Well our final major bus trip on our tour of South America. Really uneventful but the winding road out of Paraty is pretty stunning. Jungle on both sides, with the occasional glimpse of ocean or a small township. About an hour out of Rio the scenery changed dramatically into the typical urban look of a city. Arriving on time (4 hours) we made our way into the massive Rio de Janeiro bus station.

For the first time in Brazil we have come across very helpful Brazilians. After locating the information office we were pointed towards a bus to Copacabana costing only about a quarter of what a taxi would.

The Real buses basically pick you up off the street and let you off at designated places or if it is along the way wherever suits you. Cost us $6R each from the bus station as opposed to about $30+R for a taxi.

Getting off on Atlantica Ave, our first view was off the beach and the hoards of people on it. The picture below doesn`t do it justice really. There were so many people playing either soccer or volleyball on the beach inbetween sunbakers and families. They also have a cycling and running track set up next to the road and even a gym where a lot of men in particular were using it as it was more of a use your own bodyweight setup. Great idea though and i'd never seen this before on any beach.
 
Also we are lucky that the weather is great. High 20`s to low 30`s and fine.Everyone other traveller we have spoken to has had rain the wholetime they were there.

Off to find our hotel and typically for us it was nearly at the top of a lot of stairs. Starting to get very used to this. . . First real `backpacker` place we have stayed in and it was nice enough really but a lot louder than we have been used to. We haven`t really had to stay in backpacker places mainly because everywhere we have been it has been the same cost.

Our first night being a Friday we headed to the Lapa Street Party. Dropped off from the bus with a lot of other people we only had to cross the road to the start. A number of booths selling all types of alcohol and some food. $2.50R for a 475ml can of Skol. . .Phil was impressed. Purchasing a couple of beers we headed off down the street to see what the Street Party was about. Pretty much just a lot of locals and tourists mingling and drinking. Not bad to people watch but after our long day we left reasonably early and headed back by bus. 

Turns out getting on the bus at the same place we got off was a bad idea. Driving through the suburbs we found ourselves in a suburb with high razorwire fences, lots of graffiti (some of it really good) before ending up at the end of the bus route. The driver took pity on us when he realised we had got on the wrong bus, got us off and onto the right bus and we didn't even have to pay for the second ride. All in all ended up being quite a good tour. Pity we didn't bring our camera's. We had been warned of the risk of theft but like everywhere else we are starting to wonder.

The short version of our next few days is this.

1. Wake up and breakfast
2. Stroll down to the beach and a walk to and from Ipanema to Copacabana beach
3. Lunch
4. Wandering around the roadside markets and beach
5. Coffee and cake
6. Beer at our local beach cafe
7. Tea and more beer 

Quite sad yes I know.

Phil was rather impressed with the size of the beer. 600ml, 700ml or 1L bottles. Of course they also got cheaper so we indulged in the 1L bottles. They must have got used to us as by our last night he just asked if we wanted the 1L Skol on arrival!!

The beachside cafe's are a lovely place to while the time away. Guys walk past selling hot peanuts (the one time I wanted some there was no one there!) but the musicians are rather annoying. We think they walk around until they see tourists then get as close as they can to the inside of the cafe and play music (really loudly sometimes) and try and catch your eye before one of them walks around almost demanding money from you. We learnt quickly to ignore them and they must have got the hint.

On the weeekends there are markets set up in the large median strip that seperates Atlantica Avenue's carriageways. Some really cool pictures but no idea where we would put them or how we would get them home as they were huge. They also sell clothing and other tourist trinket stuff. I think we must be touristed out somewhat as nothing took our fancy.

Now we must admit we didn`t do the true tourist thing of going to see Christ the Redeemer. It is a massive concrete statue of Jesus that they have put on top of a mountain. Neither of us were particularly bothered about going to see a concrete statue and as it turned out you need to have a clear day to appreciate which we didn`t get. All our days were either hazy or overcast.

Got the chance to see an interesting way of garbage collection. If you live at the top of a hill a `garbo´ brings his piece of carpet to the top, loads up the garbage bags and literally runs down with the garbage being dragged behind.

We had decided to do the Favela tour. There are over 1000 favela`s in Brazil. They are basically slum areas which are controlled by various gangs. Not inherently dangerous surprisingly, however you must have a reason to be there. We went to Rochina, the biggest favela in Rio.

