Delicioso Delicioso

and the madness begins...........

This is not to say by any means that Rio does not already fulfill the role of completely insane city (please refer to bizarre events raised in recent blogs) but imagine this times by 100 perhaps and we may be getting close to Carnival.

So the imminent arrival of my sister Flo and friend Katie finally came and we made the journey to the airport to collect them which was surprisingly easy in comparison to other directions involving various forms of transport we have been given in the past. With sign in hand (an embarrassingly rubbish hand written sign in the airport itself compared to the bright and beautiful verging on professional signs which surrounded us) we successfully collected them. This meant that stage one of protective big sister was completed. The next day we decided to take them to an area called Downtown (which we were later informed was the most dodgy area of town....ooops not very good at this big sister thing already) accompanied by Rogerio, Vicente and Beto in order to get some exciting Carnival 'Stuff'. I love 'Stuff' and although Flo and Katie had already filled a large majority of their suitcases with various elements of the infamous 'Stuff' (feathers, glitter, spangly material and sequins....) we thought more was definitely necessary because after all we are in Rio for the biggest Carnival in the world and whilst 'less is more' clearly applies to their choice of swimwear the same is not true when it comes to their extravagant costumes. When in Rio....do as the Carioca's do (Carioca is a Portugese word used to refer to the native inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro) so we simply had to follow suit. Downtown was fun and lively with a general feeling of excitement and hysteria. Hundreds of people were all shopping for all sorts of bizarre paraphernalia in preparation for the Carnival including us and after successfully purchasing some masks, animal ears, more glitter and water guns we were happy...however I will say that the most disturbing of all costumes i witnessed being purchased had to be the 'Big Baby Nappies' brought by our very own Vicente. God help me.

After the first night in to allow the girls to recover from their jet-lag and probably more accurately repulsive plane food the following night was Friday night and this can only mean one thing......Lapa. Tonight I decided to leave my bag at home so now the only things I had to look after was myself....and of course Flo and Katie. After stopping by a few hostels we managed to pick up a few new recruits including an Aussie, a Swede, a few Argentineans and countless amounts of Brazilians and headed off in to the night. Lapa did not fail to impress, there was the usual madness - drinking, samba-ing and transvestites but tonight we also saw a Michael Jackson impersonator strutting his stuff and some crazy drunken dancing/swaying Grandad. Bless them. After a few funny photos and randomly a packet of halls soothers brought of the little street selling children we made it to the Cachaca house where we introduced the girls to the wonderful (or perhaps not so wonderful) world of Cachaca where needless to say a few shots were devoured and successfully stayed down. The rest of the night from hear on out is a blur but I would imagine we had a bloody good time what with the ideal concoction of very excitable dancing, excessive drinking and strange verging on the insanely ridiculous conversations with perfectly good strangers.

We had been in Rio for nearly two months by now and had yet to see the Big Man up close and personal so we decided the time was now and what with it being Valentines Day and all four of us being very single a date with Jesus sounded pretty perfect. In true tacky British style we arrived wearing matching love tops and these went down a storm with our tour guide and tour 'mates' for the day so we were off to a good start. It was a beautiful day and was brilliant to finally go and see all the famous sights we had kept seeing from a distance or hearing about from other travelers we met. First stop was the Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro which from the outside looks pretty much like anything but a Cathedral with its dome like appearance which we was oddly based upon the landing craft of Apollo 13. It's a relatively new church which completed construction it 1979 but was not received well by locals to begin with, however with time has been accepted and in my opinion serves as an impressive landmark in the city and a beautiful if not slightly strange form of religious architecture. After the Cathedral we made a quick pit stop Downtown much to the builders annoyance to see the Sambadrome in all its glory which i'm sure would look very different in a few days time. Next stop was the Maracana stadium and although I am told that the current capacity of the stadium is upwards of 82,000 making it the biggest stadium in Brazil and South America we had to simply take this on good authority as on arrival it was closed for renovations in order to boost this number to over 85,000 in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. So we simply had to appreciate its size and awe from the outside (less impressive) but a photo opportunity none the less. Next stop was Corcovado mountain to pop in for a visit to Christ the Redeemer which is considered the largest Art deco statue in the world. Amazing views from up here of the Tijuca Forest, the city of Rio below us and of course Mr JC. Crazy busy at the top as it was such a beautiful day but managed to take a good few hundred photos of the classic pose with the infamous geezer, albeit with some tricky manouvering around on the boiling hot floor like a struggling woodlouse. After here we headed to Sugar Loaf and got the cable car up to the top. This three minute journey offers you stunning 360 degree views of the surrounding city which you will be pleased to know did not go to waste. My sister had brought a replacement camera with her so I was snap happy to say the least. After a good feed at one of the hundreds of weigh place restaurants and a power nap we were ready to dance (I say this is the loosest term as Samba was involved) the night away at Melt club which offered free caipirinhas from 10-12pm....deadly. By this point the Valentines day theme had taken full hold and we sported some very 'tasteful' red hearts on our cheeks.

