Seeing the real Rio

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27/12
With the festivities over we had a new challenge to face, new year - now, I know what you're thinking - you surely must've packed a party dress which would look lovely with heels... if only it were so simple. In Brazil there is a tradition which means everyone wears white for goodwill in the new year, and then you accessorise this with another colour for:

Love (red)
Health (green)
Prosperity (yellow)
Peace (blue)

I, being the selfish and loved up human being I am decided to wear red (also because I brough red lippy with me) but we STILL didnt have dresses - so we, on advice, decided to head down to the market which must have the most vowels in the world - uruguaiania. It. Was. Crazy. It was like a combination of a Moroccan souk and Doncaster Market - it wqas huge, roasting and pretty complicated to navigate and we were pretty overwhelmed! Alot of the stalls were selling DVDs and electrical goods, and there were fewer selling clothes, in the street were pushing sim cards and mosquito electrocuters, the latter I was tempted by! After a couple of hours of incessant searching, we found our dresses and were pretty happy to return to the hostel inpreparation for the arrival of Laura in the morning!

28/12
The day finally came and we were so excited that Laura was coming. Webought her a flag and made a welcome sign. We got up really early so that we could get a bus to the airport. Following directions from one of the hostel staff we went to praia do botafogo to get it... simple. So we thought. With 6 lanes of traffic and 3 bus stops with very little signage we failed... epicly - and after about an hour of attempting to get on the right bus, we gave up and just got in a taxi - we REALLY didnt want to be late! We hung around for a bit in the airport (which we had grown to know so well!) and then she arrived - we were so excited to be reuinited and it was lovely to have someone new to chat to who we didnt need to do introductions with! We jabbered and whittered at Laura, who was slightly overwhelmed by her presence in Rio full stop! We got back to the hostel and quickly wenttout for lunch at a weigh restaurant and then back to Uruguaiania to by Laura a white dress and accessories then back to the hostel where we all flopped in front of the TV! Laura ventured on like an absolute trooper! We then were offered a barbecue at the hostel between 7 and 9 which we accepted - only to be fed at 10:30! Then we all passed out in preparation for the big Rio tour.

29/12
The Rio tour was a great way to see the city, even though the tourguide spoke terrible English! First stop - the big JC himself - the van drove us most of the way up, we bypassed the queues like VIPs and walked up the 500 or so steps to hangout with the big man. We marched up quicksmart and were lucky with the weather - it'd been cloudy in the morning but the sun had comeout so we still got some great views of the city - we participated in some obligatory posing! The Christ Redeemer is undeniably huge (especially his beard) but i thnk the statue is more powerful from below as he watches over the whole city - still, it was cool to see him close up!

Stop 2 - the samabdroma - this is the purpose built area where Carnaval happens - cue us dressing up inb amazing but completely ridiculous hats and pretending to be able to samba. The 10 best samba schools compete at carnaval - to be honest though, sans samba schools, the sambadrona isnt very exciting, its like a weird linear stadium 0 concrete stands for a few hundred metres. People like Elton John and Status Quo have played gigs there, which is really difficult to imagine as there is no end to the stadium, and no obvious stage.

Stop 3 - The Macarana Stadium - we were gutted we couldnt actually go into the stadium because it was closed to bring it up to the FIFA standards for the World Cup - but we had fun in the Hall of Fame which reinforced the fact that i have MASSIVE FEET - Pele's feet were tiny! I was about the same size as Ronaldo. Amy was loving the stadium but was gytted that we couldnt go and watch a match there - no football for brazil in december!

Stop 4- we then headed upto Sao Sebastian cathedral in Lapa, which is a 1970s build and is a conical shape, it looked a little bit like a dead Christmastree, in all honesty it was stunning but ugly from the outside, and absolutely breathtaking inside. The church was split into eight panelsfrom top to bottom, withj four absolutely massive stain-glass windows, I have never seen anything like it - the girls sat and said a prayer as i wandered around just taking it in, there were 3 entrances to the church which streamed light in, there was the standard nativity scene but the wholeplace was incredible serene, silent night was quietly playing in the background. We weren't in there very long but it wqas the highlight of my day.

We then went to see the beaches, Ipanema and Copa, but we had seen this before so we just used this as an opportunity to show Laura the love of Brazilian backsides and some of the tiny bikinis on show.Then we went for lunch, grabbed a water and got shouted at for being 3 minutes late - so much for tempos brazilianos!

Afterwards we headed for our final destination, Sugar Loaf Mountain - Tasha had been dreading the cable cars because of her fear of heights, but actually the cable cars were disappointingly not dangerous - no real adrenaline rush, it kind of was like being in a spaceship pod! But, in spite of this, the mountain was bloody high and we got some great views of the city and we got to see the monkeys living upthere.

Making sure we were bang on time for the guide to avoid further being shouted at, we headed back down to earth having had a really good experience and a feel for what the big sights were in Rio, we were so glad that we had taken the tour as it would've taken us days to cover what we did!

We got back to the hostel, and it was Caiprihna night - good times, it was also one of the guests, Christian.'s birthday, so we decided to head out on an incredibly shambolic night to Rio's most famous samba club, Democratius. This was all after Tasha and I performed an incredible version of Barry Manilow's Copacabana as a birthdqay present (which Vicky filmed then, thank god accidentally deleted) - about 20 of us went out in different cabs and somehow managed to find one meeting place before the Aussie boys decided they needed money and wandered off. With no sense of direction or purpose in the troops the british led them to the club, pushed in the queue and made our way in. It was amazing, loads of couples manically sambaing to a live band, it was packed. The couple dancing rendered dancing in a group impossible, the men were flinging women around - as we had a 'we are clearly foreign moment' as lots of brazilians offered oteach us - EPIC FAIL. I stuck to my salsa moves and... sweeping generalisation... Australians can't salsa. It was really fun times though. We then left, mildly concerned that we were on another tour in the morning - bring on the favelas!

Rxxxxxxxx

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