Lapa tastic

An experience of Rio which had a big impact on me was the night we went to the Lapa (an area/neighbourhood of Rio) street party. The night was an illustration of the widest divide between tourists/financially ok brazillians/ and incredibly poor individuals. The neighbourhood is famous for its street neighborhood parties on Friday nights and this is especially the case in the warm up to carnival. This is a big samba area and many of the bars host big samba bands and have dancing and steep entrance fees. Lapa fest, as it shall now been known, was total carnage. Basically it was an incredibly poor area of Rio with two main streets with the popular samba bars. The rest of the area is a massive street party with drinking and partying for brazillians and tourists. We arrived later on in the evening and most of the bars had filled up and so we stayed on and joined the street celebrations. The streets were completely rammed full of people, lots of drinks and screaming, like Sauchiehall on a Friday night but with a hundred times more people. People come in from the favelas and set up stalls selling food and drinks and mix cocktails for very little money. The thing that was difficult for me is that you have these people standing mixing drinks, with their babies and toddlers at their feet, while other are dancing and drinking all around them. I just couldn't reconcile the two and felt incredibly uncomfortable. This seems to be a normal thing of the people of Rio but coming from Scotland it really made John and I unsettled and unhappy about taking part in the party. It is so clear and obvious the divide in the city that it becomes completely normal and no longer shocks and upsets.

Following the main street we somehow found ourselves in some back street which seemed to consist of squats with people sleeping on the ground, off their face, while others raved around them. There were people taking shots while elderly homeless people groped on the ground for discarded cans and cups which could be collected for money. People were pointing at us as we were still so pale from just arriving and so John and I decided to leave before the rest of our friends and get back to the hostel.