The next couple of days we tried to recharge our batteries ready for carnival however this is near impossible in a city like Rio. For example a relaxing, leisurely boat trip turned into a hectic blur of a day which was all singing, all dancing and fortunately/unfortunately free drinks........DELICIOUS!

Day one of carnival or should I say the Friday of carnival (as street parties 'blocos' had been happening weeks before as warm up for the parties ahead) saw us go all out and feather it up pretty much from head to toe....even eyelash much to my distress and near blindness by midnight.  All dressed up and armed with some vodka and 'tang'  (which i'm pretty sure has been banned in England due to its excessive amount of E numbers) we were good to go and headed out to a bloco in the Santa Teresa neighbourhood. It's pretty difficult to put what we saw and experienced that day in to words but i shall try ; madness, absurdity, delirium, delusion, dementia, fantacism, hysteria, lunacy, irrationality, pyschopathy, stupidity, neurosis, an intense feeling of unbalance and a great deal of tomfoolery....I think that about sums it up but overall a very fun day indeed reveling with the other 2 million people which are estimated to be out partying on the streets every day during Carnival. We met; a nice if not 'a few sandwiches short' man who decided that Carnival was the best time to dress himself and his dog up as a lion, a lot of crazy old hens who seemed like they had been let out for the day, an abundance of the infamous 'face-rapers' and a very big man dressed an awful lot like Che Guevara (i'm pretty sure he was a drug lord of some description) who informed us that he would be our protector and sort out any problems we had in Rio, to this day I'm not entirely sure what services he was offering. On such a day where I'm sure my mental capacity resembled many of the aforementioned nut-jobs a journalist from a Brazilian TV station thought it a good idea to interview me. So with mic in hand and grinning insanely at the camera I jibbered on in Spanglish for about 20 minutes but have no idea what was said in this exchange, lets hope for everyones sake it never got aired. When this bloco was quietening down it was time to move on to another in Ipanema for more of the same mayhem but not before mentioning that we saw Vicente in that adult nappy - a vision I can never erase. Carnival was pretty much one big party much like the one I described stretched out as long as possible, the only thing that differed was the locations and of course our numerous outfits...masks and then animals were up next - I was a rabbit and I have to say it was a personal favourite of mine. On the Sunday of Carnival which was what I somewhat naively thought was the last day we dressed up as animals - a menagerie consisting of a rabbit, a mouse, a leopard and a zebra (clearly obvious acquaintances in the animal kingdom) and hit the streets for a bloco again, this time it was perfectly situated right outside our front door in Flamengo. This was my favourite of all the blocos as it was lots of families all singing and dancing following the bus with the band and the music. After drinking the local supermarket dry of Vodka we accomplished a bar crawl of a few hostels and then on to the Sambadrome to watch the parade. The purpose of Rio Carnival is for the samba schools in Rio (of which there is over 200) to compete with fellow rival schools and this climax is held at the Sambadrome on several days during Carnival from about 9pm until 5am the next day. The stadium was packed and the atmosphere was electric and something I will  probably never experience again. The dancers were amazing and the floats absolutely stunning and even through my very drunken haze I realised that this was something incredibly special. Something not so special, but an incident which immediately sobered me up occurred after we left the stadium and were looking for a taxi. Walking down a street I realised that for some reason there were a lot of people heading towards us and in the opposite direction to our travel and all shouting and motioning us to turn around quickly....after asking someone (as we immediately and obediently performed an 'about turn') we were told that there had been a shooting.

The arrival

 

 local child abuse 

Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro (based on Apollo 13)

Maracana Stadium

Sneaky Jesus

 

Valentines date with JC courtesy of the crotch shot

The Loaf

Cable car to the top of Sugar Loaf

Valentines Day Love

Samba band at Melt

Rio boat party with a quite normal Israeli in the background

Feathers for Carnival

Hanging out with Che at Carnival as you do

Local loon and his dog/lion

A very incoherent television interview I would imagine

Mask Fun

Animal fun day

Crazy Beautiful Rio.