We've missed out the last few days from the pantanal to Rio because nothing exciting particularly happened apart from a booze cruise in which I lost my camera and a huge pod of dolphins swam right by us whilst we were swimming in the sea!
When we first arrived to Rio, we got really lost which lost UA a few hours in the day, by the time we arrived it was late and we check into our hostel that would be our home for the next 6 nights! The place was boiling with 34 other people and no air con! It also had no windows but surprisingly we didn't get that bitten, and we did pay a third of the price that everyone else had paid to stay in Rio for carnival. It was also in a good location, in copacabana just off the metro so we never had to walk far for anything. We met some people from our tour in a McDonalds half way between our hostels, and it turned out to be the first ever McDonalds in the whole of South America, so it was a cultural experience not just some delicious food!
Our first full day we spent doing the free walking tour around the central part of Rio de Janeiro, it was absolutely boiling and the tour started at 12 so it was entirely in the hottest part of the day! We saw some interesting things but there was a lot of walking involved! We saw a rubbish palace that the king of Portugal, and therefore Brazil, lived in when he fled from Napoleon and also the church where the only European monarch was coronated that wasn't in Europe. After the Portuguese king went back to Portugal, his son stayed in Brazil and made Brazil independent but not a republic.
We also learnt about slavery and that it wasn't abolished until 1885 but when it was people had no jobs or income and this is how the favelas in the hills started, the favelas are the slum districts of Rio de Janeiro.
The tour then took us to a havaianas shop as they had 10% discount, the shop was tiny so I bought some but Dan couldn't find any he liked. It was a joke though because later on we found more havaiana shops that were cheaper, so you didn't really get 10% off they were just 10% more expensive to begin with. Our final stop was to see the famous steps of lapa, which are made with lots of different tiles in the colours of the Brazilian flag. They also have loads of random tiles from all over the world, apparently there's one with princess Diana's face on it but we couldn't find it! Lapa is also famous for its arches, which is an old aqueduct to bring clean water to the nicer part of the city and behind that is one of the ugliest cathedrals we've ever seen. It looks like an upsidedown bucket. Google it. Ugly.
After the strenuous walking tour we headed to the shops to buy something to dress up in for carnaval, Dan managed to get a pirate hat so his costume was sorted but I couldn't find anything for a decent price. We headed back to our friends hotel room and decided to book tickets to a football match for the next day.
We had to leave for the match at 4:30pm, so with the start of the day we just lounged on copacabana beach, the sea was ice cold I couldn't even get in it, the waves were also deadly! They were massive and could easily knock you down.
The football match itself was ok, the maracana stadium wasn't nearly full but the atmosphere was still good as there was a local team called the flamengos playing. The flamengos ended up winning 2-1 but the other team did score an own goal so it nearly was a draw.
Sunday was the night of sambadrome so we treated ourselves to a lie in because the sambadrome is an all night event. This day consisted of us walking around for hours trying to find an ATM that accepted our cards in which we tried about 50 different ATMs! Not fun, then we ran into a street party this one didn't move it was just on a corner and the keep going till the band stops playing so they never last that long and its actually quite hard to be organised about it so luckily one came straight to us! We didn't notice until later but they were actually playing all the songs from the sambadrome that we would hear later that night which was cool. On the way home I found a stall with a feather headpiece and some glitter and finally had my outfit sorted.
We were meeting everyone at the tours hotel in the centres of Rio to go out for a meal, the meal was a buffet that you pay by the weight and it was ridiculously expensive as all medals are that we ate with the truck. We went for meat rather then carbs or veg as it didn't matter what you got just the weight of the plate. It still came to $40 for both of us to have half a plate of food.
