Things they are not so good at: 1) salads 2) queuing 3) being quiet, especially when rocking in from carnival at 5am.
We love Rio. FACT. On arrival, we pop up to the bar on the roof of our hotel, for 'just the one', to find that England are playing Brazil. We proceed to have three caipirinhas, which the barman liberally tops up with cachaca on an ad hoc basis, while watching the game. At the end, I fall off my chair, but its unclear as to whether this is because England beat Brazil, or due to the cocktails.
Needless to say, we have a lazy day on Ipanema beach after this topping up the tan, before heading out on a tour the following day to see the sights of Rio. Our tour guide, Mabel, takes no prisoners and by 9:30am we are in the queue for the cable car up to Sugarloaf mountain.
Feeding monkeys on Sugarloaf. Rabies alert!
The cathedral inside is pretty cool, then we all head for lunch where every one gets a bit more chatty after shots of cachaca from the ten litre bottle.
After lunch, we head up to Christ the Redeemer. Mabel has a cat fight with the lady responsible for getting people up to the Christ, and the whole tour group launches into a rendition of 'this is how we do it' on the drive up, much to the amusement of the driver, and possibly something to do with the lunchtime cachaca. Up at the statue, it's hot, hot, hot, and very busy, so having taken the obligatory 'arms out' shot, we head back into town.
Usually when writing this blog, I'd use my photos as an aide memoir, but I often left the camera behind, as everyone told us we'd be mugged in Rio (we weren't). Therefore, I am sadly unable to show you pictures of the rather wonderful Brazilian national dish of feijoada - black bean and pork stew, served with rice, very garlicky spinach and manioc flour. This fortified us for our trip to carnival that evening, which fortunately I did take the camera to.
Ahhhh, carnival. The whole city goes bat shit insane, and looks like one big hen/stag party - men in skirts, whole groups dressed as pints of lager and both sexes in wedding veils. We can't get on the Metro at our nearest stop, so have to surreptitiously follow the locals to one we can have access, where the queue is bout an hour long. We are saved by a man who does us a massive favour and sells us two tube tickets at a mark up that we are happy to pay to avoid the queue. The tube ride itself is wild, everyone sings, dances and bangs on the ceiling in time to the drum that someone has helpfully bought with him.
We're finally in the Sambadrome by 9ish, just as the first parade starts. It is amazing, indescribable, a riot of colour and music and costume, and honestly ranks as one of the best nights of my life. Some snapshots are below:
By 3am we are ready to call it a night, having danced and drank for several hours.
The next couple of days are spent topping up the tan on a very busy Copacabana beach and eating wonderful crepes and great Mexican food in Ipanema (there is only so much Brazilian food one can eat) before we move on to the peace and tranquility of Igazu.
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