The end of my time in Rio

Monday 11th - Thursday 14th Feb
This will be another long post guys and gals, I gotta catch up time somehow. I'm typing this up on my iTouch on a bus to Curitiba so bare with me...

So yes, I got in very late from Sambodromo. We walked back (me and my mum!) through the streets of Rio in the early hours of Monday morning but of course the party was still as strong as ever. I hadn't actually got a place to stay last night as I thought I'd save myself a pointless R$150 (4x the standard rate) but I ended up crashing out on a bed anyway aha.
I was woken up by Jens who had just got in (mad one) after having breakfast with my mum, so as I felt okay I had breakfast with mum also and suggested that we walked to Copacobana (I like the beach, okay?!) because it was such a lovely day. If anyone is in Rio with their girlfriend and the weather is nice then I suggest doing this walk, the roads were empty (because of Carnaval) and we walked along the waterfront front for a few miles chatting away until we arrived at Copacobana beach. It was a really good walk and had a relatively cheap lunch on the beach - I say cheap as you should bare in mind they were collossal portions and the location alone should increase the prices - I think it was under £20 for the two of us. We found the haviannas flagship store (overrated) and got the metro back. The metro is an amazing place during carnaval, people have bags of beer and their singing and dancing and having a real party on it. You could easily spend the day on the metro if that was your thang. I like non-regurgetated oxygen, personally. For runners: it's like an indoor track. I'd been invited out by UCL Sophie and Soccer Seb so I was off for dinner with ma and would go out after. There's a big thing for 'per kilo' restaurants here. There's a set kilo price and you pay for however heavy your plate is - so if you like prawns I guess this is the place, but I got a stupidly large portion (a whole kilo!) and if you do it right, this is a really good place to eat, it was in fact recommended in my tour guide and was 2 blocks from the hostel.
The night was divided I guess. Just to prepare you, from now on my carnaval is kind of over. It ends really on the Sunday, but that's no excuse for my nights for the rest of the week. So we headed off to Copocobana beach for what we thought would be one of the blocos - but it was empty. So we ended up sitting around chatting on the beach front for an hour or so before me and Jens suggested 'Lapa?' The girls went back to the hostel and it was a lads trip to laps consisting of Jens, Sebastian and myself. The atmosphere was again booming and I think the boys fancied their chances with a señorita, I was feeling a little tired so I would wander around and watch them work instead... Lol. It was funny because it just seemed like everyone told them to do one. But in all it was still a good night and the highlight was sitting at the bottom of the lapa steps and just watching these thousands of people amass and get drunk together. I think the lapa steps is also full of pimps and hookers also so we didn't venture up them. Late night, 4/5am.

For the first time in my time here I slept past breakfast. I slept in to the afternoon even! Mum had done a whole fervela tour by the time I got up. I had told her how I now could locate the Lapa steps (and I actually wanted to see it when there weren't thousands of drunkards among them) so as everyone was asleep we left. It was a nice walk and again the temperature was ever increasing. We went via the bloco and were eventually in Lapa which was still, surprisingly, booming. The Lapa steps are incredible and cannot understand at all why they're not on the tourist map. There's so much colour, culture, story, emotion and feeling connected with this work of art created by someone just because he wanted to give something back to Rio. Mum got some good snaps so maybe I'll be able to show some pictures at some stage. We had lunch at a bar which was again enourmous and headed back as it was the evening. I ended up sitting as the desk of the hostel that night for a few hours, giving and taking dorm keys, taking people to their rooms and generally just coming across like I worked there, it was all good fun - especially when two Chilliean brothers were given 30% discount for a room without beds!!!
Mum and I stayed in to cook ourselves which was totally scrumptious (steak and mash). We'd been told there was a big bloco down at Copocobana tonight so we all headed down there - there wasn't. We found a beach hut and drank there for a bit and when I was offered back to the hotel of an old Brazilian drunkard we headed back to flamengo (where there was apparently yet another bloco). There again wasn't and we ended up just hanging out on the beach and fancied a swim that got me unwell for the next couple of days... Late night for something not amazing.

I'm gonna tell you now the next two days were pretty crappy. I had a bit of a bug so hung around the hostel and attempted to sort out some boring stuff like planning hostels, buses, ucl accomodation etc. So I'll just tell you about Wednesday and Thursday nights. It was all our last night in Rio on Wednesday bar Cindy and Luciana (who works here) so we did as we've done so many times before: we chipped in R$15 each and got a lot of beer and played drinking games and said how sad we all were to depart. On Thursday night I was getting the bus to Sao Paulo, so Luciana took me and Jens to a place to book our buses - I got a 6hr night bus for R$80 and Jens (who was setting off to Salvador) got 25hr bus for nearly R$300!! That night was very nice and it was the farewell I think Rio deserved. Jens, Luciana, Cindy and myself got the metro to Ipanema (somewhere I should've gone a few times as it is an amazing beach) and watched the sunset together until some idiot gringos applauded when the sun set - who on earth were they applauding, God? The earth's rotation? Pf, gringos. I got a cab to the bus station at midnight and got a coach to Sao Paulo with 3 people on my bus.


Rio is an incredible place and will probably always have a place in my heart. There is a vibe from Rio that I've not got anywhere else - it's the location, the people, the culture - everything! I look forward to July for my return flight from Rio (and I can actually visit Christ and Sugarloaf!)
Rio, you're amazing.