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Published: June 18th 2007
At the Copa, Copacabana with music and laughter and love ever after at the Copacabana!!
Yes we´ve hit Rio and we´ve hit it in style!!! Guys, we thought Florianopolis was hot, well Rio just got a whole lot hotter!! We´re staying in the legendary Copacabana, which in itself is a nightmare as the song just plays in your head constantly!!
Getting here was pretty kool as we had to drive through all the mountains, though we had to change buses again!! However, we had to change buses in Sao Paulo - Sao Paulo is probably one of the most dangerous places in Brazil, full of car jacking, kidnappings and the like - a proper ghetto! So we were somewhat nervous about getting off there and waiting for our connecting buses, the drive through the city was interesting though, seeing all the actual ghettos and the ghetto superstars!!
So we arrive in Rio, still feeling a little nervous with all the scare stories you hear about here and we get the nicest taxi driver, who thankfully has aircon!! Drive to our hostel and on the way we catch a glimpse of Christ the Redeemer, it doesn´t look all that big up there on that mountain! As we drive on Sugar Loaf mountain comes into view and then we catch the briefest glimpse of Copacabana beach!!
We get unpacked and go for a little wander around, check out the beach - it looks nice! Then we head back to the hostel, our first night is spent in the bar and we partake in a bit of pub quiz action and by Jo we've still got it - we win the quiz and bag ourself dome rather splendid Mellow Yellow Brazil t-shirts!
Next day its up and out to Copacabana beach to catch a few rays and some glimpses of all the beautiful glistening bodies of the locals on the beach! We are approached by every single beach seller going, from footy shirts to zippy bags we get them all, theres only so many no thankyou's you can say! Back at the hostel we head to the bar, most nights they knock up some good grub and the beers cheap as well! Then we get roped into going to an Irish bar called Shennanigans in Ipanema - i say roped, it didn't take that much persuading! Over here in Brazil they have an unusual method of purchasing drinks, on your way in they hand you a card and everytime you order a drink the barmaid ticks it off on the card and you pay on the way out - can end up being rather dangerous!!! Have a fairly unsuccessful night due to some rather annoying Welsh boys and head back to the hostel, which at night is all boarded up!
Sugar Sugar
Next day we're back on the beach in the morning to catch some rays but its back to the hostel at 1 to go on our first trip to Sugar Loaf mountain. Sugar loaf so named because it used to be the main port where the inporting and exporting of sugar took place and the mountain itself resembled the mounds of sugar being brought in! So we are given the news at the bottom that we won't be getting the first cable car up the mountain, instead we will be walking! Great! So we start the walk and its just a gentle stroll, then we stumble upon some rather mean, steep looking stairs in the jungle - of course thats what we have to climb up!!! And everyone is o so prepared in flip flops!!! But we get to see a few little monkeys, when we're not sliding back down the slope!!! Finally get to the top and the views over Rio are picture postcard perfect. You can see everything, Copacabana beach, Ipanmea beach, Christ the Redeemer, the airport - everything! Then we get the best news that we're getting the cable car to sugarloaf mount! The views are just as incredible up there, so we stop and have a drink and prepare ourselves for more bad news!!! For some reason the cable car we thought we were getting back down, we're not now, so we have to slide down the way we climbed up! Back in the bar we go for a well deserved beer and end up in Lapa having a beer in the street before we head into a club called 'Democraticus' for some samba action!!
Girls from Ipanema
So we couldn't come all the way to Rio and not check out Ipanema beach! So thats where we head and its alot nicer than Copacabana, its the place where all the beautiful people are to be seen so we fit right in!!! At this beach everything is catorgorised into which post you sit at, there are gay posts, family posts, rich posts and beautiful posts - we of course sit at the beautiful post and recieve many admiring glances from the yocals!!!
We enjoy a lovely walk back from Ipanema along Copacabana and its back to the hostel and preparations begin for the evenings night out! This bascially involves playing a drinking game entitled 'Power Hour', each participant drinks one shot of beer every minute for an hour - its really quite effective, only a couple of Irish guys who are playing decided to turn it into 'Centurion' - 100 shots of beer! Needless to say the Irish guys don't make it out with us!!! But then the night ends fairly abruptly when no one can find the club we're meant to be going to!!!! Its not until the next morning that we all discover that theres something in this Brazilian beer thats not in any other beer - something that seems to affect peoples bowel movements, we will say no more!!!
