The Rio juggernaut goes on...

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - 17th February 2010

After the epic scenes of Monday (both day and night), it will be scant surprise to hear we were absolutely shattered come Tuesday... after finally rising some time in the afternoon (going to bed at 7.30am isn't ideal for an early start). Feeling somewhat obliged to do something, however, Anna and I hopped into a bus and headed down to Ipanema where, after topping up the energy levels with the delicious açai berry-fruit-shake-juice stuff that is found in the fruit juice stalls that come ten-to-the-dozen all over Brazil, we walked over to Lagoa Rodrigo de Frietas and rented ourselves a couple of bikes to rekindle memories of Oxford as we cycled around the 7.5km path. I'd wanted Anna to see the amazing Ipanema sunset that we'd enjoyed before she arrived, but unfortunately we ended up getting to Ipanema beach about 20 minutes too late... although we still had time to see Anna's compact digital camera (as opposed to her all new fancy SLR one which we left back at Rita's for its own safety) come to a sticky end thanks to an over-zealous wave and the splash of few drops of salty sea water. To say she was unimpressed would be a rather large understatement.

We managed to pass several hours sitting on the beach, walking up the beach, sitting on the wall while drinking some beers... generally mitzing around the area, before we decided to look into hopping on a metro train home. The metro runs 24 hours a day during carnaval... but unfortunately the powers that be had decided that carnaval refered to the sambódromo (which finished on Monday night), rather than the carnaval de rua on the streets that continues till Tuesday. Bad news for us, and adding to our woes was a complete lack of cash for either of us, and apparently no working ATMs in Ipanema. Eventually we bought a couple of drinks by debit card at an Irish pub and got 100 reals cashback to sort ourselves out... and as tends to happen when you're just seeing where the night takes you, we ended up with an English lad, a Colombian, and some guy who was presumably American, overfilling a taxi to Lapa (the centre of Rio nightlife). Ostensibly we were only heading there to try and get on the metro (as apparently it would still be running further up the line), but once we were out on the crowd-filled streets with the full noise and energy of the last night of carnaval, we were always gonna stay and soak up the atmosphere. Wandering over to Arcos de Lapa - a big viaduct of arches across a public square that, by day, looks like the photo on the right - turned out to be a great move as we found ourselves in the midst of a live performance by some sort of band - a good 10 thousand people dancing away in front of the constructed stage. It was probably about 2am when we decided to call it a night... cue walking around to find a metro station, only to discover that it too was closed! Cutting our losses, we just got a cab.

Today was to be different, however, with Rita driving the two of us down to Prainha beach - a recommended spot due south of Rio; bright sands enclosed by green hills (see right) and with the big surf that seems standard along the southern Brazilian coast. Several hours were spent relaxing; Anna wistfully watching the surfers enjoy what are supposed to be the best waves in Brazil, while dismayed by the total lack of surfboard-rental establishments anywhere in Prainha (or indeed anywhere around Rio); I taking some crappy photos. At some stage, however, I had the fairly unusual experience of being stunned to silence after she recounted her torrid time in India and, point-by-point, presented her case for how - in seemingly every conceivable way - India was a disaster of a country. Normally, it takes barely a flicker of criticism of India for me to launch into a strong-worded and generally over-excited defence of the motherland - a personality trait that has provided much easy entertainment over the years for serial windup merchants like Paul "P Sizzle" Smith. On this occasion though, what hit me wasn't so much a flicker of criticism as a raging inferno of lambastations, denunciations and disparagement whose content might been vitriolic if it hadn't all been built upon experiences that were undeniably Indian, and presented in a manner that was perfectly fair. It was an impressive argument on her part, and it was its volume as much as its content that left my quietly collecting my thoughts for some time - wondering why I wasn't at all offended or surprised, but merely disappointed. The overarching conclusion for me eventually seeped through though - travelling can be wildly influenced by preconceptions and expectations, and if they don't include an expectation for anything and everything to come your way - as much in terms of trival customer service standards as the more serious dangers of theft and illness - then 4 months in India are gonna be tough.

The irony for me is that the vehemence of her criticisms simply highlighted the chasm in my mind between what I consider normal anywhere in the world, and what I consider normal in India, and how at ease I am with this division. Repeatedly saying "it's just how it is" wasn't a particularly strong argument on the face of it, but combined with a sense of expectation and it starts to take a deeper significance. Every time I found myself resorting to the same sentence merely served to confirm the sense of ease I feel in a world that was just so foreign for her.

