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Published: October 21st 2007
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Oi todos!!
Hope you are all well and happy! After 32 hour on planes, different airports and buses we recently arrived to Rio de Janeiro from Cuba. A LOT have happend since last time we wrote so we´ll have to give you the short version. We will at least try!
Back to Jamaica. Before we left lovely Port Antonio we went on a rafting tour on Rio Grande, slow and peaceful but very nice. It would have been very romantic with a partner 😊 After a few hour in the packed sweaty local bus (where you litterally got very close to the locals), we setteled down in Ocho Rios for one night. We spent the night out and went to the beach the day after with some swedish guys that we met at our guesthouse. The five of us went to Montego Bay together and also stayed one night there, at the worst "guesthouse" ever. Lonely Planet had recomended it and after staying at this cockroach-bordell we lost some respect for Lonely Planet travel guides.
The next stop, that became our absolute favorite, was Negril. A relaxed former hippie hang-out with a 11 km long beach. We lived
about 3 min from the beach in a cottage with our own fridge, awsome! We spend 5-6 days here not doing much but enjoy life. Everyday we hung out with the 3 swedish guys, a belgum guy and Dre from australia (who had been travelling the last 5 years!), sunbathing, snorkling and sailing during the days and partying and playing pool at night. We also became friends with "reggae super star" Swallow that performed 2 nights at different clubs. Cool dude that we will promote in sweden when we get back 😊
Flying to Cuba was like going back in time. The city of Havana had really old buildings (some nice and many that looked like they could fall apart any minute), old cars that polluted the air extremly, very badly working phones and internet and an unfree population. Although cubans are very friendly and happy they stryggle with many things. The minimum wage is not more than 10 US Dollar (75:-) a month and they can not travel, use the internet, have cable tv... Things we take for granted doesn´t exist for them. 48 years after the revolution most people seem to want a change, badly. In the
only state-owned newspaper there is, and also everywere else in town, you see a lot of socialist propaganda still.
The week on Cuba became quite expensive since the country has several currencies. This meaning that the prices for us are a lot higher than for the locals, and we also had to pay a high tax every time we wanted to withdraw money. However we did like Cuba and the cubans a lot. We spent many nights out at different salsa clubs dancing ourselves sweaty til closingtime. 3 nights of them we spent at Casa de la Música, the nr 1 spot in Havanna. One night a salsaband were playing and people were dancing in front of the stage. Everyone danced really well so we felt a bit nervous at first. But then we met two guys that thought us some steps and we didn´t want to stop until we had to - closingtime!
Next time (friday) at Casa de la música they had a long show with singers, dancers in carneval-outfits and acrobats to entertain the crowd before the dancing started. Our last night out (sunday) we went back to see a popular reggaeton-band called Eddy K,
and the Music house was packed and people were really enjoying themselves. And of course, so were we. We met some lovely cubans so we were never alone goin out.
Except from partying we went all around the city, and 3 days we spent at Playa Santa Maria just some 20 min from Havanna. One day we jumped on a tourist tour to Viñales, a beautiful valley where they grow tobaco-plants. We got to se how they first dry the leaves in cute little huts and then how they roll cigars out of the leaves in a factory. It looked pretty easy but to become a cigar-roller you had to practise for 9 months and then be approved by the government. Yeah!
Leaving Cuba felt like coming back to the 21st century! Here in beautiful but cloudy Rio we have slept a lot so far to catch up 😊 But we have also had time to do some things during our days here. We were lucky enough to time our stay with the Brazilian national team playing at the local stadium Maracaná for the first time in 7 years. Over 100 000 people on the stands and we
managed to sneek ourselves onto the best section available, and enjoyed Brazil scoring 5 times! WOOOW!!! The atmosphere was defenitely better than at the IFK matches back home!
We also tried going to the Copacabana for a day to work on our tan, but since it is only spring here now it was quiet chilly with the wind. But just being on the Copacabana, seeing all the locals play football and chill out is a nice experience. Thinking we needed a break from the club scene we took an evening to go to the cinema. Since we were the only ones in the cinema and we were watching a horror movie (with one of the workers sometimes walking around behind us) made it quite scary!
Today we paid a visit to the biggest of the 350 favelas (the poorest areas) in Rio! Going up to the top of the huge area meant a totally crazy motorcycle ride with several scary overtakings. Well in the favela it was a bit intimidating to see 15-year olds walking around with big weapons (and talking on walkie talkies to their gang leaders). It was however very interesting to get to know more
about the lives of all the people living like this. During our next days here we will try to visit the big Christ statue overlooking the city, and party with the locals on the streets and learn some true Brazilian samba!
We miss you guys at home now even though we are having a blast!! Take care everyone!! We will upload more pictures another day, because some guy accidently told the manager to shut down our computer and not his. We lost the photos and the camera is dead! 😞 But just have patience, you´ll see more soon!
Hugs & kisses / Jen & Lis
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Christine
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underbart!
Fan va skönt det låter!!! Här hemma har verkligen hösten kommit på allvar, löven faller, vinden viner & regnet... ja, ni vet ju hur det e i Götet den här tiden på året... Så passa på o njut så mycket ni kan... o sola gärna lite för mig oxå - hade varit grymt att vara åtminstone lite brun när ni kommer hem igen... ;-) Sköt om er! Stor kram, Christine