Advertisement
Published: February 14th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Its corking here!
Yes they are real, and the second was a bit of a struggle even for me!! 4 days of hardcore partying are bound to leave a mark on anybody. By the time Carnaval was over I think it´s fair to say we came, we saw and we got well and truly mullerered.
So what do you do when all the partying stops?! Well first you have a meal out with the friends you made in South America, as most of them are now leaving the continent all together. You spend a wee bit of time feeling down and looking back on all the cool things you´ve done, but realising they are over (I blame the depression on alcohol myself!). Finally, you realise you are still in one of the coolest cities on the planet and that you should be taking advantage of every minute you are there!! So just as soon as folded my clothes, sorted my hair, ate some toast and listened to a few random songs on my I-Pod, I climbed out of bed at 3pm and made my decision to spend the next few days doing the normal touristy things that Rio has on offer! Strating with one of The New 7 Wonders of the World.......Christ the Redeemer.
This is a 38m
Sure he´s smiling now....
then we told them, he kicked Christ the Redeemer, funny havn´t seen him since. high statue of Christ, that sits atop Corcovado mountain overlooking most of Rio. (in fact on my travels around S.America you see this quite often, statues of Christ atop hills that is, but a lot smaller)
At the top the view of the city is pretty damn awesome. You can look out across the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana, see the Maracana Stadium and pretty much most of the other highlights Rio has to offer. Now i´m not really a religious person at all, so I didn´t have the ´redemption´ experience you sometimes hear people talking about, what I did however have was a bit of a craned neck from staring up at the top of the statue and taking photos! After all it is a pretty mean feat of engineering. Once we´d finished at the actual statue, we travelled to a nearby hill for a slightly distant view of the statue, this was pretty cool as the sun had started to fade behind the hills for the day. Oh and I nearly forgot to mention the 8th wonder of the world....we found a curry house in Rio and made pigs of ourselves! Whoever built it should be very
Desperately seeking Brad.....
We even looked high and low for him! smug with themselves!
The following day and we were off to Pao De Azucar, aka Sugarloaf Mountain. This is the famous cone like shaped mountain to the Eastern end of Copacabana beach. The top can be reached via two cable cars. Again the view from the top of here is pretty cool, but having seen a lot of it the previous day from the Christ statue, I personally felt it was just OK. They do however, have a bit of a park at the top, which is home to some serious flora and flauna, that´s plants to you and me, and also some weird monkey type creatures that look like they have been crossbred with Count Dracula! There were also some weird flying insects that just hoverered, they all seemed to do it in an attack like formation though, pretty cool! Oh and mosquitos, lots and lots of the little deng fever, malaria carrying winged harbingers of doom! These little turds really liked to bite too....I may dedicate the rest of my life to making theirs hell.
The other good news is that the sun has not stopped shining since the Carnaval period finished, which means we have
The Mighty Maracana
As seen from the Christ statue been hitting the beach in the afternoon! (for those of you that read that in a hurry, I said Beach...don´t worry I haven´t taken to woman bashing!)
Another trip to the Maracana, with copious amounts of beer involved and we were up early (groan) the following morning to venture into the favelas (the slums) of Rio. The first favela is called Rocinho and is Rio´s largest. The funniest thing about the favelas is just how close they are to the richer areas of the city. Our guide keeps reminding us that 99% of the people living in the favalas are hard working, honest and proud, but are poorly qualified or from a poor background. The other 1% are criminals, mainly working for the large drug organisations that run the favelas. This becomes apparant as soon as you enter the area. We are told to wind our windows down so the lookout on the corner can see we are not police or worse still, from a rival gang. The lookouts are just normal guys that sit on street corners armed with guns and walkie talkies. On fist glimpse, it reminds me of the shanty town way you see things laid
Said ´Christ Statue´
Christ the Redeemer, one of the new 7 wonders. out in the Far East. We are taken upto a roof terrace where our guide tells us all about the police involvement, or rather lack of it! Basic police wont enter the favelas, because they just aren´t paid enough and frankly aren´t equipped to deal with the gangs. For example the police carry handguns whilst the gangs carry uzis, AK47´s etc. The only people allowed in there are the SWAT teams or the military police and civil police. They will only do so to get a big drug lord or if a police officer is killed in there. Last time they went in (November), gang members, police and civilians were all killed...so as you can see, they dont go in too often! The drug lords run the favelas like a maffia, whereby petty crimes such as theft and more serious crimes such as rape, are dealt with in house. You dont commit crimes in the favelas...this will get you killed. At one market we were´nt allowed to take any pictures, as this one sells drugs...can´t imagine him shouting ´pound a pound´on a sunday morning!
All in all the experience was eye opening, but I couldnt help but feel a
bit voyeurish, I mean it´s bad enough these proud people are poor, without having some affluent gringo wandering around the streets looking at their lives under a microscope.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.339s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 17; qc: 63; dbt: 0.1381s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb