11:20 - Rio! I arrived late last night. The guide and driver picked me at the airport and on the way told me that Prince Harry is here! :-). He's playing volleyball somewhere today and was at some VIP party last night. In about 20 minutes I am being picked up for a favela tour organised by a local group that do voluntary work in poor communities. I should have been on a jeep tour of the main sights but JLA messed up and I am doing it the day before i leave (does that seem strange just to me???). The hotel I'm staying at has a great location. It's one block from Copacabana beach but at the end close to Ipanema. It doesn't have wifi in the rooms but just the plug in cable internet, so I finally got to use my tiny little portable modem :-). I now have my own little wifi in the room and it's the fastest connection I've had since I left home (truth be told is 4 times faster than the one I have at home). This morning after breakfast (also best breakfast of the whole trip so far), I went out with my bag of washing to find a laundry by the kilo place and get some Reals and I managed to get both things done :-). I'm now off to the favelas. I will check in later.
15:30 - Well, I got back safely :-). I didn't really know what to expect. Be a local help run projects to help the community. The guide, Patrick, initially picked us up in a minibus that dropped us off at the feet of the biggest favela in Rio: Rocinha. There each one of us got on the back of a motorbike taxi. I tell you, the way they drive that's an experience in itself! The bikes took us to the top of the hill, a 5 minute thrilling ride. What was immediately evident, at least at the top, was a lot of military police presence. In the 5 minutes I spent waiting for all the bikes to arrive, 3 military pickups came and went and next to me stood a uniformed military with a machine gun just looking... Patrick was last at the top. He explained what to do to stay safe and not cause upset: take pictures of scenery and not people, DO NOT BUY DRUGS, buy local artifacts to give the people something to live on and a reason not to resort to crime. We started walking down through the favela. The smell was pretty unpleasant. They have no proper sewer system and rubbish and food is left to rot out in the open air. Most of the people in the favela have a job of some sort (generally low paying ones) and stay here as this favela has pretty good and cheap transport links. The government is trying to do things to improve the quality of life here. They have built a metro station, there's a brand new sports facility that they can use for free IF the kids in the family go to school, they have increased police presence to root out drug dealers and such likes etc. Judging from the state of things it will take years before any marked improvement can be seen. As is, houses get built on top of foundations that are not solid and now and again collapse altogether. There are projects being run by organisations like 'be a local' that also encourage the population of the favela to try and make a living in a legal way. We climbed to the top of one of the houses for the view (pretty amazing) and in the floor below, three 'artists' had their work out on show. I bought a painting. Further down there were three souvenir stalls and some of the people in the group bought bracelets. A little further on we stopped for some local pastries. We were encouraged to make purchases here instead of just giving money to kids just begging for it as Patrick correctly pointed out that if you buy something, you encourage them to work for the cash. If you just give them money, they will never feel the need to change the way they live. One small step at a time I guess... We came across some kids with home made musical instruments and they played and danced a little for us. All of this was going on in the narrow corridors of the favela. Don't think for a minute that there were any proper roads except for the main one we came up with the bikes on. There were walls full of bullet holes. Rubbish and dog poo everywhere. Looking back at the landscape from the bottom, you could see different coloured houses. Pretty almost. Having said all of this and even allowing for one of the locals offering some drugs for sale to one guy in the group toward the very bottom of the walk, it was better than I thought it would be. It felt obviously not very safe to be around on your own in, but not that bad.
22:30 - I went out this evening to try out a traditional botequin in Lapa (a place called Nova Capela) which was close to Rio Scenarium (an old bar that plays live music). What I didn't realise was how far the Lapa area is from Copacabana. It took me half an hour in a taxi. The area is very lively and full of bars with tables outside. However, it is also badly lit and surrounded by very dark streets. I went for dinner at Nova Capela (food was great, I had lamb with rice and broccoli Rio style). Then I took a walk around and decided that I didn't really fancy queuing to get into Rio Scenarium so I jumped in a taxi and retreated to my safe hotel :-).
I feel a little lost here in Rio. In the Pantanal everyone spoke English (and the place was tiny) and the fact that Portoguese is totally uncomprehensible didn't seem to be a huge problem. Rio is huge! And I guess I'm hardly ever somewhere where I need someone else to do the talking for me. It's a new experience!
Tomorrow I get to spend time at the beach and might meet up with Marco (an ex DB colleague) that has been living out here for a few years and runs a B&B in the Santa Teresa area.