From the blog title it is clear this was not a healthy weekend (apart from the professional samba-ing...) so the travelling diet is not going to plan! With 1kilo of sugar per caipirinha the weekend did not start well on Friday afternoon on the beach. After a brief sunbathe we headed back to the hotel for a nap to recharge our batteries for the night ahead in Lapa, the party district of the city with a reputation for a wild night! After dinner and predrinks back in the hotel me and Kane (a fellow volunteer) headed out to the bus stop, this was rather busy with all the young locals also heading into Lapa. Finishing our drinks to go we accidently fell into one of the sleeping locals on the bus, but luckily he didn't mind the gringo wake up call! Once off the bus we headed to meet Kane's friends from home who are also voluteering. In Lapa there are numerous stalls to buy drinks (Caiprihinas only!) and food with lots of music and people dancing etc. So we stayed here a while then ventured under the arches into the busy streets. After a little walk a local girl took us to this great little samba bar, with another caiprihinia we all chatted and started to dance. The bar had a live band on with lots of locals showing us up and samba'd away. And to my surprise while dancing with Kane (who is your typical gay guy so very dramatic and 'colourful' dancing) I had a tap on the shoulder...it was the local we woke up on the bus, and this seems to result in a drink and a samba lesson in Rio! so after that 'experience' we headed to the main club. Here it was more of a night club with house music and we had a great time! In Rio however you get a card as you enter the club and they swipe it or mark it every drink you get and you pay at the end so nervously walking to 'check out' I handed over the card and luckily I cannot remember what I paid! In the morning...well evening! woke up at 5pm I arose and went for a icecream and diet coke! Despite the ridiculous amount of sleep I had I still felt abit 'special' to say the least, and so did Kane (something must of been in the drinks...), this 'speicalness' showed itself and various occasions but the most speical seemed to be when getting cash out of the atm I just held my hand out near the cashpoint to get both the cash and card as I assumed it would be given back to me like with a cashier...something was definatily wrong!

The group then decided to get a quick dinner and a few more drinks so we asked for a good cheap pizza place, this to our delight was only two blocks away and all you can eat for about £8ish, so off we went and dug in! With waiters coming round every 2 mins we all turned into little pigs, then I saw the chocolate pizzas...I'm not going to lie, but I definitley got abit too excited! I was already stuffed with the previous pizzas and did not need this surprise bonus! But with the first bite of m&m pizza tears actually came to my eyes it was that good! So the little pigs turned into rather big pigs and we kept going and I knew then that the tears of happiness would soon turn to pain and possibly sick! And sure enough if did...10mins after the perfect taste sensation I was in the loo throwing up! We then crawled the 2 blocks home, up the stairs in the hotel while the recetionist who recommended it appologised while laughing at the 3 victims of gluttony! After another few drinks we basically passed out with pain, hang overs and exhaustion!

The next morning feeling a whole lot fresher, we headed out to the beach where we had a few drinks and relaxed and stayed for the day! Nothing major happened this day!

Monday we were heading back to Rochinhia (favella), but before had a little shop and lunch. Ann had twisted her back so we were looking for a massage palour of some sort for her and we stumbled across the wierdest place I think I have ever been. From the outside it looks like your average shopping centre, then it starts off better with a list of shops inside and the number of the unit it is in, how handy I thought! Then using our fantastic portuguese we looked for a 'manipulist' assuming this could be just what we were looking for! Well on the 3rd floor we found out it wasn't but the lady of this shop knew just the place so we headed up to floor 8 or something crazy and the lift opened to what looked like a hospital ward, so suspiciously following we went round a corner and on this 'ward' or shopping corridor the units started to change to traditional english oak wood front doors with doorbells! At this point I thought Ann was going to be getting the best massage of her life...or definately more than she had expected! With a ring of the door bell the door opened to a waiting room and we asked the receptionist. Without the language this discussion was difficult but we thought we had it sorted through sign language then we saw the leaflets, with many different options with alot of them been various cosmetic surgeory procedures! However a daring Ann went for it and we were to return in an hour...

During this time Kane and I headed to the beach for a walk, upon this walk we did come across a few 'crazies' but the most memorable was a possible homeless lady surrounded by pigeons, 'it's the crazy pigeon lady from Home Alone' I shouted (been grateful for the lanuage barrier at this point, however with us both laughing she did notice) then with a quite obvious scowl from this lady we walked passed to notice she was sat holding and stroking one of them while whispering something (I thought a curse at this point) untill we were out of sight! However we escaped unpecked and make it back to the 'shopping mall' to meet Ann, hopefully still looking the same!

In the end it all worked out well and with a more mobile Ann we went for lunch before the heavens opened and we got the bus back to the favella or the giant waterfall of s***, as it should be known in the rain! But that's another story...