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Rio de Janeiro
Rio here I come...although not before a 30 hour bus journey from Salvador with the seat next to the toilet, limited airconditioning in 30 degree heat and a heart stopping incident where I got off the bus at one of it´s scheduled service breaks to go the toilet and came out to find it had gone along with my friend James and all my things. After five minutes of quietly freaking out and questioning people in my broken Portuguese I figure out that the bus had gone to re-fuel and would be back in 20 minutes. Phew!
By the end of the journey I was practically climbing the stained paisley curtains and was delighted as we crossed over the Rio de Janeiro with Christ in sight.
Rio is one of those cities that offers everything. It has the nightlife, the beaches, the mountains and parks, business district and you can´t help but fall in love with it as it´s so beautiful. Add to it the fact that it´s one of the most dangerous cities in the world and you really feel alive. There´s no time for complacence or carelessness and the stories of armed robberies, pickpocketing and general violence are not uncommon. In fact Rio Carnival 2009 was statistically the worst ever for crimes committed and we heard of three entire hostels like the one we were staying in that had been held up at gunpoint with grenades waved in front of the backpackers faces to help them cooperate! Saying all this, however, Rio was good to me and I felt safe where I was staying in Ipanema even walking around alone in the evenings. Copacabana has a slightly more edgy feel to it and is a little seedy housing the red light district and a number of favellas.
Initially we spent 3 days in the city and then headed straight to Ilha Grande (beautiful caribbean like island) for some beachtime after the craziness of Carnival. From here, it was time to say goodbye to James who I had travelled with for two weeks and to return to Rio alone. This was really the first time in the trip where I was on my own but quickly met some fun people (especially Ken and Tanya), the great thing about staying in hostels with people on similar trips as me.
There´s so much to do in Rio, but certain things you just can´t miss. One of those is taking the cable car to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. Definitely one of the highlights for me as we went for sunset and chose possibly the best day we could have for it. We had made it there in perfect time although when we came to buy our tickets, it turns out we were 2 Reals short (about 60p) and begged the ticket woman to let us on. She wouldn´t! By now we were panicking that the sun would set without us reaching the top and so James bit the bullet and rather flirtatiously asked a group of gay guys if they could give us 2 reales. Total humiliation but they did and saved the day. It was one of those situations where you´re really grateful but quite embarrased too and so hope to lose them somewhere and pretend it never happened! No such luck as they ended up in the same cable car and so we made awkward yet polite conversation with them to the first cable stop when one of them nearly collapsed from vertigo and their attention was focused elsewhere (he never made it to the top poor guy)!
The view of the city from Sugarloaf is amazing anyway but when the sun sets behind it turning pink then orange then red just adds to the scenery. We had made it there in perfect time despite our intial incident and could have spent longer up there than the 50 minutes we did however were aware that due to our lack of money we would have to walk back to Copacabana in the dark with cameras and so didn´t want to leave it too late.
The highlights of Rio just never seem to end and I did some awesome things whilst I was there. Even swimming on Copacabana and Ipanema beaches is an experience that makes you want to pinch yourself to check it´s really happening.
