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Never have we been so hot in our life! The brits love to complain about the weather but when the Aussies join in you know your on to something. Sweat every day, all day, all night. After a night at an amazing Churrascaria (ie all you can eat meat) for Rorys birthday the next day was alcohol/meat/hot sweats hopefully not to be experienced again.
However, aside from the sweatathon Rio lived up to everything we hoped it would be. Especially Carnival! We learnt that carnival means the end of meat ahead of lent. Bit of a better celebration than pancake day and one that goes on for 5 days and 5 nights. The street parties, or blocos happen all hours of the day across the city. Apparently the best ones start at 8am! Everyone one dresses up, with a lot of trans dressing. With our hostel we went to a bloco in the arty district of Santa Theresa accompanied by cross dressing nikki minajis and hula 'girls'. We took the easy approach wearing masks. It was one of the craziest places we have been, think Gay pride and Notting Hill Carnival together and times it by 10.
The parade was filled with around 12,000 people, intense heat, sweaty bodies, drums, buses blaring out music, the Santa Theresa song on repeat. Men were carrying eskies (Aussie word for ice bucket, sounds much better) with £1 beer, vodka ice lollies and despite being bumped into every second, there were street sellers on hand carrying caprinahs on silver trays. We were stuck in the stream of revellers being squeezed and baked for a couple of hours until we broke free to the nearby bar, Bar do Gomes. Recovery time.
And if the day set the standard, the night blew it to pieces. After walking 2 hours to get home, it was time to get ready and go out again for a bar crawl in Lapa. What we found looked like adults gone wild. People partying everywhere like it was the end of the world. Even the petrol station was overflowing with people hanging out, locals filling up on booze rather than gas.
We went to Casa de Cachaça, trying the local favourite beverage of ginger and milk Cachaça, slight burn while going down but when in Rio.. Mixed with caprinahs we were then dancing the night away to the live music. It was all pretty hippy /hedonistic, there was even a recorder player in the band.
Carnival for us was more about the blocos but we did go to the Sambadrome (where the world renowned parade takes place) for a pre rehersal by the winners from 2014. It was free and whilst the dancers were not in full costume, we got to see the huge scale of the performance, lighting, music and dancing. Pretty impressive and definitely worth coming back to see the real competition one day.
We did the tourist attractions of Rio. We saw the colourful steps Escardaria Selarón In Lapa managing to get our photos and not get robbed. In Santa Theresa we went to Parque des Ruins with great views, we then went to Sugar Loaf with even better views and when you go to Christ Redeemer we were glad we saw it last as it tops them all, just incredible. You can walk up to it but given the sweat we experience walking 5 steps we opted for an air conditioned van. You really see Rio and all its beauty from here. It's a hard task though getting a photo without someone photobombing with their arms out wide.
One iconic part not to be missed was the beaches. Copacabana, you've seen it in pictures /films and to see it with the sea and mountains in the background is amazing. Look a little closer though it is pretty dirty. Similar to Hollywood Boulevard, look at the stars but don't look around too much around. Right next to it however is the upmarket Ipanema Beach. Each area sectioned, one day we were blisfully sunbathing in the gay zone and the next in the cool kids part. Sisqos one and only hit song felt appropriate as beautiful people put it all on show.
Less conventionally we went on a favela tour. There is often the question of whether this is intrusive, 'the westerner visiting the poor district'. However, we felt what you learn outweighs this and we picked a company (Don't be a gringo, be a local) where the money benefits those in the favela, a child minding service for parents who need to work. It was Rory's birthday on the day of the tour and it turned out pretty bizare when he was sung a samba happy birthday by 3 guys on steel drums in the favela. He also got a tasty shot of crab liquor (a dead crab that looked about a year old was in the bottle). We were told not to be surprised if we saw people with guns, they are not interested in you as long as you do not take a photo. We didn’t see anything in the end, we thought we might of heard gunfire on the day but later realised it was fireworks... Just fireworks.
The food we've come across in Brazil so far hasn't been top notch... More what can you eat rather that what do I pick. However, the big cities are a chance to treat yourself and so we did. We tried the Brazillian Pao de Quejo (never eaten more cheese than Brazil) in Cultivar, Santa Theresa, went to Cafeina in Ipanema for amazing smoothies, gourmet burgers at Caverna Bar (also serving it's own beer) in Botofogo and also all you can eat meat at Fogo do Chao Churrascaria. As you can see all very heathy and perfect for the beach body...
Last of all we met some of the best people so far in our Hostel Samba Green, staff and travellers. The common areas are not great but the staff get involved, arranging to go to the market to get everyones carnival costumes, taking everyone to the blocos and out on the pub crawl. The room though was like a drug den with fluro lighting and only a fan (no air con) during 30 degree nights. That we will not miss.
The next stop is paraty for some post carnival relaxation!
- comments
Laura Wonderfully written blog! All sounds incredible! Like the reference to Hollywood Blvd and the sweatathon made me chuckle!xxx