Heloo all. To follow on from where i left yesterday, we´d been staying in a cool B&B type place in Santa Tereza (very cool, arty area with lots of hippy types, as well as the neighbouring favelas (slums keeping the drugs and arms trafficking ticking over nicely). We had our best night yet last night - started with caipirinhas in the huge living room of the b&b with the guys who lived there (the circus workers)...all horribly talented and they sang, played guitar, talked several differnt languages and generally showed us up for the feckless wasters we are. They taught us how to play a new card game which paul flukily won (he may dispute the fluke part). In the midst of all the culture paul spotted a wee mouse running under the sofa, and much shrieking started (it wasn´t all Paul, haha)...as much coaxing with a large broom, cockroach spray and two huge doberman dogs didnt seem to want to bring it out from its hiding spot (cant think why) we took this as our cue to leave. We spent the night in Lapa, a run down part of the town near the centre...I´ve been advised that it is not an acqeduct that runs through it either as i had said (oops) - actually a viaduct, but it~s lots of arches so you get the picture (not like the arches in eastenders´though). Before we left one of the guys told us Lapa is like Rio carnival every weekend, and he was not wrong - thousands of pleople fill the streets, dancing, drinking chatting, meeting. Every colour, shape, age and size of person was out there and we were too, hurrah!! We bought these dodgy vodka drinks which you suck out of a long plastic tube - bit like a sherbert fountain, but makes you more sicky if youre not careful. We watched a group doing a dance to afro-brazilan drum music and i got roped in - made to wear the traditional ra-ra skirt and all...it wasnt long before they realised that even the Gods of Rio Rythm cannot help me and my two left feet and i suspect they regrettecd having indulged me the gringo in the first place. Anyhoo, it was excellent, and Paul got to have a good laugh at me making a prat of myself. Ás well as walking round the streets watching the dancing, and listening to the various types of music (and drinking our sherbert fountains) we spent a bit of time in a bar listening to a live band play samba type stuff - it was all so cool. We couldn´t keep up though and got the taxi back long before anything showed signs of shutting. We´ve now moved to a hostel in Copacabana called Che Lagarto...It reminds me a bit of volunteering for teen hols except i don~t have 40 teenagers calling me miss, bleedin sap or gobsh#te ;-) paul and i even have separate dorms, so at least he´s spared my snoring! Its very busy though so i reckon we´ll meet loads of new people. Right, time to get on with the tricky task of drinking beer, meeting people and having a laugh. I bet you´re all glad you don´t have to tolerate these tough standards of living. hope all is well....x p.s. the guy at the house in santa tereza yesterday also told us that ´summer was born in rio´...well, it´s only 20 degrees today, cloudy and we´ve just had a cracking thunderstorm, so i think he was spinning a yarn for us daft tourists...pah.
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