As we drove home conversation turned to just how fantastic a city Rio is; with everything she would want from a city present in Rio, Anna said she'd certainly be happy to live here. I love the place, but my love of London, Kent and the UK is enough to stop me ever seriously thinking about the merits of settling down anywhere else for longer than a few fleeting moments. What I realised, however, is that if the afternoon's conversations achieved little else, what they did do was increase my desire to one day live and work somewhere in India.

Anna's Baptism of Fire, part II

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - 16th February 2010

Carnaval is a pretty big deal here in Rio. And that might just be the biggest of the many understatements that have (probably) featured on this blog over the last few months. Carnaval in Rio is the biggest deal imaginable. To think cities - London at present being a perfect example - spend years and years planning and organising festivities for the 2 weeks when they host the Olympic Games... and none of them will even come close to the size, scale, or simply fun, that Rio manages to achieve each and every year. Sydney 2000 may be often cited as the "best Olympics ever", but whatever I'd be willing to bet my hypothetical house that Rio 2016 is going to blow it out the water.

Anyway, my pains to stress just how massive carnaval is over here are basically to put things in perspective. Because "carnaval" is 4 or 5 days of street parties, dancing and general revelry, but at its centre - encompassing all of the above and more - is an event that is just epic in every way, from its venue to its duration to its volume of performers. This, of course, is the legendary Samba School parade in the purpose-built Sambódromo stadium, and it is simply mind-boggling.

As an explanatory note, the samba school parade is actually a competition - the 12 samba schools currently occupying the "Special Group" (basically the Premier Division of samba schools) are each given an hour and a quarter to parade through the sambódromo - 6 on Sunday night, 6 on Monday night. Judged on everything from timing to dancing to originality of the theme and music (and 5 other categories), the best school over the 2 nights is crowned the year's champion, and thus gain the right to be the final performing school on the Monday night the following year. The two lowest ranked schools, however, get relegated out of the "Special Group", replaced the following year by the winners from the lower division. Those interested can read all about the history and details here.

In a flurry of internet-based activity shortly after my old camera was stolen in Airley Beach, I splashed out on a couple of grandstand tickets for Anna and myself - at over US$100 they don't come cheap, but I was well informed by countless sources that it was an experience well worth it. "True dat", as they say.

So Anna's already incredible first day in Rio headed for its momentous finale as we hit the metro with Rita and her sister (whose concern for our general safety and scepticism in our ability to find our way on the streets saw them chaperone us to the gates), and soon found ourselves in the midst of thousands of brightly clad, flag-waving and dancing spectators - an eclectic mix dominated by locals whose semi-delirious passion for samba seemed to know no bounds, but with a sprinkling of tourists who were generally found looking semi-awed, semi-bemused by the scale of what was before them. Between the towering stands housing the throngs runs a 750 metre road - the parade route - along which the schools process (fairly well illustrated by the photo on the right). The stands themselves are just big concrete steps, and from the first school at 9pm, the whole thing goes on until sunrise the next morning - a 9 hour bonanza, if you can survive it.

The parades themselves have more colour, more sound, more intricate clothing designs and styles than anything I have ever seen before, or probably will see again. Every school chooses a theme for its parad and, with themes ranging from "the history of the carnival itself" to "technology and its development", produce a line of indiviudual dancers, giant themed floats covered with more dancers, and in between groups - each with hundreds more dancers within - separated from one another by a totally new, different, and equally spectacular style of costume. Mirrors, feathers, metals and gems, plus every sort of fabric under the sun - you name it, and it was on display somewhere. But not just in passing - the colours and the details may all blow your mind, but what left the most lasting memory for me was the volume - the number of performers out there. Each school has some 4000 or so performers... and it is only when you see hundreds and hundreds of them, all out there at once; floats, costumes and all; that you can properly appreciate just how many people that is. And as one school comes and goes, you have the whole shabam again, and again, and again...

By 4.30 in the morning after seeing the entirity of the first 4 schools and the beginning of the penultimate offering, it seemed like a fairly good idea to beat the crowds and make an early exit. For sure, it was not so much for want of departure on my part, but having landed in Rio a mere 24 hours earlier, jet lag, general fatigue and a few beers were all hitting Anna like a runaway train... and the fact that she'd manage to sleep through one and a half schools' parades seemed more than compelling a reason to get back to Rita's for some well earned rest. But then it wouldn't be a Baptism of Fire without one more twist in the tale, would it...?

