November 2002

ihana.com - big trip - diary - brasil - november 2002

 

We took the cable car up to the Sugar Loaf...

...its cheaper than the helicopter

The roof of the cable car station

B's Mum and her mate think ihana.com is wicked

Wednesday 30 October - Sunday 10 November

The road down into Rio took us through thickly forested hills all shaped a bit like the famous Sugar Loaf and it was with some anticipation that we arrived in this city, up there with the most famous destinations in the world, especially if you've just robbed a train!

Ts doris had arrived a couple of weeks earlier and sorted us out with a cool place to stay with a family in a posh area to the west of Rio called Barra. Their house has a pool, a pizza oven and a little separate house at the back for us, all for next to nothing. We managed to find it despite driving around the whole city for a couple of hours. Bs mother arrived the following day, staying in a posh hotel on the famous Copacabana beach. We did some sightseeing with them going up the Sugar Loaf and the Corcovada to see the huge Cristo on top. The views from both places are fantastic.

Copacabana beach...

...the blokes don't wear much...

...fortunately neither do the dorises

The 16kms long beach at Barra...

...nice sights...

...and plenty of waves

Rio has a reputation for being a dodgy place for tourists but we had not the slightest trouble, however Copacabana is not as wicked as it once was, unless it was always full of fat German blokes and prostitutes. Our beach time was spent at at Barra, which is a lot nearer our house and the 16kms long beach is full of vaguely normal people. In Brasil the blokes wear little tight speedo trunks which looks well gay to us double hard Brits in surf shorts. Fortunately the dorises wear little bikinis too. People in Brasil are very health conscious and a bit body-obsessed, Rio seems to be the epicentre of this. As the gay capital of South America, theres no shortage of muscular men about, in the discos they all dance about shirtless, having little playfights and other such poncey activities. The girls don't seem too interested in them though, preferring the usual favourite, fat bloke with money option.

Odd people near...

...the theatre...

Inside the huge concrete cathedral

Flag waving statue

Barra is a good hour from the centre when the traffic is busy (which is most of the time) so we used the bus to go and visit the art museum and a few of the historic buildings in Rio centre.

On Saturday night we were recommended to try Nuth disco, just down the road from the house and supposedly frequented by all the trendy TV and media type people. We never found out if that was true though, as it was a case of having to be a friend of the guy on the door to get in, which we obviously were not. After waiting a while in the rain we went off to Rock in Rio disco at Barra shopping centre, which was surprisingly OK. T only had time for a couple of hours sleep as he had to go to the airport at 6am to pick his mate Nacho up, who is visiting for a week.

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