La samba or not

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Rio is crazy good and crazy bad! Its pissed down for three days and the city stinks! Two little punks with bare feet and a fake knife mugged us on the way back to our hostel! It was all bit of a joke as I had no idea what the hell was going on and Richard gave them 3 Rias, about 3 pounds and half a pack ciggies and then we legged it! I think they were more scared than us as the police patrol that area all the time. Anyway we were in stiches by the time we got back to the hostel. We were just saying how safe we felt in Rio! So dont worry Mas and Pas we are safe!

Had a tour around the Favela , eyeopener indeed. 200,000 folk live in this particular slum, all built on top of one another. Really steep narrow little street that stink of shit . However all this the people are open and friendly and seem to love their life. Local artist sell the work to Gringos and kids play music instead of begging. There are community schools and nurseries set up and funded purely by donation and charity. The best bit of it was we got on the back of motorbikes and hung on for dear life and we zoomed up to the top of the Favela dodging cats, crates of food and people what a thrill we were beaming after it!! Weehee ªª. The dark side is that they are run by drug gangs who patrol with guns. 20% of the pop in Rio live in them. Kinda city of God style. Hear gun shots and bombs going off in the night quite a few times. Gangs from different Favelas fighting each other.


After spending half the day trying to find the bus station we mananged to book our ticket to Iguzu falls- leave on Sat.... 22 hours on a bus!!!! Ready to leave Rio it is expensive and raining! Unbelievable not seen any music or Samba, i was expecting it to fill the streets....
I recommend anyone wanting to visit Rio to try and understand some Portugese before hand as its really hard to navigate your way around. Richard was much better than me I just got really theatrical and started pointing at stuff while waving my hands expecting folk to understandf me while Richard pissed himself laughing. Great hey!


ARGENTINA HERE WE COME.

Having bother putting pics up STILL, hints anyone?

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Comments

[Dicky and Toots]

Sorry 3 Rias just over a fiver.

[Len]

Wow
Wow, sounds very interesting. Don't remember these things happening growing up in Edinbane. It's great to get all your news and hear how you are doing. We are well. I have a reading week this coming week, so we are all off the the Isle of Coll for a few days to catch-up with Dad, Julie and Christopher. They've got a holiday cottage and a capmer van and Orla is really looking forward to the 3hrs on a ferry each way. Got to dash, cheers Len xxx