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So when we decided to travel south America, the rio carnival was one of the deciding factors! So in December we had tried to look online and book accommodation with nothing available even then. So we went onto Craigslist and found a guy who had an apartment in Copacobana beach who was looking to make extra dosh over the rio carnival and rent out his spare room, so we took it!! We arrived in the daytime and I wondered whether we were walking into an axe murderers house, maybe people will never see us again! I looked extra long and hard into the security camera outside the lift, maybe it will help find my remains...
Well in fact our new roomies were very nice, another couple who were our age (she was Brazilian and he was Bolivian) - they didn't speak a word of English and we didn't spk a word of Portuguese, BUT we had wifi and google translator! And because we're so unfortunate as it is, it turns out she's a professional photographer so she let us join her the Friday night to the kiddies parade and take close ups of costumes and then gave us front row tix to watch the parade for a while!! All free!
The next day we walked around the city with the aim of reaching the botanical gardens, we ran into street party after street party. And that is pretty much what happened every day from about noon til late. A marching band will play samba music with a truck mounted with speakers behind the band and then a crowd of people behind the truck all bobbing in time waving their hands in the air. It's really quite peaceful, people chilled out and happy and in a good mood. We didn't see too many drunken out of control ravers, but then again this is samba, it had a steady beat.
Later that afternoon we met up with Anthony who we met at Iguazu Falls who had said he was also making his way to the Rio carnival. He had made freinds with a local and offered to take us around one of the close-by favelas. It was great! The favela std of living is much higher than that of our squatter camps in south Africa. There are a few tarred roads, option to have running water and electricity in your house. Most houses we saw were made from brick or cement. The issue is the fact that they pay the drug lords to stay there (something like rates) and then of course the killing of innocent people during the drug wars.
The 2 hi lights for me were our last 2 nights. The second to last night (Sunday) we decided to go to the samba dome- That's the big parade with the schools all dressed in costume. We didn't have tickets and the chance to buy online was passed so we decided we would buy at the door. We arrived at about 10:30pm (we had followed a street party from just outside our apartment, but it had gone quite far by the end so it was quite a walk back, dinner, shower, my feathers and I'm ready Freddie) so at first we couldn't get anything for very cheap. So we decided to give it some more time and go into sumbaland (like a side show effort) we walked in and a band was playing, we didn't know the music and we kind of wandered around aimlessly and decided to ask some people if we could sit on some of their chairs ( they had booked table and chairs etc). Well that was it! We were now part of them, they kept handing us beers (unopened don't worry) the girls were teaching me to samba, we had photos taken together, then they would interpret the words of the songs for us and teach us the actions. They were awesome! So at 1am we told them we going into the samba dome, kisses all round, hugs chow chow chow!
We went back outside and got tickets for 1/3 of the 10:30 price and went and watch the parade in awe! The costumes were AMAZING! I think that was my favorite part. Their marching bands were deafening and the floats were quite outrageous. Each school chooses set themes so costumes and floats all spell out a story as the parade makes its way down the street. By 6am the final school started their parade (on average each school took 1 hour to complete there parade, that's how many people are in the school!), we watched till 6:30am and then decided to head on home and catch the sun rise on the beach.
The final night (Monday- i totally lost track of days, nights) we decided we not going to sleep as we have to be at the Airport at 4am!! So our roomies want to take us out... We start as usual with a street party, slowly bopping to the samba beat, then for some of their traditional drinks, then back to the favela for dinner! Now getting to the favela at 10pm was an experience in itself. We waited for ages to catch a bus they would take us there, climbed on and then watched as more and more and more people kept climbing on this bus. Eventually the guy even stopped accepting money to buy the bus ticket. Tim was sardined with a guy who was desperate for the loo so peeed in a bottle right next to him, and then tossed it out the window! Finally we climbed off and followed our roomies up here and down there to a sushi resturant! Now! Do our squatter camps serve sushi? Anyway what I understood was that there was no more sushi so we then ordered noodles and chicken, which was yummy! And then the plates of sushi came! Haha and then the poor lady dropped a glass of my foot, there was a tiny cut but she ran around frantically squirting the detol from the kitchen all the way to my foot and wrapping it up. Then we got a free plate of sushi! So we rolled out of there!!
It was about 2am when we got home, showered, google translatored and packed and off we went....bye bye Rio! We will see you again for all the sightseeing when there are 2 million less people around!
- comments
Christine Yeay!! You finally got to see the parade :) Sounds awesome!!! U like ur parties ;p