i didn´t need a baby to smile at me to go to rio: i just hopped on a plane and flew there.
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| *there's no denying it: rio's natural beauty is simply breathtaking. sugarloaf mountain from a fort near my hostel* |
so after hearing all the hype, i was finally in rio de janeiro. but what to do? i had hugely enjoyed the film 'city of god' a few years ago, so i was keen to check out a favela (i imagined a shanty-town filled with drugs and crime where people were dodging bullets or putting knives in each other for having been looked at sideways), and it just so happened that i found a hostel right in the middle of a favela on the net, so i booked in and off i went!
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| *view of my favela (babilonia) with JC in the clouds in the background* |
the favela was great - there was cheap food, people were lovely, wealthier than i had expected, and the closest a knife came to me was when the dude across the road was cutting up slices of cheese for my vegetarian burger. i felt safer walking home through the favela at 3am than i do in most other parts of the world. the hostel, however, was...something else. i stayed in a room with a couple of girls - one of whom was a pot-head colombian lesbian psychologist that maintained a thick cumulo-nimbus of weed-smoke in the room at all times (getting me high whether i liked it or not), and a fricken dog that slept under my bed. when i turned up, people were recovering from a >24 hour party at the hostel, and staff were found lying paralytic in various locations, unable to speak, focus, walk, and certainly not check me in. the water supply failed for a few days, so people stunk for lack of showers, and unflushable toilets were brimming with vomit and faeces.
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| *the shower* |
it sounds worse than it was: the water started again after 24 hours and i had a great time. it turns out that there was a pipe with water flowing onto the road nearby, and this is where half the favela came to shower, so i just showered there and then hit the beach. did i mention that the favela was surrounded by gorgeous tropical rainforest? did i mention that we were near the top of the hill with stunning views across the jungle and beach? did i mention that the favela was only 5 minutes from copacabana?! now that's what i'm talking about!
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| *view from the hostel* |
unlike buenos aires, i couldn't ignore tourist attractions altogether: i couldn't visit rio and not go to christ the redeemer! who go rio and don't visit christ? a fool! that who. so off i went. the views were spectacular. the tourist crush left me gasping and irritable.
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| *view from JC: that's ipanema behind the lagoon, copacabana to the left and sugarloaf mountain extreme left* |
the 5 days i spend in rio were filled with activities that ranged from the weird to the bizarre. to begin with i met up with my sneaky-but-sexy brazilian friend luis and ended up dining for free at a 5-star restaurant during a jazz concert for him and his hotelier buddies. there were birthday parties on the beach with strangers, naked swims in the ocean at midnight with handsome germans, treks through the jungle, and even the outright domination of a karaoke club with a heart-felt rendition of eternal flame by the bangles. bring it on!
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| *say my name! sun shines through the rain...* |
rio is to buenos aires what sydney is to melbourne, and though i really enjoyed my visit, it's not the sort of place i'd want to stay for longer than about a week. perhaps it's that i love language-based travel and portuguese seems like a dirty and inferior dialect of spanish that i don't want to learn (at this stage...unless i fall in love with a brazilian!), perhaps it was the shock of rudeness of the people in rio after the open affection of the argentinians, or perhaps it was the beach culture of body-worship, where - particularly on the gay beach at ipanema - i felt surrounded by sad people whose sense of self worth was bound to how many hours they spent at the gym and how many people stared at them when they walked by. it made me feel sad too. incidentally, when i slipped into my tight little bathers and threw my scrawny little chicken-leg-white body into that crowd of tanned muscle and augmented crotch, and i still felt fucking beautiful ;)
but hey, we all know that buenos aires and rio de janeiro were only fun pitstops on the way to a final destination that my heart had chosen for me. after 5 days, it was time to say goodbye to rio and plunge into the greatest adventure of all...!