We all finished getting ready at the hotel, the girls put a tash and goatee on Dan which looked hilarious! Then we had to walk for over an hour to the sambadrome. Each ticket corresponded to a block but not a seat so you could sit anywhere in that block. We actually got there quite late so a lot of the spaces were taken we were also in the worst blocks right at the end and set back from the parade, but we were told from oasis we would be in a better block then the one we got. Probably to make us buy the tickets. The good thing about it is when the people were finished in the parade they would strip their costume off straight away and some would throw it into the crowd. During one samba school I managed to get jacket, pants and a hat! They were sweaty though and I left them at the end of the night.
There were 6 samba schools performing and each has chosen a theme for their parade. Each school has different sections with different costumes and floats all corresponding to one theme for example one we saw had a favela theme. All the costumes were so elaborate and the floats were huge. Some samba schools had over 3000 people in them and each parade would last 90 minutes. Each school had their own song and that would also be continually played for 90 mins! They are then judged on 10 things; percussion band, samba song, harmony, flow and spirit of the participants, theme,
Overall impression, floats and props, costumes, the flag carrying couple and finally the vanguard group, which are the first few people at the very start of the parade.
All the parades were absolutely amazing and we stayed up till it finished at 6:15! A lot of our tour went home however which was a shame because they missed all the acts, we felt the 5th one we saw was the best! We didn't get home till 7:30 as the metro was a nightmare after sambadrome but had a good sleep until 1:30 in the afternoon which we felt was very much deserved! The only thing we did that day was meet everyone in the late afternoon and have some drinks on the beach, we sat there till 8pm when a gang of guys went up to a couple and beat him up and stole the girls bag, then everyone on the beach left straight away! Rio was really not a safe city at all, to say it was carnaval and their hosting the world cup this summer, you would think they could keep copacabana beach safe at 8pm when there's over a million tourists in one week. As a whole we didn't enjoy Rio that much, there were a lot of older people that were walking around or laying on the floor clearly dependent on drugs and had been for some years. There was also a bin collectors strike happening so after the first few days the whole city was an absolute disgrace with rubbish and filth littering every inch of the city from the numerous street parties that had happened and hadn't been cleared away at all, and the whole place also smelt like a toilet. They would have 2 portaloos for an entire street party and they smelt so bad that even when drunk we couldn't go closer than 5 feet near them, they were disgusting!!
Our final day in Rio we were up early to do all the touristy stuff we hadn't bothered doing all week, the first stop was Christ the Redeemer which was voted one of the wonders of the world and is definitely the most disappointing one we have seen yet (we've now seen 5/7). After my big rant over Rio, now comes the rant of why Christ the Redeemer is unworthy to be a wonder of the world but I will keep it short. Firstly it was built in 1931, it really isn't old in anyway, it isn't wonderous how they built it in 1931. The train up to the top is older then the Christ. Second he really isn't that big, I thought when you go to Rio you would see him everywhere but you can't he's pretty small. He's 30m small, not including the 8m pedestal they put him on to make him look bigger. For comparison, Big Ben is 96m tall built in 1858,the statue of Liberty is 93m tall built in 1886, the Eiffel tower 324m built in 1889, I think you get my point but one final one, something also completed in 1931; the empire state building. It is 381m to its roof, 443m to the antennae tip and was the tallest building in the world for almost 40 years.
All these things are more spectacular and bigger then Christ the Redeemer. He does look big when you go and see him because they give you the tiniest platform to see him from that he looks massive, and the view of Rio does look amazing if also slightly like Benidorm with all the terrible 70's high risers.
It makes it seem like we didn't enjoy Rio, which we did, but I think it was completely over hyped and is definitely not the nicest city in South America.
After Christ, we took a ferry to see the the view of Rio from the sea, which was nice but we didn't bother getting off the boat and just waited till it came back again, everywhere was like a ghost town today, even Starbucks was shut!
Our final stop was up sugar loaf mountain to see the sunset behind the Christ, which was a really good view but the sunset wasn't spectacular as it was a bit cloudy! Was still a really good view as you could see all the little islands dotted around that are uninhabited.
For our final night and the final night of carnaval, we partied on copacabana beach!