Getting a taxi was easy enough, and being pre-paid we weren't to bothered about the driver making a royal hash of finding his way to rua Caçhaca de Maria in Méier - Rita and family's abode. Méier, while not the "ghetto", is in the north-western part of Rio that is generally bracketed as the more industrial, working class, and generally rough side of the city (as opposed to the rich half down by Copacabana and Ipanema). The houses are built like Fort Knox, with entrance porches surrounded by 10 foot concrete walls, themselves topped with spiked rails and barbed wire. Can't be too careful...

The problem with all this security, however, comes when you arrive at your friend's house in the early hours of the morning, in a slightly dodgy suburb of one still remains a pretty dangerous city, and ring the bell to find absolutely no answer. Sure, next door's disgusting hounds all throw their nut and wake up the whole neighbourhood, but buzz after buzz after buzz produces no answer from the door. Back home, the instinct is to figure out a way to break into your own home (or, harking back to a memorable night on Bidborough Ridge in December 2008, attempting to wake your passed out friends with repeated mobile calls, throwing shoes at windows, getting said shoes stuck on the roof, and finally cutting ones losses and calling the landline, thus waking up Rob's (very, very angry) Dad, and half of Bidborough, at 5am), but here in Rio those options are well and truly closed (if you value your skin) - as Anna was more than quick to point out upon seeing be eying up the concrete wall. Attempts at phonecalls achieved little except emphasising the ridiculousness of Brazil's telephone system, where telephone numbers change depending what network you are calling from, so it was there we found ourselves - Anna, barely a day in Rio, and myself - paranoid as a pot-smoking teenager at a police station thanks to the newer, even more expensive and even less backed up camera I had on my person - wondering what the f*** we were supposed to do.

Various scenarios were played out. Rita and her sister had said, repeatedly, that they were coming straight home after dropping us off, and to ring the door bell when we got back. There was surely no way they could be at home at sleep through the din caused by the loud buzz and the louder uproar of three deranged dogs, which left the possibility of them having pulled a fast one and run away with our stuff (a suggestion I was quick to strike down on the basis of it being possibly the longest of long cons imaginable, what with tracing its roots back to Australia...), or that they'd been mugged, or worse, or their root home and were in trouble somewhere. Whatever way we looked at it, we had absoutely no idea what the hell we were supposed to do - with no telephones, and all our money and documents inside an impregnable house, and with nowhere to go and no one to call in a foreign city where we don't speak the language... well the shit was fairly close to hitting the metaphorical fan.

Thankfully, an absolute shitshow of a 4 months in India had instilled new nerves in young* Anna, and the two of us contented to pass the next few hours sitting on the side of the road, catching up with life a bit and attempting to create vaguely rationale ideas for what to do next, and when. Sunrise... 7am... our cut-off point for sitting on the doorstep and waiting... and then from round the corner we hear "Dean! Anna!".

From up the street appear Rita and her sister... and to cut a long story short, they'd scored free tickets inside the sambódrome thanks to bumping into well-connected friends after dropping us off. And they, unlike us, had stayed till the end.

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro. Baptism of Fire indeed.

* a whole 7 months younger than me

Anna's Baptism of Fire... part I

RIO DE JANERIO, BRAZIL - 15th February 2010

Today has already been one of the most fantastic days of my life, and there's the small matter of the world's biggest party still to come! My travels take a notable turn today, however, as for the remainder of my journey I will no longer be taking on the world solo - last night I was joined here in Rio by Anna, previously mentioned in Mumbai and various other occasions...

The weekend was passed with Rita and her sister taking me various places that wouldn't be too bad for Anna to miss - beginning with a tour of the legendary Maracanã Stadium. I've seen many a big stadium in my time, and to be honest the Maracanã isn't up to much from the outside. It doesn't have the towering height of the MCG, nor the sheer surface area of Wembley, and looks in many ways similar to the concrete-clad outer face of Twickenham. Through the internal tunnels and changing rooms - all shrines to Brazil's World Cup-winning heroes (all 5 squads of them) - and out pitchside, however, and you realise how this place once held just shy of 200,000 spectators. It is vast. The pitch itself, at 110x75 metres, is a bit longer and a bit wider than average, but for some reason it seems like an eternity from one side to the other - particularly across the width of the pitch. Anyway, I doubt there's ever been a more compulsory place to "Back the Bid".

