25.02.2014
BRAZIL
Porto Alegre
We took the
overnight bus from Punta del Este in Uruguay
to Porto Alegre in Brazil.
No wine or
champagne this time though – just whisky – and lots of it.
Certainly
beats a sleeping pill!
The city
gave us our first taste of real rain since we left the UK, so the morning flight to Rio
was more than welcome. Touched down to a
sunny 42 degrees.
01.03.2014
Rio de Janeiro
Did one of
the must do’s in Rio
– the cable car ride up Sugar Loaf Mountain.
Terrific, excellent views of the mainland and in particular Copacabana
beach and the out lying islands.
Carnival time
has started – avenues are turned into a huge party parades called Blocos – the
one we ‘bumped ‘ into had reportedly 1 million party goers – we think this was underestimated.
The blocos
are totally crazy, manic, spontaneous and undisciplined – just
up our street.
This is a 4
day party ‘marathon’ – shops, offices, even restaurants are closed and even boarded
up in some areas. The blocos move from
one area to another, crossing bus and taxi routes and bringing them to a
standstill – and no one cares or seem to mind!
They are followed by groups of beer salesmen, selling cold cans of lager
out of ice boxes. These seem to run out
quickly and are regularly topped up by their helpers who make repeated visits to
the supermarkets. All appear to be
totally unregulated.
After an
hour or two of this ‘bloco’, we decided to see what was going on at Copacabana beach
and caught the metro – the revelry continued on the underground with dancing
and singing all the way to Copacabana.
Ironically, it was exceptionally quiet on reaching there and we were
able to chill out and have a quiet couple of caipirinhas on the beach.
Next
morning the partying started again and we found ourselves in the thick of
it. What an atmosphere – really electric
with nearly everybody in fancy dress of some description.
A great view from up there -
and from down here!
Can’t wait
for tonight’s Grand Carnival parade.
02.03.2014
Rio
Carnival
We were told
there was no point in getting to the Sambodrome until 9pm as it does not start
until 10pm – wrong, we were battling for a place at 9pm despite paying nearly
£100 a ticket. On entering the
Sambadrome the atmosphere was unbelievable - WOW
We feel sorry for any country playing Brazil in the world cup with this
sort of nationalistic singing we experienced!
If this is
not the greatest show on earth - then we don’t know what is..........
We decided
to leave a little early – 3am as we needed to get a taxi just before the 90,000
crowd in the Sambodrome. Unfortunately,
we felt our taxi driver was totally ‘out of his mind’ he stalled the car 3
times, went through red lights and was crawling along at a snails pace, we had
the feeling he had no idea where he was going.
After 20 minutes we found ourselves back at the Sambodrome – it was
about time to abandon ship, so at the first opportunity we fled this taxi for a
sober one, - a good decision. Our new taxi was driven like a normal Rio taxi driver – just like Ayrton Senna!
04.03. 2014
Partying
for us in Rio is done – are we getting old!!!
Off on our
penultimate bus trip, 180km to Buzios, our last venue before returning home.
