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Hi again,
Well I survived carnival!!!!The party for carnival started at 9pm and we arrived home at around 7am, in time for breakfast and then sleep.The party was something else.The samba schools took approximately one hour and 20 minutes to make the journey for the length of the sambadrome.It actually took them about 40 minutes to reach us at the end and then another forty minutes of having everyone go past.Every school had a theme with the wildlife and endagered species floats some of the best.They had rhino, elephant, polar bears and the jungle on their floats, with different parts of the animal moving as they progressed.You then had lots of dancers in the same constumes moving as well to create a sense of overall movement.The head dancers from each school were out in front and they were the ones which were marked for their dancing.Some of them had some very fancy moves, which I wont be attempting to emulate.The photos give you an idea of the elaborate costumes and floats which were pretty spectacular.Unfortunately I left the good camera at the hotel, and only took the small camera.It turned out I could have taken the big one but not to be on this occasion.The weather also got really wet, however you didnt really notice it.I also managed to get a second wear ot of the hat I wore to the red and black ball.It cost me all of $6 so was happy to get a second wear.It has now been retired though.The night at the sambradrom was an overload on both the visual and hearing senses, and one that is hard to describe in any words.It really is an amazing experience. After the Sambadrome James and I slept to about 2pm and then it was time to go and see a flavella.The flavella is where many of the working class and the very poor live.We mainly went through the section of the flavella where many of the working people live.It is very basic living with houses basically having been built wherever some spare land or flat space could be found.It is now controlled with each flavella having a mayor person who approves new buildings.The very poor people live furtehr up the hill and very basic mud walled buildings.Thankfully landslides and earthquakes arent common here.There are around 600 flavellas in the rio area with the flavella we visited believe to house approximately 200,000 people, although this is an estimate and it is one of the largest flavellas.There are supermarkets, pharmacies, butchers and freash fruit and vege stores.After the flavella tour we went to meet Shane and Renee and some of their friends from their tour and headed to copacabana beach for dinner and to see one of the local street parties.We had a good night catching up and then went back to Shane and Renee s hotel to watch the nights samba schools on the tele. We managed to buy a few beers for about $1 to enjoy while the show was on. Unfortunately no pound sign on these computers so all values in US dollars. James and I then headed to the beaches of Copacabana and Ipeama to chill out for the day. The surf and the drag at Ipaema in particular was pretty strong. The surf was pretty big and just dumped near the shore mostly. It wasnt that tempting to swim, so we just had a walk along the beach front. Our day then finished with an organised cruise on waters around Rio. Unfortuantely it was a rather cloudy evening so the views and photos werent great but it was still good fun to enjoy some cold beers and listed to chessy 80s and 90s music while getting an overview of Rio. Looking forward to getting back here is August and having a few more days to take in this lively city. Well now it is time to fly to Santiago, Chile and practice some spanish. Thankfully two beers please is the same in portugese as it is in Spanish. The rest of the trip is all is spanish speaking countries, so hopefully will become a little bit fluent in it, well more than hello and two beers please anyway.
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