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Published: March 14th 2008
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Party, party, party! That just about sums up our stay in Rio De Janeiro. We arrived by overnight bus from Iguazu and were treated to fantastic views in the early morning as we wound our way through the lush and green hinterland hills. The views however, dropped off in quality as we neared the city and we saw the poverty and crime that many of the city's residents live with every day. RDJ is a huge city and it took well over an hour of driving through the suburbs before we arrived at the bus terminal at about 3pm. Thankfully the bus platforms were off-limits unless you were catching a bus, keeping the street-sellers, touts and petty thieves away. We found a taxi and Pete did his best in
'Sportuguese' to talk to the driver.
We had booked our (outrageously expensive) beds at Ipanema in advance from Australia, anticipating the shortage during NYE. We were glad our dorm beds were OK, as they should have been at US$75 per night. Our hostel had a pool and we made a beeline for the water as soon as we had checked in, bagsed beds and organised our locker. It was the start
of a fun and social week at 'Ipanema Beach House', where we met and partied with dozens of great people.
Later that afternoon we walked three blocks down to the famous Ipanema Beach (and yes, I was little disappointed that Pete didn't sing the song for me). It was everything we had expected, and more. The beach was gorgeous, although not quite as good as we are used to on the Australian Sunshine Coast. But it was the locals that struck us; they were beautiful and friendly, and even the old ladies in their revealing Brazilian bikinis exuded confidence and happiness so that they were just as beautiful, if not more beautiful in their bodies as younger girls. And the Brazilian men! If only all Aussie males could get over their prudery and see just how much nicer they would look in fitted swimwear! Pete busted out his DTs with pride and was impressed with how much more comfortable they were and how quickly they dried.
We were on an almost impossible mission the next day, the 31st of December. Pete still held hopes of finding his rare-probably-extinct-in-South-America Merrell aquasport sneakers, and I wouldn't be surprised if we
Copacabana Beach
.. As seen from Sugarloaf Mountain browsed through 20 or more outdoor and sports stores searching for them. We also had to find some cheap white clothes to wear that night to the party - everyone in Rio wears white on New Years' Eve to symbolise peace. The problem is that white is an incredibly silly colour to take travelling because it gets dirty so quickly, so cheap was the priority. We found a t-shirt for Pete and some white shorts for me (silly, silly me) and retired exhausted to the hostel for a siesta before heading back out again for the party.
We hung around the hostel, chatting with the others and loving the hostel's capirinhas before heading out to Copacabana Beach at about 10:30pm. RDJ is a dodgy place, and there is nowhere to hide from that fact. It was unfortunate that we had to be so careful, but we felt much better once we were amongst the crowds that we didn't take a camera, credit card or phone, unlike so many others in our group who were constantly watching their backs and pockets. The walk to Copacabana Beach was about 10 blocks from our hostel, and after some discussion within the group
Ipanema Beach
Pete buying yet another sarong from the friendly street seller on the best way to get there, we ditched most of them and headed onwards by ourselves.
When I first sighted Copacabana Beach at about 11pm (and it's an enormous beach) crammed with 2 million people, it took my breath away. After a few more minutes walking, when we were amongst the crowd, I couldn't stop smiling (I also snuck a few sideways looks at Pete and noticed he was smiling too!). While we'd had a fantastic time so far on our travels, with plenty of highlights, it occurred to me that the moment I was enjoying right then was one of the most precious of the trip so far. We wandered along the beach for a bit, soaking up the happy vibes, then found a place on the beach in time for the fireworks. A slight oversight on our part was a watch to keep track of the time and join in the countdown, so we had to be content watching the Brazilan family next to us for our cue. Disappointingly, there was no big countdown to see in the new year, but when the fireworks started up, I was breathless for the second time that night. The
Sunset at Ipanema..
And there's still a big crowd at the beach. fireworks display was bigger than anything I've ever seen (yes, even Sydney) and I could feel the noise from the fireworks pounding on my lungs as we stood watching, open-mouthed and looking skywards.
After the 20-minute fireworks display we started ambling through the crowds again. 10 stages had been set up along the beach, with all sorts of music, local samba through to a rave party. I was disappointed to learn later that apparently Bon Jovi were on one of the stages! None of the parties really took our fancy so we walked back to Ipanema to see what the beach party there was like. It was disappointing to see that the entire beach district had turned into a urinal, but I suppose you can never plan to have enough port-a-loos for 2 million people.
Ipanema wasn't really happening so we called it a night and were initially disppointed to see that the other two guys in our dorm weren't asleep. However as time wore on we found that sleeping was far too boring with Hachim the ex-marine arguing with Mark, the proudly English investment banker. The shenanigans continued the next day with subjects as diverse as terrorism,
the British monarchy, american politics and Lord of the Rings all making an appearance at the poolside.
The rest of our stay in RDJ was almost boring compared to the fun we had on New Years' Eve. There was plenty of time for me to go shopping, and we also did a town tour with Orlando, a RDJ local, to all the postcard attractions. In only one short day we went for a walk through the jungle, caught the cable cars up Sugarloaf Hill, had lunch in the gorgeous and historic Santa Teresa and saw Christ the Reedeemer.
We were both so disappointed to leave Rio de Janeiro, and both decided that it was one of the few places we could possibly live! Brazil is an amazing country in itself, but RDJ was a standout. I can't wait to go back, hopefully for another New Years' Eve!
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