So, the most glamorous city in the world was upon me, and how ironic that before eyeing up the runway at Rio De Janeiro international, I flew over the not so glamorous, but notorious favelas. Not exactly the glamorous welcome that you expect.
There are two main beaches in Rio, the Copacabana and Ipanema. people say Ipenema is more chilled and attracts a better crowd. I ended up staying in accommodation at both. First I stayed in Copacabana, and the hostel wasn't completely terrible, but the staff and some of the guests were. There were some girls from Melbourne who gave the city and Australia in general a bad name. I don´t mind people coming in and accidentally waking me up, I also don´t care about people singing at 6am (it would be a tad hypocritical if I did care to be fair), but when the same 3 girls every hour from 1am to 8am come in shouting "I´ve lost my drugs" and I don't like him", well it is a tad irritating to say the least. They laughed the day after and said to me "ohh, are you leaving this room because everyone else has moved rooms because of us". I just laughed and said "If you think I'm going to be inconvenienced and move because of you three, you have another thing coming, I will leave when I´m ready". There was a good lad from Leicester in that dorm, and he sounded exactly like Willie Thorne. I thought I was listening to the snooker commentary at one point.
I knew someone staying in Ipenema and instead of the one hour walk every day to meet them, I moved to the Mango tree for my final 2 nights in Rio, and the hostel had plenty of good reviews unlike the previous one. I met an American though, who hated Americans ha.
For the past 2 weeks, I have been wearing my smart black shoes everywhere as both pairs of trainers I owned became unbearable. One of my trainers was ripped apart that much, not even the magic tape could glue them back together. I did think that staying in Copacabana, I would be spurred on to buying some new trainers or flip flops, how wrong I was. I must have stood out in my black shoes walking alongside the beach, as someone in the lift the other day asked me how my job interview went.

Now onto what I actually did in Rio. Day 1 consisted of me doing the City tour which just about covered most of the touristy things, including the steps at Lappa, and of course, the statue of Christ of Redeemer. The statue was ok, but as Carl Pilkington would say, it is just a statue. He did indeed have a massive chin, but unlike someone on the tour, I can't quite see the resemblance between the statue of Christ of redeemer and Jimmy Saville. Many tourists were there though so everyone ruined my pictures and I obviously must have ruined theirs. They should have a queuing system so everyone gets a chance to have a picture with the Christ. It obviously means a lot to the religious people, as some of the taxi drivers have the Christ in their taxis. I think it probably looks a lot better from the view of a helicopter, as you're looking down on it and not up at it into the sun. From the top you could see the world famous Maraccanna football stadium, which then moves me nicely onto the next topic.
After seeing the statue, we went to the stadium, but as there stadium is in the process of major Reconstruction due to the country hosting the 2014 world cup, going into the stadium was a no no. Sitting outside the steps of the stadium and posing for a picture in the dark, was as good as I was going to get unfortunately. I only did see the famous Lappa steps in the dark, but couldn't really be bothered going back to see them in the light, as after all, they were just bloody steps.

Another now typical touristy thing to do in Rio is see the other side of the city, and by that, I mean the darker side, in the name of the famous Favellas. From the bottom of the Favelas, you get taken on a motorbike right to the very top. Our tour guide told us to pick our bike carefully as some drivers were a little more cautious than others, and she also told us not to take any pictures during the ride to the top, as there could be wanted drug dealers walking around, and obviously they would not appreciate appearing on facebook. I was one of the last to choose which bike I went on, and whilst others were been given an helmet, I said Olla to my driver, and before I knew it, off we were, with him holding my helmet in one hand and him loosley holding his other hand on the handle bars. I have never been on a motorbike before and I can't say I´m in a hurry to get back on one anytime soon. He was overtaking buses on blind corners whilst I was holding on for dear life. By the end, in a weird way, I was kind of enjoying the ride but I was certainly glad to get off. I was just wishing I knew the Portuguese for "can you slow down please". I was thinking to myself how the heck can anyone take pictures whilst being on the back of these motorbikes.

It was all very staged really, as the guide knew the 4 streets of where we visited like the back of her hand, and we were allowed to take pictures. Out of those four streets though, we were not allowed to take any pictures. During the walk, I was dying for the toilet so I went inside some locals house and used their toilet. On the way down, we passed some youngsters on lookout with Walkie talkies, as they get paid by the drug dealers to keep watch as to who is coming in and out of the favelas. One lad sat on a seat shouted "I Will kill you". I looked around, and again I could hear "yes, I will kill you". I think he was just practicing his English to be honest, and at around 40 year old, it´s better late than never I guess.

Sunday was the day where I went to the football. It was becoming a regular occurrence was these Sunday football games. This game was Corinthians from Sao Paulo and Flamengo from Rio, and Ronaldinho plays for Flamengo. If you have followed my blogs from the start, you would realise that nothing ever runs smoothly when I'm around, and this game wasn't any different. Our tour guide told us to stay by the tree, and he would go get our tickets, so we waited patiently for 10 minutes. A police escort was appearing in the distance and people tried to break into the escort, and all hell seemed to break loose. One Policeman tasered one lad, whilst the other then hit him with a baton. People then tried to get to the police, and everyone just ran away. In England the police would often just want you to retreat, not in Brazil, the policeman on the horse was adamant he was getting this lad, even if it did mean smashing his way through the whole crowd waving his baton around. Some lad on our tour said to me how he thought we needed to get back to the tree to wait for the guide. The tree was least of my worries. Eventually after missing the first 20 minutes and a goal, we got into the ground all safe and well. I quickly went to the toilet, and as it was packed I rushed into the cubicle. A few seconds later, 3 lads opened there door and joined me. They were in there swapping drugs and fake tickets. I looked and said "ey up lads", and they didn't seem interested in me, so I shut the door behind me, left them in there and went to watch the match. The atmosphere was pretty decent aswell.

My final day in Rio was spent with me just strolling around, and getting asked around 50 times from various sellers on the Copacabana if I wanted to buy anything. I don´t think I have mentioned yet, but in South America, I get called a Gringo, every tourist does. It´s not offensive on there part, it's just the way it is. So strolling on the beach, every 5 minutes all I could was hear "Gringo, do you want to buy something". Before I knew it wasn't offensive, I think my response was "no I don't you twat".

I had a good 4 full days in Rio, and alot of things seemed to happen, but one thing I will quickly mention before this comes to an end is that this bad press about petty crime in Rio seems to be overplayed dramatically. I didn't once have a problem whatsoever in the touristy parts, and I didn't know of any person that did. Compare that to Buenos Aires where every man and his dog seems to get mugged, I really think the bad press on Rio is unfair. Ohh well not my problem, it was then briefly onto Sao Paulo for 2 days.