All good things must come to an end...

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Rio...

We have been a little unlucky with our Brazil weather (but it is winter) and have had some rain whilst in Rio. Nonetheless it is clearly a very beautiful city. Some would say that its the most beautiful in the world and I wouldn´t argue with that description. Theres something about it...more than either Sydney or Vancouver has.

We´re staying in a small hotel in Copacabana. I unfortunately have the Barry Maniloe song going over and over in my head. The first night we headed out to check out some Rio clubs. Much like London its an expensive place to party, but it was fun.

We took a guided taxi ride (from Louis with pretty good English, if only he didn´t get right and left mixed up) up to the peak of Corcovado (Hunckback in English) which is where Crist Redentor lives (Christ the Redeemer). I think that it should have occurred to me that he must be huge since you can see him from everywhere in Rio...but I still couldn´t beleive how tall he was. To get up here (its 710m high) you drive through tropical rainforest that exists within the city boundaries of Rio (120 km2 to be exact). I did say rain forest and rain it did when we reached the top. It did clear up after 30 minutes or so and the clouds rose to reveal a stunning panorama of the entire city. In the 1800´s the forest had been completely decimated by the plantation of sugar cane. The ensuing drought, together with a 6 degreeC rise in the city temperature induced the replanting of 80,000 seeds (only 46,000 grew, but they certainly grew). So in the middle of Rio we saw monkeys above our heads in the trees.

After this we headed to Ipanema for lunch. This is the more upmarket beach with lots of very rich and beautiful people. Lots of speedos (more than bikinis) - many on people that just shouldn´t...and then there is the strange phenomenon of buying a bikini top 4 sizes too small. I didn´t join in.

We walked back to our hotel along Ipenema beach and Copacobana beaches. With the weather not being as good the waves were pretty big. Lots of surfers out and about.

The evening was a lot of fun. We headed to the Maracana stadium to see a football match. Flamengo vs Internationale. Internationale had just won the South American cup so we thought that they would be pretty good. The stadium is huge - officially the biggest in the world. Previously the capacity was 140,000 but they have had to redo the stadium to deal with the coroded foundations secondary to people peeing anywhere. No kidding! It was crazy with samba drums beating continuously and coloured smoke bombs going off. We had tickets to the special touristica section where we didn´t have any sections above us - important since the fans through dead chickens and cups of urine on the fans below. We also had clean(ish) toilets, although the ladies cubicals didn´t have any doors. There is much cheap beer available and its a lots of fun. The fans were all jumping up and down in unison - it was quite bizzare. I´ve never seen such atmosphere at a game...and this was a pretty dull run of the mill type of game.
The sophistication of the soccer songs was similar to in Scotland. There was the Brazillian version of "whos the B#*tard in the black" which didn´t need much translation. The more interesting song ws sung to the tune of "oh when the saints go marching in". There were no words - they just chanted oh, oh, oh oh, ...oh, oh, oh, oh ...and occasionally shouted Flamengo. A little odd. The Brazillian league obviously suffers from most of the best players competeing in European leagues but nonetheless it was a little disappointing in terms of skill level. They didn´t seem to have ever heard of the overlap before and the diving was as one would expect in South America. 2-1 to inter was the final score and we all got home safely.

The boys headed out to a Bosanova club which had 2 hour line ups to get in...being old I went home. The next mrning Maurice (the red headed pale Englishman with sticking up hair) was going on and on about coming back to Rio and loving the city. Later it came out that the Brazillian girls called him "little Beckham" (he´s about a foot shorter than Beckham) and all wanted to touch his red hair. I think the spiky hair is the only similarity to Becks...but Maurice was loving it...

The next day we headed to the other famous peak in town - Sugar Loaf Mountain. You take 2 cable cars to get to the top and then are rewarded with views of the bay in all directions. You can see why the Portugese mistakenly thought there was a river estuary here..hence the name Rio. The panoramic views were amazing with Copacabana beach and others stretching out below us. There are a staggering 53 beaches in the Rio city limits. Enough for another visit I think!

There was a free concert on Copacabana beach last night with a massive stage and too many people. The singers were all "famous" Brazillians - one of which appeared to be the equivalent of Tom Jones in Brazil. The atmosphere was great but we were not really convinced by the music. Somebody tried to take Maurice´s wallet - which wasn´t really a surprise given that it is Rio and there were so many people. The scary point came when a fight broke out between 2 gangs and people ran away. Suddenly there was a stampede of people coming at us. At this point my foot got stuck on a guy rope of a tent. Luckily I got my foot free as Maurice pulled me out the way. I ended up with a bit of a gash on my ankle, that bled a lot, but is ok. We were pretty shaken up after this and headed back to the hotel.

Today I fly back to Calgary. So after 9 weeks of travelling, 6 countries visited (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina), 2 oceans swam in (Atlantic and Pacific) and the equator and tropic of capricorn crossed; its time for my final blog. Rio is not a bad place to end though. Its been an amazing trip, but I´m excited to be going home. I´ll not miss the ice cold showers, or the toilets that you can´t flush loo paper down.

I do have big plans to buy a cup of starbucks coffee, sit on my toilet and read a decent newspaper. Ahhhh simple luxuries. It has been amazing though and I cant wait till next time.

Thanks for joining us on this trip - hope to see many of you soon,

Shelaghxx

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Photos

Copacobana beach
View of Copacobana from Sugar loaf mountain.

Rio and Sugar loaf mountain
View from the corcovado after the storm.

Cristo...
Looking down at all the Rio sins...

Rio
From sugar loaf.

Ipenema beach
Fancy some volley ball..wearing minimal clothes?

Comments

[Richard]

Welcome Home
I have really enjoyed your blogs, I don't know how I am goig to get thru my days at work without them. You 2 have to keep travelling for my amusement - hope to see you soon.