ROCHINA

Today we experienced the most amazing thing ever!

Its impossible to explain exactly what we saw, it really was the craziest thing ever! We started the day by getting a motorbike taxi up to the top of the Favela. They really didnt care about road discipline - doubt they had to pass any sort of highway code! They were in and out of vans / cars / tractos - between us we escaped death 8 times!

but hey, lucky to be alive, we decided to venture into the favela after we were given the okay by the first watch tower! Our guide explained we were to take `no photos´ describing a guy with bleached blonde hair carrying a gun as the ´watch man´.

200,000 live in Rochina making it the largest favela in Latin America. The main man there is only 24, and last year killed 5 guys to get this position!

Drugs and alcohol are a major problem there, and kids are pretty much neglected because of this. Although they attend some sort of school, majority of the time they just roam the favelas with no shoes on walking through their own poo!

There streets are like concrete corridors, rubbish trailing all the way down, dirty water everywhere. God knows what was in it.

Whilst waking down the favela, we came accross two guys with machine guns as if they were carrying an ice lolly!

Through out the day we heard constant gun shots but never did we feel unsafe. All the kids were so happy to see us, and they were all begging us to take pictures of them! Salt happily adopted a few! (see our photos!)

This was the most amazing, bizzare, surreal experience ever!