The samba

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So, our final day in Rio had not provided us with the weather we had hoped for. It was overcast again and Christ the Redeemer was shrouded in mist. But with the staunch British upper lip we decided to venture to the mountain on the off chance that it would ´clear up´on account of the blue sky which was definitely, almost certainly, not visible on the horizon. As predicted the sky stayed a good manchester grey, and the views were not what they could have been - but we decided that some samba in the Lapa area of Rio might serve to heighten our spirits.

Later on in that evening then we find ourselves in a very local bar with two french lads from our hostel and two hostel employees for company. The Frenchies had been working for a cachasa maker for six months, and one of them certainly looked like he enjoyed the odd indulgence in the sugar cane´s most favourite by-product. We were enjoying the samba beats but obviously looked ridiculous, much to the delight of the locals who took great joy in trying to get us to dance with various ladies with such surefire statements as ´my friend fancies your friend'. In the words of Ben 'the sweaty booty was rife'.

We managed to withstand the ´sweaty booty´until we were cornered by a local who was thought by Ben to be a ´hood rat'. This indeed she was, but a very attractive one at that. However, as with any attractive women what they say must be taken with a pinch of salt. So when she told us all she was a 'writer-producer-director-actress-singer-model'who 'loved the money'we had our reservations, especially when she gave great detail on the hallucinogenic narcotics which she regularly enjoyed on a recreational basis.

Succumbing to her 'female wiles' we were all dragged along to a ´gig´ she was playing in the local area. What she failed to mention is that this ´gig´was in a pool hall frequented by less than upstanding members of the Rio community. Ben and Akshay were dragged into a pool game by an ex-US serviceman whose language we couldn´t discern - we think it was english...but an extremely undiscernible version thereof. All sentences were surrounded by bouts of random laughter, so after watching Ben and Akshay squirm for 30 minutes or so (and after listening to the 'writer-producer-director-actress-singer-model' sing a less than tuneful Bob Marley number) we gave the Rio underbelly our apologies, and hastened to make a quick departure. With a busy night over we caught two hours sleep before getting up at 5am to catch the plane to Buenos Aires.

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