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Published: March 5th 2009
Well it´s been quite a while since our last entry, but as you can imagine there was little time to spare in a city like Rio! We left Trancoso shortly after our last entry with some banana cake and minging guacamole to keep us going. The bus ride took 21 hours but was quite enjoyable as they supplied us with biscuits and films for entertainment. After settling in to our hostel in Catete, we headed out to meet Dave and Ollie (Dave being our friend from Uni for those who don´t know him) for a few drinks. We were ambushed by a bunch of 8 year old kids with a flimsy knife in a park, which was incredibly irritating but nothing could ruin the Carnaval spirit for us. The Carnaval started officially the next day (Friday) and so we found out about the parties that were on to go and join. On the Saturday we went to a huge Bloco (street party) at about 3 in the afternoon, where we sat on Ipanema beach for a couple of hours whilst it got started and then followed the party bus into the neighbourhood. The party went on into the night, and we quickly learnt that a part of Ipanema beach is actually a gay friendly area, as was the entire Bloco, making the party a lot more crazy! The following day we headed to another Bloco in Ipanema (couldn´t get enough of them) and did the same on the last night of Carnaval, the Tuesday. On the Monday night, however, after attending a Bloco in Botafogo, we decided to head to the Sambadrome to see some of the samba schools perform. It was really spectacular, the attention to detail on the floats and costumes was amazing with so many colours and patterns you wouldn´t believe. It varied from people in chicken suits through to a giant nodding dog, to a giant Bahian woman with a bowl of shrimp (beautiful women swimming about in amazing costumes). Each samba school paraded for about an hour, making the number of people in each one mind-blowing!
After all the festivities we felt truly content that we chose to spend Carnaval in Rio, so decided to finish our stay by attending a football match at Maracana stadium, Botafogo vs. Flumnense (described to us as the equivalent of Barcelona vs. Real Madrid). The atmosphere was awesome in there, despite us being in the neutral stands as we got to witness the reactions of both teams´supporters. On our final day we packed up our belongings and bought bus tickets to make our way towards the Pantanal. Our intention was to go and visit Cristo Redente but unfortunately realised we wouldn´t have enough time. So rather than worrying about it we decided it would have to wait until next time and went around the neighbourhoods photographing some of the striking graffiti, something that may not be there next time we are able to go!
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Emma Jones
non-member comment
Hi guys
Hello you two...sounds like youre still having loads of fun...sooooooooooo jealous!!! What do you mean minging Guacamole...its lush!!!! Did you have a good birthday D? What did you get up to or was that during the carnival time? Cant wiat to see pics of your travels...take care....love you loads xxxx