Rio, Rio, Rio.
What a place, after another 27 hour slog on a bus, we missed Flamengo Vs Sao Paulo. Took us three hours to get through bloody border police due to some idiots who weren´t allowed in so had to sit, for three hours slowly realising that the game was slowly drifting away. Worse still was speaking to all the guy in the bar when they got back telling us just how great it was!
Moan aside it was a thew best place so far. We met up with Julio´s daughter Luine and her boyfriend diego for a local night out which was great, though took a while to get used to the ticket system in clubs. You get a ticket when you go in, don´t pay for any drinks just get a mark on you ticket then get a nice little shock after you´ve queued for a hour to leave! the weekend we arrive was a bog brazilian bank holiday, so the place wasa rammed and buzzing! we spent the days on the two main beaches, in which obviously the rest of the world destroyed South africa at ultimate frisbe. The waves on the beach were like nothing I´d ever seen, and the aussies had a good laugh watching us trying to deal with them. But to do any swimming you had to swim far out passed all of them and the drag out to the sea was worringly strong, as was the amount of fish jumping out of the water, clearly trying to escape something big!
The bank holiday nights were spent in Lapa and a big street party, a huge group of us went out from the hostel, 18 bed dorm so hard not to meet people! and bought beers on the streets then a few of us headed to a samba club till the sort of times you people reading this are propably thinking about getting up for work!
A few more great nights out with guys from the hostel followed to some really good brazilian clubs, often we were the only gringos in there which is just what you want, and with a hostel halve filled with irish girls its hard not to have good, yet big nights out. we had a little tour from luine one morning round places we never would have thought of going with out her and managed to get up to sugar loaf for sunset with some great views before almost being blown of the top by the winds that came as soon as the sun was down!
After we finally gave into our bodies luine was good enough to put us up in her flat, and her Aunt was nice enough to invite us round to hers for a proper meal. But after a failed attemp at going to see J.C as we was in low cloud, we proceeded to fall asleep on he bus, for about a half a hour meaning missed our stop and had a intresting tour of Rio, for 2 hours! so much for a ten minute bus journey! she must have thought we were morons when we had to ring her from the hostel to find out were her flat was, again!
After another meal out with luine and a load of her freinds and making it up to J.C in a thunder storm, which had its blessings as everyone was jealous of the pics we got..on our own with the statue, almost un heard off, we had to say goodbye to Rio, had spent a week but could have stayed for a month. Only problem is I have to go back, missed a footy game in the Maracana, a favela funk party, inb the heart of the favelas along with so much else, next time though I´ll need to improve the portugese, though voce Fait la Dance did work occasionally!
Ready for Boliva by the end though, cash has been spend a little to freely in the two most expenisive places that were on the rough plan.
Part of trip:
Little World tour