Maracana and Cachasa

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Following on from my previous entry we did in fact venture to the football game on Thursday at the Maracana. The atmosphere was good considering half of the stadium was empty. Also, there were no prawn sandwiches in sight and the Flamengo fans did all they could to fill the stadium with noise, music and...flares.

We had decided to do down the Brazilian coast at some point during our stay, and we settled on a small town called Paraty (pronounced Parachi) for the weekend, which lies somewhere between Rio and Sao Paulo. This was a characteristically great idea from us, given that we found out after we´d booked our coach tickets down there that all of the hostels in that town had been booked up for 6 months for this weekend due to an annual ´cachaca´festival - 2 days in 365, and we managed to pick them. However, due to an administrative error on behalf of hostelbookers.com we managed to book ourselves into a hostel which was...full but the owner very kindly moved some people around for us and we got the room we were looking for, complete with PVC curtains.

Now, Cachaca is an alcoholic substance made from sugar cane, akin to rum. It´s one of those drinks which invites you in with an í´m not too strong´kind of vibe, and then takes a hammer to the back of your head 20 minutes later. This festival had many stalls under marquees all plying the sugar cane waste, and a big main stage for live music. Ben was hoping Billy Joel or Elton John would make an appearance, and almost cried when they didn´t.

So this festival basically revolved around this drink and much revelry was had, a portion of which was at the expense of the ´gringos´. Ben even managed to get what he phrased a ´hobo re-fill´ of cachasa from a kindly passer-by. Akshay on the other hand did not accept this offer, much to the annoyance of said hobo.

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