Rollercoaster Rio

Our plan today was to get up early and answer one of the great questions posed by postcards: Does the statue of Christ face Rio or face away? (see photos)
We put this plan off when we saw the thick grey clouds covering the city. Instead we went to the botanical gardens and spent an enjoyable couple of hours waling in the gardens and the nearby rain forest.

It was still raining slightly after lunch, so we put off going to see the statue again, and got a bus to the Saint Theresa district. We'd been lucky getting the right buses so far, but this one took a wrong turn. Panicking that we were lost as we went through a tunnel, we pulled the cord to stop the bus at the next stop. This proved to be a mistake as we found ourselves in the middle of a favela, a shanty town scattered around the hills that every guide book tells you in big bold letter NEVER TO GO TO ON YOUR OWN. Trying to look as Brazilian as possible, we consulted our tourist map and then hailed the next available minibus.

Our relief at getting the bus was soon replaced by immediate fear as the bus driver hurtled through crowded streets unable to operate the brake pedal or keep all four wheels on the road when taking corners. We've noticed that the bus driving gets more erratic as the day goes on. The bus drivers not wearing their seatbelts tend to be safer as they have at least reached a state of acceptance in their own mortality and this dulls their enthusiasm for speed. You should be wary of the drivers who do use their seatbelts. These guys get a feeling of security from wearing the seatbelts and this makes them driver everywhere at 90 miles an hour and try to squeeze 6 lanes out of a 4 lane road.

The rain got worse as we walked around St. Theresa district. This is described in the guide book as a picturesque area of the city, good for taking a quiet stroll around the brightly painted colonial buildings. Hmmm, we saw two buildings that didn't need the attention of a good building and decorator. And the rain poured too. We've only got a little umbrella with us. Well, who brings an umbrella to South America! We get soaked through, our feet started to rub in our shoes because of the wetness and we got crouchy. Not the best afternoon.

Another hair raising bus ride back to the hotel and we hoped to pick up tickets for the sambodrome. When people think of Brazilian carnivals, they imagine huge, brightly decorated floats, big bands, dancing girls in not much but a few feathers and all this on every street. In other parts of South America this may still be the case, but in Rio the carnival has turned into a big competition between the favela samba schools. The huge floats and parades all take place at the sambodrome. Those of you who are paying attention will remember that Sarah and I thought we'd managed to book flights out of Rio the day the sambodrome parade starts. Having got here, we found out that there is a parade the day before we leave for samba schools trying to win a place in next years main competition. Great! We get to see a colourful parade. Our hotel concierge said he would book tickets for us and we hoped that, after the disappointing afternoon in St. Theresa district, we'd be able to pick up our tickets. Not so. There were tickets for us, but there'd been a huge mix up. Apparently, a Brazilian woman who knows us had phoned the hotel and insisted that we had to see the real party on Sunday night and so the concierge had changed our tickets! Without asking us! And we'd already told him we fly out on Sunday morning! Disaster. The concierge said he'd change the tickets but they wouldn't arrive at the hotel until tomorrow. We went to our room and sulked for an hour, not sure if we were meant to miss the party or not.

In the evening we asked our friendly concierge if there were any street parades tonight. He circled an area on our map, so we got the bus and went looking for the party. The streets were empty apart from a few cariocans going about their business. We searched for half an hour and then asked the concierge at another hotel for the location of the street. He circled somewhere else, but told us that that party wouldn't start until midnight, two hours away. We walked to the beach front and sulked over a cocktail. We weren't having a good day. On our second cocktail I heard a noise coming from up the street. Very gradually the noise got louder and we could tell it was the beat of a drum. We drank up, paid and headed in the direction of the drum. We'd found a party! There was one float (well, a van with a make shift platform on the roof) and three women in decorative costumes. Sarah noticed that one of the women was only paint on her skin! There was a band marching in front of the van and a couple of hundred people dancing along. We joined in!

We stayed with this party for an hour and then needed a drink to cool off. After the drink we went in search of the midnight party and found this one a lot quicker than the first. No float or undressed women this time, just a crowd of maybe 300 people singing and dancing and a few playing instruments. It soon spilled out into the main street and stopped the traffic. Well, until a bus came along and the driver couldn't find the brake pedal!