Rio, 15th- 20th February

Well I didn´t know what to expect when I arrived in Rio. It is somewhere that we see so much of on TV, music videos and read about that I was quite up in the air about how I would find the place and the vibe.
My first impressions were how nice nad helpful the people were, AND how bizarre a language portugese is! Bloody hell it sounds like half polish, half god knows what! By wiritng this entry after having been in Rio and not whilst I am there my thoughts are rather convoluted but do bear with me.

Coming in from the airport we traveled through rammed motorways with such a range of cars, decrepit old bangers and blacked out SUVs. The favelas were visible from the taxi and they reminded me of the really simple lego houses that I built, which were just squares with no roof and no windows.

Copacabana was brilliant, a spectacle of the human body, with the bold and beautiful, everyone in TINY swimwear, walking to and from the beach. I am taking older men in only very small speedos at least 5 blocks from the beach. The area had a hint of Argyle street in Glasgow, with the edge of down by the Central station low level entrance, under the bridge, but it didn´t feel incredibly dangerous or threatening. It is slightly grey and fading around the edges but glamorous nonetheless and the people are so very conscious of how they appeared.
Over the next few days we walked around Ipanema and Copacabana beaches and sunbathed for all of 2 hours before we felt like cooked bacon.

Getting local buses was a feat- we seemed to need to hail them, and it was not clear where each one went and where they were going to stop. The traffic was immense and it took over an hour to get anywhere. Buying our overnight bus tickets to Iguassu took over 3 hours but at least we got a cheap tour of many districts of the city from the bus windows. The bus driving is also bananas, its like being on the space mountain ride at Disney land, for some reason they are all in one giant race, to get in front of one another. You get thrown about in them and you need to hold on really tight.

On the road to the bus station I saw the whole cross section of Rio with the extreme poverty an accepted norm and sight. People and families living under motorways, groups of people ni parks, washing in foutains, cleaning their clothes. Little communities nestled in the gaps between roads, bridges and parks. Such a mix of people on the streets, men in suits, women all dolled up and then blatent abject poverty on the fringe or every street.