Pictures and summary

I have now been in Rio for 3 weeks, and it is time to move on. In this post I’m going to tell you what I did my last few days, show some pics, and summarise this visit.

Since I’ve done pretty much everything there is to do in Rio, I had to figure out what to get up to these last days. The last thing one the list of activities you must do when visiting Rio was a favela tour. On the day I was scheduled to do the tour it was heaving down with rain, and clever as I am I showed up in my flip flops and shorts (white). I did have a rain jacket, but that was the extent of my preparations. I was a little concerned about bringing my rather expensive Nikon camera to the favela, but according to the tour guide nobody gets their possessions stolen there. This is due to the fact that this particular favela is controlled by the drug cartels, and if they see someone steal from a gringo (foreigner) they will shoot or severely injure that person – in front of you. If the favela gets a bad reputation no people would come to visit, which means the drug dealers wouldn’t get any money. Apparently the most dangerous time to visit a favela is when the police is there, because then they just start shooting drug dealers who in return shoot back, and civilians get caught in the crossfire. The tour guide said it was fine to take pictures of anything except the drug dealers, as they might shoot you. This notion worried me slightly; how do I know if someone’s a drug dealer? Do they wear matching stripy clothes? Or do they just have a sign on them saying “drug dealer”? In the end however the tour guide just let us know whenever we couldn’t take photographs. The ride up to the top of the favela was exhilarating; one by one we got on the back of a motorbike and shot up the winding streets of the favela. I loved it. I think I feared for my life about 60% of the ride, but it was quite exciting when they had a competition of who’d get to the top first! In the favela itself we went to an art gallery where the artists have had no formal education, so all the art is pure talent. I was tempted to buy a really nice painting, but it was in the 75 euro region so I decided against it. We also went to a school, a bakery, and even got a little samba show featuring a small child dancing.

In the evenings I’m trying make the best of my last Rio experience. It has included among other things a card game, with a stupid rule that you can’t say the D word (starts with D, ends with Rink). If you do, you have to keep your chin on the table until someone else says it. As it turns out, I’m abhorrently crap at not saying that word, so I was forced to look like an idiot for about one hour. I’m sticking with saying ‘alcoholic beverage’ now, in the event that I would have to play it again.

So, the inevitable summary of this city. Rio de Janeiro is an amazing city, with many things to do and see. The people are lovely, although they don’t speak much English (as discussed earlier). My hostel experience has been a mixed one; staying in a room with 11 other people is a good way to meet new people, but if you’re looking for a good night’s sleep it isn’t ideal. People snore (some snore REALLY loud), people stumble in at various times of night intoxicated by the consuming of alcoholic beverages, turn the lights on, talk loudly… you get the picture. I also haven’t had a single hot shower since I arrived in Rio, but that is probably just because the standard of my hostel is quite shit. Forgive me for the upcoming rants of cursing, but it is in quotation so I guess that makes it acceptable. So anyway, another weird thing about this hostel is that one of the staff members is referred to as “the fucking crazy motherfucking Argentinian”. Not only is he entitled this name by his fellow colleagues, but he even calls himself this. I thought it was a one-off thing, but I’ve noticed that he introduces himself as this (in various modifications, sometimes it’s just “the fucking Argentinian”) every time someone new checks in. I don’t know, but I sort of think it reduces the level of professionalism of this accommodation service.

The Brazilian food is a lot blander than I had expected. Their main traditional dish is literary black beans and rice. I don’t wish to slag off black beans and rice, but to me it’s just a bit disappointing and uninventive. Another weird traditional food is Farofa, which is fried flour. I thought it sounded quite interesting up until the point when I tried it, realising it actually just was fried flour. Who came up with that? It sounds like I’m just slagging off an entire nation and its culture, but that’s not the case at all. I love Rio, and I would definitely return.

So tomorrow I’m off to Buenos Aires, which I have heard so many good things about. Not only is it cheaper than Brazil, but apparently the food is amazing. Can’t wait to sink my teeth in a rare-cooked steak! In the meantime, here are some pictures!

Monkey in Jardim Bôtanico

Sunset from Sugar Loaf Mountain

Samba in the Favela

Christ the Redeemer

Ipanema Beach

Magic in Rio

Time flies my friends, time flies. With only 5 days left in Rio I feel like I've done almost everything, but it also feels like I just arrived. Since I last wrote I've been up to quite alot. As I said in my previous post, I was going to go to Búzios. I asked the reception in my hostel if they could take 2 nights out of my reservation, and then book me in again for friday when I would return from Búzios.That was all fine, they said. When I had packed the following morning and carried my bag down to the reception to check out, there was another receptionist there. Where are you going? she asked. Búzios, I said. I'll be back on friday. Friday? That's going to be a problem. Apparently it was some Brazilian holiday this weekend, and therefore the system couldn't accept any check-ins on friday or saturday. (Weird, but that seemed to be the case anyway). Slightly annoyed, I said well whatever, I'll find somewhere else to stay. This was proven to be very difficult, everywhere is full during the holiday. But it sorted itself out in the end, I just stayed in another hostel in Ipanema. Trying to find the bus station to go to Búzios was bloody difficult. The people in Brazil don't speak any English. And I mean no English at all. I asked a police man: Bus station? He didn't understand a word. Got there in the end though, and it was very beautiful. I stayed at a hostel that was just on the beach, you could literary just walk out the door onto the sandy beach. It was very expensive though; I was going out with a few people I met there, and the entrance fee of a club was 120 Reais (which is about 50 euros).

