And so finally Carnival had arrived and after little or no sleep after my last night in Buenos Aires, I touched down in Rio and I was ready to get into the thick of it!! I was due to meet Ros who I travelled with in Asia and I was excited as I couldn’t meet up with her in her home town of Auckland. Anyhoo guess who the first person I bumped into was……
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I have to say, pretty much for the first time my whole journey, I felt a little nervous going to Rio. You hear so many horror stories about people getting mugged, pick pocketed, shot, or a combination of all three!! And of course this does happen, particularly in a big city when a huge festival, drawing packs of tourists, is going on. So the guide books say not to carry your valuables with you, ie ATM cards, cameras, phones, etc when you’re going out, day or night.
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Also they say the buses and metro can be unsafe. Ladies and gentleman, can I just dispels the myths, Rio just ain’t that bad, well for me anyway. I just didn’t want to be restricted, there’s no point in travelling if you’re afraid to go outside!! If I want to take a picture, I bloody well will. So I figured I would behave as I normally do and if I survived Rio unscathed, then it’d be all good. So I carried my camera everywhere, I walked home on my own from street parties (granted not through deserted streets) in the early hours, etc, etc.
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The locals are some of the friendliest, genuine people I’ve ever met, I never felt unsafe. I just smile and say hi to anyone that catches my eye anyway and I’ll talk to anyone who strikes up a conversation but I think the locals are used to tourists averting their eyes and moving quickly along. I just reckon you are in their country and you should try to interact with them, as well as see the sights. The “scariest” feeling I experienced was the huge curiosity from the locals. They are so interested in you and it also helps your name in Portugese means “great/nice” you pretty much start on a good foot. It’s funny though because I’ve had the odd random person say “Linda” and I start racking my brains if I’ve met them before!!! Honestly though, you can be very safe in Rio if you just have a small bit of cop on. I should mention though, frightening things do happen here that no one can prevent or control, for example tourists in a hostel in the area I stayed in were tied up and robbed. I guess in that situation you just have to give them what the want and surivive, which they all did, thankfully.
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I came for the first official day of Carnival but it starts a couple of weeks before really. So I did my must-see touristy thing Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) at Corcovado.

He is pretty impressive I must say, it was a little hazy up there but still great views of Rio to be had.

It’s funny though because the line goes that he is meant to be watching over and protecting the inhabitants and you just think that is just a nice notion. Actually though, Rio is pretty lowlying with mountains around so you do get glimpses of him all over the city which I really liked.

So, as I said, I met up with Ros and her two friends, Anna and Gai- Lanne. We wandered off to a street party which was lots of fun.

Music, people dancing the samba in the most outrageous of costumes – and we hadn’t even got to Sambadromo yet!!

As soon as one street party winds down, you just wander another few streets away and run into another. So much fun J The street parties start around midday and just run for as long as people will party. I didn’t realise that this would be everywhere, I thought the main events were in Sambodrome but you have just as much fun at street parties. Street Party Video

Sunday arrived and we had our tickets for Sambadrome.

Thought I’d take it easy for that afternoon as a night in Sambodromo lasts about 12 hours, as in til 6 or 7 in the morning. So my only agenda was to hit the ATM but of course I met a street party on my way and ended up there with some locals for a couple of hours. Anyway we got our masks on….. 

……and off to Sambodrome we headed and whatever expectations I had were blown out of the water. Myself and Ros kept saying how unbelievable it was all night 🙂

 

There are seven schools competing each night and it takes about 40 minutes for one school to pass you. The general trend is 5 groups of 100 or sometimes 200 dancers, each group in a different costume. Then there is usually a huge float with more dancers. Carnival Video

This happens 3 or 4 times more and then finally the band pass through. We were sitting in sector 13 which is right at the end of Sambodrome and it was great as all the dancers come over to dance in front of this stand, before exiting the stadium.

Honestly, there is so much effort, such detailed costumes, of every colour and design, from weird to wonderful, to sublime, to beautiful, to outrageous, to wild……

……with dancers of all shapes, sizes and ages but there underlying spirit of it is fun, fun fun!!! You can see why they have it at night though, as it is so warm and most of the costumes are really thick and heavy and tricky to get out of……….. 🙂

We were like kids at Christmas and it exceeded all our expecations. Wonderful, marvelous, awesome. I must have taken a million pictures and videos so please, please do check them out. We watched and danced the samba (I think a little better than tango anyway) until the sun came over Corcovado………

(see I told you he watches everything)……..

 

…….and headed off through the nearby streets to see big mounds of the various costumes being baby sat by minders. Fantastic night and I think I will be trying to get those samba songs (one song plays continuously for each school) out of my head for a while J

Headed off to Ipenema beach the following day to expeience some Brazilian beach culture. Now I was a bit apprehensive about getting out my lumps and bumps in Rio as I presumed all the ladies would have perfect bodies in their little dental floss bikinis. Now there is a little of that but, sorry boys, it’s generally all shapes and sizes in dental floss bikinis regardless – shudder!! The beaches are really packed, you can’t even see the water, there’s so many people.

Again I didn’t see hear or see any lurking people waiting to prey on tourists, just groups of friends, families and people-watchers enjoying the sunshine. And the people watching was most interesting I have to say, quite an experience even though the beach was waaaay too packed for me. Rio is so densely populated, I guess they are just used to it but honestly it was difficult not to walk on anyone on the way to the water.

Met up with Darren from Cork (who I met in Chile) that night and we had good old catch up over dinner.

We couldn’t understand the menu all the well so we just blindly ordered and it turned out all good. The food has improved greatly since Argentina, much more choice, balanced meals and great fruit from the amazon. I will surely turn into an Amazonian acai berry – yum!! Such a treat to get fruit and veg after Argentina. Apart from the fruit, it’s still a largely unhealthy diet but at least there’s a bit more choice!!

Also had to check out the famous Copacabana beach, again totally packed with people……..

Nice to have a snooze in the sun. I’m getting much better at falling asleep. Oh and weird, was in the Atlantic ocean again…..hmmmmm back over to pacific for a while I think!!

So now I’m back on a tour, which I booked when I was back in Asia. In a way, I’d prefer to be on my own just because I’m running in the last part of my journey and if I like somewhere I’d like to stay an extra day or the opposite. I’m also not a fan because I know once it’s over, I’ll only have 6 weeks or so to go!!!! Still though, there are many pluses, transport and accommodation are looked after so you don’t have to think about that, so it’s like being on holidays. Also my group are great and, I have met great people when I was on my own but having a group around for 6 weeks will allow us to really get to know each other.

That’s it for now, more photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157614198532227/  and http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindybear/sets/72157614199361897/