And in the beginning...

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We arrived in Rio on Wednes morning, and beat our way through the frantic crowd of taxi drivers to find some dude who said he was a tourista guide and was going to help us. He led us through the crowd of taxi guys to our bus and kept walking, beckoning us on. he kept muttering something about a big safe blue car, in pigeon english. It turned out he was just an industrious taxi driver willing to relieve two newbies of their wedge. We copped it and head back for the bus. Iano and Aoilo 1 - Rio 0. Weather that day wasnt great but we hit for the beach anyway.

On the second day, we were picked up to do our tour of the favellas (shanty towns). we stopped off at some hostel and the guide went in to get some more tourists when this big black lady came up to our window, hiked up her skirt and took a wizz on the car. Unfortunately, we were only a foot away and could see everything but fortunately the window was up. It was 9 in the moring and we were amazed to see such a full moon at this time of day. I asked the guide if we had to pay extra for the experience but thankfully it was all included in the price.

The Rocina favella is class. It is the oldest and biggest favella. we were takin to the top of it on motor bikes and then walked down to the bottom. The poverty in there is unbelievable and the place is run by the ADA (Amigos dos Amigos - friends of friends) drug gang. We bought some stuff off the local kids, art and things and at one stage I had to fight off this big old round woman that latched on to me, kissing and biting my stomach, much to the dismay of Aoilo. The old madzer charm knows no bounds. I got her number and we moved on.

We visited Christ the redeemer and the Sugar loaf over the next few days, which were cool. We got some decent photos there. Check them out below.

We went out salsa dancing in Lapa on the friday night which was cool. Not my scene but to spend a night with the cariocas (local rio de janeirings) doing what they do was interesting.

In summary, Rio, in our view deserves its title of "citidae magnifico" (or something like that) - the magnificant city. Our days were spent seeing the city, hitting the beach and chillaxing. Our evenings were spent dining out and taking it easy. Aoileann squeezed in a few romantic strolls on the beaches in the evenings and I went with her.

Adios amigos

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