we were staying with my Brasilian friend Flavia and her husband Dave
they're teaching us lots of important things for negotiating our way around Rio (and Brasil in general)
Carnaval started yesterday and goes until Wednesday...
my Brasilian friend Flavia and her husband are teaching us lots of important things for negotiating our way around Rio (and Brasil in general)
here are the rest of the photos
flickr photos
Friday, we spent the day walking along Copacabana and Ipanema beaches.
very lovely but very busy.
lots of frescoball (mini-tennis), beach volleyball, beach football and also the combination of those two sports - called futevolei (said foot volley) - which is literally volleyball without using your arms!
one of the most amazing thing here is the service industry that centres around the beaches...you can buy cold drinks, ice creams, biscuits, bikinis, sarongs, coconuts, ice tea, dresses, hats, ear rings.
Briony's favourite beach snack is called queijo de coalho. It's a haloumi-like cheese on a stick cooked over coals and dipped in oregano. The guys carry the coals along the beach in a little metal case and then stoke the embers by blowing through a straw
people will bring you anything for a small fee - Flavia says the local pharmacy will bring you paracetamol at 3am if you want
i find the hills all around Rio really beautiful - even with the base of each is literally covered in Favelas.
I find myself strangely attracted to the favelas....although it's apparently not the best idea.
at night time, the favelas glisten in the distance, shimmering like christmas tree lights through frosty glass
Dave suggested that it was likely that the whole favela was probably running off one plug and therefore had to use low-voltage lighting
the separation between the rich and the poor seems so real in this city.
saturday, we made a pilgimage to Corcovado (that jesus christ statue on the hill)
muito touristico!!
sunday, we took the tram ride up to Santa Teresa and later chillaxed in front of the tv watching the big carnaval parade.
basically, the carnaval parade is a competition
each samba school chooses a theme and has 90 minutes to show their best dancing, singing and costumes.
the whole thing runs over 2 days for a dozen or more hours - with lots of teams in competition.
they spend millions of dollars on the costumes and floats - including some robotics.
much better than watching the oscars.....
tomorrow we head up to Salvador - which will be much more wild than this big city
we then hang around in the Bahia region (surrounding Salvador) for 2 weeks before we head the amazon
*********Numbers*********
Cheese on a sticks eaten: 1
Monkeys seen: 0
Attempted muggings: 1
Camera Obscurae in our bathroom: 0
Times we got on the wrong bus/train: 0
Mosquito bites: 0
Different Beaches visited: 2
Different Waterfalls visited: 0
Bottles of water purchased: 6
Dominos/Playing cards found: 0
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