Christ the Redeemer
Todays tour was seeing the mighty Christ statue at sunset. So we all pile into a few mini buses and head up the mountains - first stop is to the viewpoint where all the postcard pics are taken, next stop statue! Close up its absolutely huge, but we're reminded of the Taj Mahal by the sheer number of people up there, trying to take the obligatory christ picture its difficult with all the other tourists about!!! Sunset of course is really pretty and as dusk hits Rio, it begins to light up and it looks pretty kool from the top of the mountain beside a statue of Christ!!! Back to the hostel and again preparations are under way for tonights festivities - a street party in Lapa. This place is famous at weekends for its parties on the streets and they are pretty hardcore!!!
The bold and the beautiful
With sore heads in tow, we head off to Ipanema beach to post 9 of course where all the beautiful people hang out and boy o boy is it packed. We´re lucky to find a spare patch of sand, what with all these beautiful people everywhere!! We settle down for a few hours and then just can´t take the adoration any longer so we head back to the hostel, get some grub and yep you´ve guessed it hit the tiles again!! We´re in Rio you see, party central so we simply have to go out - thats what everyones telling us anyway. Tonight we head to a club called ´Buowski´, owned by some dodgy dealer!! So we get a taxi there and start to wonder whether the taxi driver actually knows the right way seeing as we´re driving around a residential area and then suddenly he stops outside this little house and sure enough this is the place! It turns out that the club is in fact a two storey house, with mini parties going in every room - its like a major house party, very kool. And upstairs in the one room every ones sat round smoking from a shisha pipe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shisha don´t know how to explain it so have a click on there to have a look and see!!! It was all very weird but we had a thoroughly good night but that probably had more to do with the huge shots we ordered at the bar!!! We had thought 12 reals was a bit much for a shot of vodka, but when the shot of vodka came out it was soooo much more than a shot!!! We slept very well that night!
Ghetto superstars!
So we finish off our first week in Rio with a trip to the Hippy Market in Ipanema - but can you believe we hardly bought a thing - i know we weren´t all that happy about it either!!! Basically the market wasn´t that great and it was really expensive and no one was willing to haggle with us, how mean!!!! The most astonishing sight of the day was a beggar who had the leg the size of an actual tree trunk - we think he might have had elephantitus - it was really horrible!
We walk back to our hostel along the beach and prepare for tonights festivities - tonight is the piece de resistance, its the Favela Funk Party. Basically the Favelas are the slum areas of Rio and we are attending a party in one! So we get a few drinks in at the bar and get treated to some proper Brazilian entertainment. A dance crew from a local favela visit the hostel and perform for us. They´re all really amazing, can´t think what the name of the dance is called but it comprises of gymnastics and break dancing and they battle it out agaisnt one another and at one point they even brought some huge knives out - sparks were flying i can tell you!! After the show we all got piled into minibuses off to the favela. Its a bumpy ride, especially seen as there wasn´t enough room for me, so i got bundled into the bus and had to sit on the floor!! We arrive in the Favela and have to queue up for this club - watching all the locals go in, its all a bit scary. Then its our turn to go in and we all go through hand in hand and make our way to the back of the warehouse to the stairs to the VIP area where we will be staying with our own personal security! We walk through - don´t see any guns but see alot of dodgy dealings going on - and make it upstairs to our own little area. So we get the drinks in, have a bit of a boogie with some of the Brazilians who are allowed up there and generally have a really good night. The best part was watching all the locals downstairs from the upstairs balcony. They are all in groups/gangs and all started having little dance offs with each other - so amazing to watch as some of them are really amazing dancers. They all get into their little groups of about 4/5 and do the same dance, at the same time in rhythm to the music - was definately the highlight of the night for me!
So that concludes our first week in Rio - certainly action packed and now we have one more week left of our 6 month trip, how scary is that - VERY!!!!
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Trailblazer
non-member comment
very cool
This is so so different from your last blog, I wonder why you were the last one to get on the mini bus ??? Was it because of the after effects of the amount of distilled liquid you had to drink because of THE HEAT (some excuse). Hope you kept some of the yellow shiorts ?