We did a guided tour and our first part was riding on the back of a motorbike to the top of the favela. No helmets or safety gear and the riders don`t speak english but it was fun. I got the nuts one of course. At high speed around corners and inbetween buses however I must admit that I didn`t actually feel unsafe. Phil`s rider was a bit more sane as it turns out, however his comment at the end was that he much prefers to be the rider not the pillion.

There are 300,000 people who live in the Rochina favela. Most of them work outside of the favela, however there are shops and services within and of course you have the gangs, drugs etc.

Interesting things about a favela and life within:

1. They don`t pay for electricity, water, cable tv or internet. They basically hack into the lines. See photo below.

2. You can either rent a place, gets more expensive the higher up you live, or you can build a place. If you choose to build, you can either find a spare piece of land (you don`t have to pay for it however very hard to find now) or you can pay someone to build on their roof.

3. Inherent problem with this is the high rainfall mixed with poor foundations and too much weight. Between January and March (March being the most dangerous) many building in favelas fall and can result in major landslides and huge casualties. In March this year a whole favela was taken by a landslide with 2000 people dead. 

4. Schooling is free, including university. A lot finish high school but university tests are very hard to pass if you only do public schooling. The kids all wear white t-shirts with a blue stripe and when they wear this the public transport to and from school is also free.

5. Girls start having children at 12-13 years of age

6. The youngest grandfather is 28 and he has two grandchildren!!

7. The favela èarns` $4 million a month (drugs and weapons). There is very little crime within the favela and it is dealt with 'in-house'.

8. The guy in charge of Rochina is only 24 years old and earns $3 million a month. Hard to feel sorry for but he can never leave the favela. He does however have everything he could ever want in his place.

9. The watchers (men only) earn $2000R a week, about 4 times the average monthly salary for a brazilian. They are also very friendly to tourists, waving and smiling all the time while their fully automatic weapons were hanging around their necks. Phil quite enjoyed the gun watching with AK47 and G3's opening held.

10. Girls from the favela sell the drugs in town as they are less likely to be arrested. Also in part because once a boy becomes involved in the gang they can`t leave the favela, due to safety issues (liklihood of being killed by a rival gang or police is huge). They sell and produce cocaine, heroin and dope but don't sell crack as it is bad for business as the 'clientele' cause them problems.

A stop at one of the local bakeries. Smelt divine and looked as good as it smelt. I went with a chocoate ball thing which was rolled in more chocolate. Turned out it was incredibly dense. Don't recon I need to eat for about a day to digest it. Phil went for the chocolate filled doughnut. At 2000kj it's lucky he is still trying to put on weight. I had a small taste and it was pretty amazing.

All in all the tour was fascinating and we would recommend it to anyone. We used the Be a Local company and were impressed when our guide told us that 60% of their profits go back to the community. Not sure if it's true but they have already set up a school and childcare centre in the favela which the tours keep going so hopefully it's true.

In Ipanema there is the Amsterdam and Sauer Gem Museum. A museum and jewellery store in one. A huge selection of precious stones most of which were from Brazil and the remainder from South America.

The guide was really informative and we were surprised to learn that a couple of the gems can now only be found in Brazil due to other mines around the world having exhausted their supplies.

Wandering back to our hotel to organise ourselves for our flight to Argentina we took the chance to take our last walk along the beach and I decided to try the brazilian national drink, the caprinha. I'll prefix it with maybe we got the wrong place, but wow it wasn't great. All I could taste was pure alcohol. I squeezed all the limes that were in the glass and added 3 sugar sachets and it made it drinkable but barely and I can't see what people love about it. I guess if you were just there to get drunk it would be good. I'm hoping that with more lime juice and some sort of mixer (or less alcohol) it would probably be nice. Phil tried a local 'black' beer, the Bratima Malzbier, and hated it. I'm thinking that beer and South America generally just don't mix.

Must admit is has been a very lazy and relaxing few days in Rio, probably just what we needed, although we both would prefer not to be in a city. Hailing the Real bus from Atlantica Avenue we headed for the airport for $9R. As it turned out to be an hour trip it was a good option.

Looking forward to Argentina. Been advised the wine and meat are amazing and we can both be hopeful this is the case.