Rio de Janiero is a city unlike any other. Bernard did not have a great introduction to the city on his birthday, the day of our arrival - our taxi driver from the airport was horrendous - I was weak and tired from my gastro bug - it was impossibly hot and humid - the room at our hostel didn't have air conditioning as we had thought, and the room was twin bunks and small. Rio was horribly expensive - actually, prices across all of Brazil at this time of year is beyond a joke - it was quite a shock for us both to take in after such reasonable prices across Argentina. We did very little that first day, owing to the fact that I couldn't really do much. Poor Bernard couldn't even find a place that served cake (for his birthday). But the next day things improved - we took in the beaches, got better orientated to our neighbourhood (Gloria / St Theresa - I would highly recommend staying in that part of town), saw myriad of people all dressed up for Blocos (street parties) all around the city.
Rio is a beautiful city - you couldn't ask for a better setting of mountains, beaches and lagoons - but it is grim - favellas sit right next to luxury - the "haves" and the "have nots" sit in such close proximity to each other - the amount of poor people we saw passed out on the streets during the lead up to Carnival was distressing. The smell of piss and shit on the streets after a bloco can almost make you retch. The vanity and self-centredness of so many Cariocas (locals) is less than attractive - but their energy, love of life and charisma is infectious. If you want to dance and party both day and night - then Rio is definitely the place to be. It is a place you should visit in your lifetime - but you must be prepared to take the good with the bad.
Our highlight of Rio was getting to see Flamengo (including the amazing buck-toothed Ronaldinho) play in the local cup. Our hostel arranged tickets for us with a local tour operator - he took 5 foreigners to join him and 8 of his mates for the match. His friends gave us beer in the car and were such avid supporters that one particular woman's colourful choice of language even made 20 year old tattooed boys in the crowd giggle. They were so kind to us - fantastic people to be around and were the reason we enjoyed our day so much. The players were on the pitch in 40 degree heat at 4pm - having to stop to take on fluids during each half - something we hadn't seen in Europe, well ever! Ronaldinho scored the only goal of the day, and it was impressive kick over the wall of players and everything. The crowd went nuts and after the game we joined all the fans in the Flamengo neighbourhood for an impromptu street party. Very very cool. Then the heaven's opened and we decided to make our way back to St Theresa for a late dinner. Fantastic day.
The weather began to change from this point - the whole south coast of Brazil had a month of dry weather and so of course the heavens had to open at some point. Unfortunately this was the day that we had planned to go see Cristo Redentor - we didn't get to go up because the weather was so bad you couldn't see Cristo or the city. So on our last day we went into centro, walked around Lapa (and its famous viaduct), had our final overpriced dinner (including being charged for the pleasure of hearing musicians play - this happens across Brazil apparently) and managed to talk to a few friends and family on Skype. The next day we checked out of our hostel - took the first tram up to see Cristo - fog was obscuring the view of the city, but the pictures of Cristo emerging from the cloud were stunning. Then headed onto our bus to Parati, 4.5 hours south of Rio.
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