Rio de Janeiro and Carnival!! The 18th-25th of February

To start with, I can tell you that Rio de Janeiro means January River, because the Portugese that arrived to Brasil mistakenly thought that it was a river (look at a map, it is not a river), and because they arrived in January.

I also noticed that when you flush, the water turns left - against the clock - is that the same back in Denmark, or does it turn right..?

Sadly, we immediately discovered that Brasil, and especially Rio during carnival, is much more expensive than Peru.. We payed a crazy over-prize to stay at the hostal, but I guess you just have do accept that if you want to experience the carnival. We stayed in a 9-bed storing room - there were no air condition and no windoes, just a fan... Which was on all the time!

We spent our first day relaxing around the hostal and went to check out the Copacabana beach - it is beautiful! A big city-beach, yes, but it still has white sand and OK clean water:)

The Copacabana beach when it is very crowded!

Thursday, Lasse and I went on a guided trip around Rio and we saw the Christ, the Maracana Stadium and the pyramid-shaped cathedral (it has that shape to copy the Mayan pyramids). The Christ figure is probably the most well-known symbol of Rio (well, that or the carnival), and it is definitely a must-see! It is around 30-40 meters high, and the view from the hill is beautiful! To get to the Christ, we went through one of the most famous favelas of Rio, Santa Teresa. A favela is a very poor neighbourhood, and there are many of these in Rio. Generally, they say that if you are not from the favela, you should stay away from them. There is a lot of crime and drug dealing, and the "favela citizens" protect themselves and each other from the police, and basically any stranger could be the police..

Christ the Redeemer

Friday, Lasse and I were very efficient. We left the hostal early to go and buy a new camera for Lasse (he forgot the other one on the back seat of a taxi in Lima.....), to get bus tickets for Iguazú for the 25th and to get our tickets for the big carnival parade at the Sambodromo on monday the 23rd. It was indeed an experience to go for a ride with the public transport - the busdrivers are insane! We were back at the hostal in time to catch the metro at 14:30 with the others from the hostal to the Boat Party that we were going to. The weather was great, and we had paied for open bar and food for 5 hours:-)! We set off with everybody in their swinsuit, sunshine, great music and caipirinhas - could it be any better?! We sailed across the bay and stopped near a small island for a coulpe of hours, where we could swim and jump into the water from the top of the boat:-)! The water was warm, the beer was cold and we met some nice people - it was great!:-) Going back, we saw the sunset over Rio and could also see the Christ. When we got back to the hostal, we continued the party in the hostal bar and talked till the break of dawn.

Saturday, well.. We were tired from the night before, but in the afternoon we went to the beach with some of the other people that we had met at the hostal. We went back to get ready for a bloco (a bloco is a sort of party in the street. You have a small parade where everybody follows a car with music, and then the parade usually ends up at a plaza somewhere where people party on, or it just dissolves. There had been blocos all through the month of February, and there were SO many every day, so you could just choose one and go. It was like the carnival in Aalborg - just several days and with better weather:-)!) in Ipanema, another prt of the city, but ended up partying at the hostal instead. We talked to more new people (we were around 100 people staying at a hostal that normally has around 40 guests, so you were ALWAYS sourrounded by people, and was bound to meet some nice people), and a group of around 8 of us walked to Ipanema for a bloco that was supposed to be there. We missed it, and just hung around the beach talking for a while before going back to bed.

Sunday, Lasse and went to a bloco with 4 other people, whom we had met at the hostal the day before. It started around 11am, so we got up early and went to party. It was so much fun! We missed the parade, but went to the plaza and a band was getting ready for a concert. It was just one big party, everybody was happy, and you couldn't help but dancing to the music. When we got back to the hostal in the afternoon, we just relaxed and went to bed early.

Monday we got up for another bloco with Anna and David, who were also with us the day before.

The music that was playing reminded me of a bad karaokee; the men who sang sounded fairly drunk, and were not good singers... But it was great fun!:-) In the afternoon, we went to the beach (along with 10.000 other people who had the same idea!), and in the evening, Lasse and I went for the BIG carnival parade at the Sambodromo, for which we had payed around 200 USD each!

The parade had 6 different samba schools on Sunday. Like in e.g. soccer, they have a competition to be the best school, and there are different leagues. On Sunday and Monday, you could see the schools from the best league. Each school has around 8 platforms, and they all have to have some kind of theme that - if they are good - is connected to the other 7 platforms. Each school has their own percussion-band with around 200 people, and Lasse and I estimated that there must be around 2000 people participating in each school's parade! The rules are that each school has 82-84 minutes for the parade to get through the Sambodromo, which is - I would say - around 2-300 meters long.

It was very impressing to see the different platforms, with moving devices - and what must be modern slaves.. You would see around 8-10 men pushing these big platforms with whatever devices they had AND a group of dancing people on them. Samba is a very fascinating dance, and it is fun to see that everybody dance; men, women, children and old people.

The parade began on time at 21 o'clock, and didn't stop until 6:30 in the morning! I had to sit and almost sleep at a point in the middle of the night, but we were there to see the last school! The 5th school, Mangueira, was the most popular, and had the 2nd place last year. It was fun to see how people put on t-shirts with their logo - just like a soccer-team - and we had flags and everything. Some people are really into this!

We were back at the hostal around 7 in the morning, and went straight to bed.

Tuesday, the 24th, we went to visit my old friend Tobias from school, who was working at a hostal in Rio. I hadn't seen him in a looong time, and it was nice to catch up and talk about old days:-) To get there, Lasse and I got a bit lost, though, and ended up walking through the favela Santa Teresa...But we survived, so it's not THAT dangerous:-) For dinner, Lasse and I decided to go out, because it was our last night. When we got back to the hostal, we just hung out with some of the other guys and talked all night.

On Friday, we got up early to get things packed and go to the Rodoviária (bus station) to catch our bus to the waterfalls of Iguazú.

It was a lot of fun to see the carnival of Rio, and if I get the chance, I will definitely go again! It was a bit confusing at the beginning, but once you get to know the deal with the blocos, and get to know the different parts of the city, it's just great!