I sampled the traditional Brazilian feijoada lunch at the Academia da Cachaça in Leblon, including the ubiquitous caipirinha cocktail (savagely strong), and had time for a sunset stroll down Ipanema Beach which, thanks to being arguably the most picture perfect sunset I'll ever see (and anyone who's been reading this blog knows that I've seen my fair share of picture perfect sunsets), brought a degree of wistfullness at my lack of camera. Rio may be one of the most fantastic cities on the planet, but the fact that you aren't safe to take your cameras on the subway metro system is a crying, crying shame. To give you some idea of what it looks like, however, I found the image on the right on Google Images.

Anyway, the fall of night saw Rita, her sister and I take on Lapa - the clubbing district - to great aplomb all round. Imagine the thumping alcohol-fuelled revelry of the Greek clubbing islands, mixed with the sheer volume of people and noise seen in Mumbai, but all moving to the samba beat that is just oh so South American. It may have been after midnight, but in Rio that is when the night begins - and how. Thousands upon thousands of people were just everywhere - you move in a throng and go where the crowds take you. Spontaneous al fresco dancefloors and bars appear on streetcorners where locals have rocked up with their cars and are pumping out tunes - and everywhere you look everyone is having the time of their life. We went into Lapa 40, one of Lapa's samba nightclubs, and danced away several hours watching an awesome troupe of samba percussions, singers, and most impressively, dancers strutting their stuff.

That was Saturday, today is Monday, and it wasn't much more than 18 hours ago that Rita and I, after a day* of Copacabana (compulsory visit to the city's most famous beach), Pedro Bonito (watching hang-gliders float down off a massive hill), and Barra (for an unsuccesful attempt to purchase a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt), were in a taxi home from the airport with Anna safely joining us from London. Despite the knowledge of a 7am wake'up alarm, it won't be much of a surprise that "catching up" chit-chat took us well into the early hours.

My first instinct this morning was one that has basically become foreign to me - feeling damn cold. Parked on the mattress underneat the air-con, it was a refreshing change from the unrelenting 40°+ heat of the day that has been standard issue since my arrival. 7am was, admittedly, a struggle, but by 7.30 we were on the road towards Ipanema to meet up with one of Rita's friends, her Canadian boyfriend, and the latter's brother who was visiting Rio as well. A two car convoy, and we were on our way up to Corcavado.

I've already spoken of the magical aura Cristo Redentor provides as it stands above Rio - but one thing you cannot appreciate looking up at it from the city is just how massive a structure it is. Monumental is the word - trying to capture the whole thing in one photograph is tough enough, leave alone trying to take photos of people... and that's just the physics, leave alone the hundreds of tourists rammed around you all trying to take the same snap. Looking down of the city serves incredible views in every direction, but for me it was looking back up at the statue that sent shivers of excitement down my spine - the simplicity but completeness of the facial details; the holes in his palms; even the glow of the stone in the sunlight; all contribute to making this one of the great works of man anywhere in the world.

Back down the other side of the Corcavado, we were pleasantly surprised by how early it still was and decided to make the most of time by tackling Rio's other famous hilltop - the domineering Sugar Loaf on the other side of town. There's a cable car up to the top, but being intrepid adventurers Anna and I took to the path... and 40 hot, dehydrated and very sweaty minutes later, spent a good hour taking many an identical photograph of the stunning views looking back down to the city. We took the cable car back down, which probably says more than enough about the climb...

Anna got to taste the traditional meat-rice-beans feijoada for herself at Academia da Cachaça, but arguably the most memorable part of her first day here in Rio came afterward, with a trip to one of Rita's friends apartments. We were told it would be a brief trip - Rita just wanted to say hi and bye - but as we walked into a penthouse suite, adorned wall to wall with all kinds of fascinating but random crap, and ascended a spiral staircase to a rooftop terrace complete with swimming pool, meat on the BBQ, and ice cold beers being offered to us... well we knew it wasn't going to be a brief visit. About 15 people were up there just loving life - and both Anna and I were in agreement that coming across a place like this will forever make any other fantastic apartment just that little less special. With legs dipped in the cool pool, sipping on an ice cold sud, with beautifully barbecued beef being offered to me every 2 minutes, I looked across the water to smile at Anna, and then just arched my head upward to find - right above us, with nothing else in between - the open arms and solemn smile of Cristo Redentor. All was good.

* after another late start (breakfast after midday), "day" would really be more accurately replaced with "afternoon"