Well, hope you´re ready for the next thrilling installment, bet you can´t wait. Anyone thought about Columbia yet??
So let me tell you about Brazil, no surprises it´s utterly fabulous and utterly enormous, I´ll need another year to do it properly as I´ve not even scratched the surface. Seriously I´ve treated it like a holiday and decided life on the beach is much more fun than life in the mountains (not to mention life in the jungle, but I digress as usual).
I got here three weeks ago and hit the ground running, Id been travelling over Easter weekend - which I didn´t realise until I was stuck in Easter traffic at Lima Airport. The first night in Rio we ended up going out with the Hostel manager for his friends birthday. I thought Id need to have a Caipirinha to celebrate and now must have drank my own body weight in them. I´ve now got the knack of making them, certainly better now than they were at my party!
The next day I went to meet friends in Paraty, a beautiful beach resort 4 hours down the coast. It was a relaxing few days full of sailing and snorkelling with turtles - not that I managed to spot any - a bit slow that way! There was a bit of a monsoon in the middle of it so I thought I´d spend my time constructively by getting a wax, well when in Rome.....
What followed was a slightly too intimate encounter with a beautician called Gloria - trust me I´ll never forget her after that experience! I´ll save the details for a seperate e mail for girls ( I know how uncomfortable boys get about these things!) but it was the most hilarious and painful waxing experience I´ve ever had, I felt we should have a least shared a cigarette afterwards!! Never, ever to be repeated.
Then it was back to Rio and a week in Ipanema, did I mention the rooftop swimming pool? Thought so.. It was difficult to get me away from it. but we had a blast, sunset at Sugarloaf with yet more caipirinhas, partying in the Samba clubs, Brazilian football in Maracana stadium. Fantastic. I even went handgliding.
Now the thought of jumping out a plane gives me a hollow feeling in my gut and I´ve never been stupid enought to jump off a cliff with a rubber band around my ankles so I´ve no idea what possessed me to run off a cliif while entrusting my life to a bit of plastic! But if you´re going to do it then Rio is the place, the views over the city are incredible from the air, you can see everything.
We went to a funk night at a club in a Favela, great fun dancing with the locals but the men are just a wee bit too full on. I got a little too overexcited though as we were out with one of the actors from City of God, the DJ who gets killed. I got a bit silly and got my photo taken with him then ran away giggling. As always acting like a grown up!!
Actually its not just the guys who are a bit too full on, I´ve never been come onto by so many women in my life! (Ask Cath about one particular story, really funny). At first I thought this was flattering and then realised there are loads of transexuals here, so do they think I´m a man in drag??? Not so flattering anymore.
Not surprisingly having trouble with the Portuguese language. I thought I´d manage to get by in Spanish but no chance, it looks similar written down but the spoken word is impossible. I´m looking forward to going back to a Spanish speaking country - who´d of thought. Even Cath´s spanish was improving and she´d even stopped asking people if she could talk to the toilet!
Now that everyones gone I´m back in my Hostel in Santa Teresa watching the monkeys play in the trees. I´ve seen more monkeys here than in the jungle. It´s a beautiful part of the city with cobbled streets and the old tram running up the hill. It´´s not the safest part though. I went walking the other day and took a bit of a wrong turn, this is in broad daylight mind you. I realised I was at a dead end and there was just me and this boy, I´d say of about 18. Oops... He asked me for money for food and after assessing the situation (me, him, no one else) thought it was probably a good idea to give him something. I gave him a couple of Reals and smiled confidently (i hoped) and walked back at a slightly brisker pace. However he followed me down the road and I knew I was only about 40 seconds away from a busier street but still.. Luckily 2 people were walking towards us and he faded away but I have no illusions that that was the closest I´ve ever come to being mugged. Craig, do not pass on this information!
I was really pissed off, thats never happened to me before and is there no honour amongst thieves anymore? Don´t they know they´re not supposed to mug women? And anyway it´s a bit stereotypical that it happened in Rio!
I´ll stop moaning, that was the only bad thing to happen. It´s a beautiful city and the only place so far I´d like to live.
So off to Ecudor tomorrow, one more day of sun. Going via Santiago again, bit sick of that airport but at least I can get a starbucks. Real coffee, seriously this is South America and all I get is Nescafe.
Thanks for the phone calls, texts etc, the phone stops working again tomorrow. Good to hear the news from home but believe it or not envious about the long summer nights you´ve got ahead. Funny but I can actually smell spring at home!
Keep thinking about Columbia...