I had decided however before even leaving England that the one thing I HAD to do in Rio is hanglide over the city. It´s not cheap, it doesn´t last long but it´s just got to be done and so I booked myself on for a Friday, had an early night the night before in preparation and was rearing to go. I was picked up in this open truck which was fun in itself along with some loud Americans and taken to the beach to await a guide and transport to the top of the mountain. After waiting an hour, they finally came and told us that the weather conditions were not good and said we would have to come back at 9.00am the following morning. Disaster! Not only for the waste of my day and the disappointment of not being able to go but I was planning a huge night out in Lapa that night which meant hangliding the next day would be a challenge. BUT, I set my alarm for 8.30am on the Saturday anyway and hoped for the best. Turns out that I didn´t get home until 6.30am on Saturday, slept through my alarm and missed the first set of hangliding flights! When I woke up at 11.30, all panicked I ran to the office where it had been organised to see if I could re-scedule and they said if I was going to go I would have to leave straight away, the truck was outside. So off I went, probably with sleep marks still down face, inappropriate clothes including indecently short shorts and flip flops. My hanglide guide was really cool though and probably sees cases like me all the time. He gave me some crisps and water, drove me to the top of the mountain in a VW Polo with the hanglide attached the the roof and then took me through the steps of what I was to do for take off. The flip flop issue was quickly resolved - he looked down at my feet, then at me as if to say "do you really expect to hanglide in these?" whipped out some gaffa tape from his bag and tapes my flip flops to my feet and half way up my leg! We then launched ourselves off a mini run way and away we were. It was one of the most amazing feelings, really like you´re a bird. It lasted about 15 minutes and then we landed pretty suddenly and it was all over but worth the money for sure.
Other great things included the drive up to Christ to get the views of the bay from a different angle. I managed to latch myself onto a group of Americans who kept saying to me "I just love your accent" and went up in car with them which proved cheaper than going alone. I also walked round the circumference of the Rio lake, went running along Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, visited Parque Lage and the Lapa steps which both feature in Snoop Dog´s video for "Beautiful" and experienced the Lapa nightlife which really is amazing. Kind of a mini carnival with huge street parties at the weekend and the clubs there are 4, 5, 6 levels of great Samba/dance music.
One of the other real highlights however was an unconventional trip to the Roisinho favella. Favella is essentially the word for slum, a word used througout Brazil and for those of you who have seen City of God you will know what I mean. Roisinho is the largest favella in Latin America housing over 300,000 people. City of God (or Ciudade de Dios) is the name of a famous Rio slum further out of town however tours there no longer exist after one group was caught in a gang crossfire and another witnessed the point blank killing of a guy in the street. Roisinho however is (supposedly) safe to visit. Our tour guide was rather unconventional and unlicensed ( he met most of the king pins when he was younger playing football on the beach at Copa and therefore has the green light to bring specific groups of tourists in to see the undercover version). He therefore took us into the real part of the favella and introduced us to the drug lords where the boys were able to have their photos taken with AK47s and grenades. Not really my cup of tea but it was interesting to watch them. Some of the guys we met had not left the favella in over 9 years as they are on the most wanted lists across the country. They are safe in the favella as the Police won´t enter but in the streets of Rio they wouldn´t have a chance.
We did a full walk tour through the favella, bought some chocolate cake from the cake man and a drink from one of the local shops to get the real feel. People just live normal lives, earn their money and it runs just like any town would.
The majority of people who live in the favellas are law a biding, lower paid earners who carry on their life in a pretty normal way. However, the favella is run by the drug lords and drugs makes over 1.5 million reales each month. It is essentially a town with it´s own law system, it´s own rules and the Police have very little control if any. However their own rule system is simple; you do not steal, you do not hit women, you are not dishonest. If you get caught out, you get microwaved (put in a cave wrapped in tyres, set on fire). It´s a safe place to live for those who belong there!
The houses are unregistered, the electricity they tap and get for free, they do not pay TV licences and yet have sky, sky plus and pay per view (don´t ask how because nobody really knows!) all for free and the government has a situation that they have let get way out of control and people continue to build houses on land that does not belong to them. Because of this Rosinho will never gain permission to be called a city in it´s own right despite it´s efforts.
So all in all an unforgettable trip to Rio. I was sad to leave but looking forward to Florianopolis. I won´t write much about Flori because it really was just a week of beaching, sandboarding, swimming and partying. I met some great people here who I go on to travel with pretty much from here-on in into Uruguay (which will be the next blog). I´ll give you time to read this one first though as it´s pretty excessively long.... hopefully makes up for the long periods of silence.
Don´t forget there are pics to go with these blogs to help you picture what´s going on....
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