dave
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Phil and Sue Yates
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Carnivals and parties
Wow Dave what fantastic travel news and photos. It all looks and sounds amazing. Got your other Email also so know you are travelling on. Enjoy it and look after yourself. Lots of love Mum and Dad xx