Rio - Corcovado, Favela and Bloco de Preta

So - my wallet got stolen. The good news is I only had about $5 in it (the rest tucked in my bra) and I got the wallet back.

This was yesterday, Sunday, at the huge and crazy Bloco de Preta in downtown Rio. Someone said there was probably around 1 million people there. This was a moving bloco/block party with a huge float with a band and a bunch of famous people I didn't know that everyone was very excited about. Lorena, from the hostel, and I went early and stood right by the huge vehicle.

It was fine until the musicians started playing and people crowded in. I really cared less about the wallet and more about my safety because we were getting pulled and swayed with the crowd and couldn't help but move forward along with everyone else. We went through a squeeze of people and my wallet was gone. I turned around and some guy had it in his hands high in the air looking through it (at least tuck it in your pocket or try to be more discreet) so I grabbed it back and on we went, no worries. We finally extracted ourselves from the crowd and watched from the side for a little before leaving.

Ipanema Beach

The rest of the week was good and very busy as well. Tuesday Elena and I went to Ipanema Beach to swim and then came across this amazing bakery with cheese croissants and dulce de leche filled donuts and these fruity suco drinks that taste exactly like the fruit you order. I will be going back there again!

Tuesday we walked to the beautiful Lage Park that has an art campus in what is pretty much a castle and is surrounded by the tall trees and ponds of the park. We also took a tour of the Santa Marta favela (slum) on the outskirts of Botafogo where the hostel is. It was quite beautiful but sad to see the big gap between those who have and those who don't, though the guy who gave us the tour lives in the favela and says it's gotten a lot better. All the favelas are built up hills and mountains in the city, and this one has a tram and school and shops - like a separate world. It's also quite famous because Michael Jackson came here years ago and did a music video - They Don't Care About Us - in this favela, so there is a statue and mosaic of him as well as lots of knickknacks involving him. Some people were even shooting an ad when we were there.

Thursday was Elena's last day so we went for a big walk around the Lapa, Saara and Santa Theresa districts of Rio. You can often tell you have left one area for another if you go through a tunnel. I also tried acai for the first time. I think it's the same fruit as at home, but here you can get it blended! I'm pretty much living off fruit and some bread and cheese because it's so hot and there is amazing fruit and a lot of meat in this city (I may be malnourished and in need of salmon when I return Opa!).

Fire hall

Famous 18th century aqueduct Arcos da Lapa

Elena and I drinking coconut juice

Friday I took the tram up the Corcovado to see the huge 30 meter high statue of Christ the Redeemer. It was quite beautiful to see up close, but I also like greeting the statue each morning from the hostel deck.

It does kind of look like he`s getting ready for a dive

 

The rest of the weekend was mostly bloco street parties. Friday was my first late night out in Rio - went to a moving bloco in Botafogo and then up to a great party in Santa Theresa. Saturday I went with Betty (girl from Austria in my room at the hostel) to meet up with some of her girlfriends to two street parties, one in Ipanema and the other close by in Leme.

Sunday I went to the Ipanema Market to buy a few souvenirs, then the crazy Bloco de Preta and the Sambodromo at night with Lorena. It was pretty cool going to the rehearsal at the Sambodromo, where the big carnival parade is held next weekend. It reminded me of Harry Potter and the Quidditch World Cup actually, with all the lights and sparkly outfits, and I was just hoping someone would swoop down on a broom (I needed at least one Harry Potter reference in my blog!).

And now today is a lazy day to relax (though earlier I did laundry and thank God for having washing machines at home because I hand-washed everything and it took quite while).

Cute marmoset monkeys all around Rio

*** In my last two blogs I totally made mistakes which I`m making a note of here because I`m too lazy to go back and change them. I am now 5 hours ahead of the island (it was 6 before but they had Fall daylight savings here) and I went to see Bossa Nova music, not Casanova music, haha.

Rio de Janeiro

Oi, como vai?!

Hi and how are you?! My Portuguese is improving slowly... quite slowly but I have learned to say some basic things like what/how much/thank-you/sorry/excuse me and I can ask someone's name and how they are doing and say I don't understand or speak Portuguese. Even when I get the words right the pronunciation is quite difficult but it's good to be learning something new! It did take a few days to settle in, not because of the big city, or sharing a room with a bunch of people, (males included in my "all-girls" room) or even the heat (and it's been up to 39 degrees probably) but mostly the language barrier.

Municipal Theatre - downtown Rio

Luckily on Saturday a new girl, Elena, joined my room. She's from Spain and speaks really good Portuguese and English (she lives in the UK). So last week I went to the famous Ipanema Beach, where people sell everything from cold drinks to bikinis on huge umbrella stands. And the bathing suits people wear are definitely not for the prudish types... Friday I went downtown to see some of the tourist scene, including this beautiful pyramid shaped church. In my attempts to find the Cultural Centre of Brazil, a huge multi-floored building with white columns and marble that is an art gallery/museum, I ran into a guy from Norway looking for a hostel to stay in. Jan came with me to the Cultural Centre, where we saw a floor on the Brazilian Revolution as well as a floor with pictures and film around love - Amour, Amour, Amour - and the top floor with all different types of South American money (and a partially clear floor full of coins). I really enjoyed the Revolution floor that had a dark room with a black screen and people's names - who had been killed or disappeared - in white scrolling past and falling in a pile.

Stained glass windows inside church

Saturday I went with Elena and another girl from the northern Amazon region, Lorena, to a pre-carnival party in Flamengo Beach, where everyone dances to drums and musicians and there are people selling drinks and home-made vodka freezies all over the place. There was also a fruit and veggie market right outside our hostel doors, where I got the most delicious juice-all-over-my-face mango, and the avocado in the picture below - twice as big as ours!

 

Yes that is a VW van in the background - they're everywhere!

Yesterday, Sunday, Elena and I came across a huge Sunday market in Ipanema and never made it to the beach. I was tempted to buy everything, but this is only the beginning. Later we walked to Copacabana while it started raining and we came across a Portuguese reggae band playing on a stage to a big crowd. We got soaked hid on the covered steps of a church on our way to dinner and to see some Casanova music. I definitely had to ring out and hang all my clothes by the time we got back to the hostel!

Obrigada for reading and for the messages!

My first caipirinha on the deck at my hostel

 

South America

View from upstairs deck



The tiny statue on the top of the hill is Christ the Redeemer

Bom Dia from Rio!

That means good morning and is pretty much all I know of Portuguese (and only because my travel book is sitting underneath my computer right now).

After two days of traveling I have arrived safely at the Albergue Tupiniquim Hostel in the Batofogo area. I spent an uneventful three-hour sleep night in Vancouver then took an early morning flight to Dallas, where I sat around for six hour until my ten-ish hour flight to Rio. I slept most of the time on both flights, so even though I was in a weird multi-time-zone-airplane-mode, I actually feel pretty awake.

Just wanted to send this quick post to say I arrived and was picked up at the airport safely and am now going to wander this area in search of flip-flops and food. I think I am four hours ahead here... not too many people around as they are probably all out and the hostel isn't full for carnival but hopefully I'll meet some people later!