Back in Rio I've been up Sugar Loaf Mountain, where you can see the entire city. Went up just before sunset, and it was truly fantastic. I'll upload some photos in the end of this coming week. I also went to the Modern Art Museum; I was really looking forward to it because I had heard that they had a great photo exhibition, but   when I arrived there they had taken it off. The rest of the exhibition was all right, some things were a little too abstract; I find it a bit annoying when someone presents a piece of metal and calls in art. But there were some good stuff by Miró and Picasso, as well as contemporary brazilian artists.

The best thing about travelling alone is that you meet loads of new people, but it also means that you can choose to just be on your own for a day if you feel like it, and then in the evening go out with a bunch of people. It's very good for the creativity as well. I written quite a bit of music and the work on my book is developing nicely. All is good!

Rio de Janeiro

 I've been in Rio for almost 10 days now, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it! What have I done so far? Well, I try to mix the cultural visits with pure relaxation - and since I've got so much time here it's possible! Culture-wise, I've done Christ the Redeemer (a magnificient statue of Jesus, if you didn't already know that), the Botanical Gardens (which host more than 6000 different species, including 600 varieties of palm trees and 140 different kind of birds. I also saw loads of monkeys, and I will upload the pictures at a later date!). I have also been in the old area called Santa Teresa, where you take a tiny tram that takes you over the Lapa aqueduct and through the narrow streets of Santa Teresa. Amazing! I have also had time to go to the beach when the weather is nice and sunny, sun bathing and talking to new friends or simply reading a book. Today I am going to a football game between Flamengo and Botafogo that the hostel has organised for us guests, and I reckon it's going to be quite an experience!

Last friday I went to a street party in Lapa, which felt quite surreal since a whole area in the middle of town had been closed off to make way for young people to drink and eat in the street. It was fun, but completely packed with people! So you didn't want to lose the people you'd come with, because the chance of finding them again would be diminishingly small.
Last Sunday there was this favela party - basically a night club situated in a favela. It was a cool experience; unlike an ordinary night club everybody was dancing samba, and you bought your caipirinha from small stalls for £1.

I really enjoy Rio so far. I might go away for a few days next week to small town 3 hours north, called Buzios. I've heard it's like a paradise, and if I go to hell when I die I would just like to get a taste of heaven first.

But for now, I bid you farewell

News and pics

Hey! I have now arrived in Rio de Janeiro! I wasn't completely sure I was going to arrive in one piece though... had the worst flight ever! I thought things had been moving quite smoothly, but obviously when you're travelling there is always something that goes wrong. So I arrive at JFK with an alright margin, but when I look for my flight on the departures' board, my flight isn't on there! The only flight that was the same time as mine was one to Sao Paolo, and I knew that my flight was a direct to Rio. I asked at the counter, and apparently I had to make a transfer in Sao Paolo. That's ok, I thought, I've done that before. I get on the plane, and start watching a film (the Hangover) in the wait for our departure. Half-way through the film the pilot says that we have to wait for 2 hours before leaving becauase of a storm in our route. I started calculating and realised I would still have time to catch my transfer flight. The movie ended and I watched another one. And then another. After 4 hours we still hadn't left, and the crew started handing out food. After eating, I fell asleep. I woke up to the sound of the engines humming, about to take off. I looked at my watch - 3 am. That meant we were delayed by 7 hours, which in turn meant i definitely would miss my transfer. In Sao Paolo there were probably another 200 people  stranded because of a volcano eruption,so chaos had broke loose. I hooked up with some brazilians and one  american, and together we managed to get a flight to rio 2 hours later. I arrived at my hostel 10 hours later than expected. Jesus.

I'll give you an update later about what I'm doing, but for now I'll upload some pictures from New York, as promised!

The past week

I've been in New York for 10 days now, and I've certainly seen alot. Like I mentioned in my last post I visited Ground Zero and took the ferry out to Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Got some pretty good pics that I will upload before I go on thursday. There was a really sweet little boy on the ferry to Ellis Island, asking his mother: "where are we going?", and the mother answered "To Ellis Island", whereby the boy asked: "Who is Alice?" :)
I went up Empire State Building (to the 86th floor) and checked out the amazing views of the city. The visibility was very clear, so you could see all the way to New Jersey and Massachusetts.
The amount of walking I have done since I arrived here probably ads up to what I normally walk in one year. I haven't even been on the tube once. Today however I'm taking the red line up to Harlem, which I'm very excited about. If I've got time I'll go back down again and try walking the Brooklyn Bridge!

I've also been to the cinema here twice. I've seen two very good albeit different movies: Midnight in Paris (Directed by Woody Allen) and Beginners (starring Ewan McGregor and Mélanie Laurent). Highly recommended!

Fare well