November 2002

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

 

C'mon England!

A home win...

...for Fluminense

Sunday 24 November

Rio is the home of the Maracana stadium, the biggest in the world even with its now reduced capacity of 120,000. We took the two boys from the family we were staying with to see local team Fluminense beat Sao Caetano 3-0. Goal scoring ledgend Romario was playing for the winning team although it was hard to see him as he's only about four feet tall.

Fancy scoring with her...

...Gooooool!

120,000 people

The England flag was put out with surprisingly little comment from the locals, apart from one friendly mention of hooliganism. There didn't seem to be any supporters for the other team which is based near Sao Paulo which didn't help their confidence much. At half time an old bloke came out and proceeded to walk around the pitch for 15 minutes kicking a ball in the air. Apparently he's never dropped it.

Imperatriz won it last time

Samba...err...'queen'

The band

A bit of flag waving

Three singing guys lead the dance from the stage

Dorises of all ages and levels of sanity

After football, carnival must be up there as one of the top activities in Brasil, so we visited a Samba school and watched them practising their wiggles. They go to a special aircraft-hanger type building a couple of times a week starting three months before the parade to prepare. Coincidentally this group, Imperatriz, won it last year. There were guys and dorises of all ages wiggling around in circles in a vaguely organised train, each section of people having a cheerleader guy to tell them when to wiggle faster or slower. It was a hot evening and after a few hours the dorises were looking a bit tired and sweaty but happy and satisfied with thier toils. We happened to stand next to the carnival queen so got some pics with 'her' - despite having an awesome body we suspected she was really a he!

The wiggliest ones...

...dance on by

Rio has been really cool but its time to head south down the coast to Sao Paulo.

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