What a crazy, messy, noisy, bright, sunny, head-foggy week. From the day that Rita and I arrived in Rio, two days before the start of Carnaval, the time we spent here was non-stop, with the hardest decision we were faced with each day was whether to go to another street party or to the beach. We didn't really know what to expect from this city as we'd heard so many stories about how dangerous it could be, ie. "they will cut off your hand to get to your camera", including a girl we met in Buenos Aires who had a knife held to her throat while checking out the sites in the main square in the city centre. Pretty much on arrival to the hostel, we worked out that the other backpackers fell into two groups
... read more