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The girl is in Ipanema. Rio is buzzing. Samba, sun, sand, sex (I don't think it is just a coincidence that Rio is the first place I have had the (dis)pleasure of waking up to a couple having sex in my dorm (with 8 others trying to sleep too!) after a caipirinha-fuelled night...
The city has to be seen to be believed. The contrasts between the glamourous Cariocas in their tiny bikinis (and that includes the men) to the favelas scratching their way up the morros or hills with chunks of low lying cables and no access to sewerage or water are startling.
I have had a brilliant week here; getting around easily by bus and on the metro and, on the whole, feeling quite safe, even at night. The locals certainly know how to show off their city and I haven't met an unfriendly person yet - from the bus drivers (whose only fault seems to be that they think they are Ayrton Senna reincarnated) to the fruit sellers and the diamond sellers at H Stern (I was only looking but I did become very fixated on a pair of earrings which cost so much that I asked how I would be safe walking from the shop with them. The Swiss man smiled sweetly and said that there was a car waiting in the basement to drive me to my hotel and he would accompany me, armed, to the hotel safe. I thought he would probably find it quite hilarious to chauffeur someone to a hostel and got out of there before my bank account took a walloping courtesy of Brazilian imperial topaz).
I'm off to the beach - where you can buy cold beer and melt in your mouth pies. Why hasn't this caught on in Australia?
Next stop: Paris.
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