Favela, Football, Funk

I did make it to Ipanema on Saturday but it was a bit dull and the sun was hiding. In the evening had a great barbeque at the hostel where the meat was unbelievable. This was shared with my hairy friends Tom and Andrew and less hairy Craig. Afterwards, we along with the three Aussies Arie, Maddie and Sarana and a lovely deaf chap who I believe is French, watched Me, Myself and Irene in the cinema room. I use ´cinema´ in a broad sense as it was just a tv with four sofas stacked up one behind the other. I loved the film and enjoyed the sweet nibbles and beer we consumed.

Sunday morning kicked off with the favela tour which was superb. Craig was in my group and he, like me, enjoys taking his photographs and the slums were a great subject. We got taken to the bottom of Rocinha Favela, supposedly the largest slum in South America with over 200,000 residents, and then got whisked to the top, up winding streets on the back of motorbike taxis. From there we wandered down through the narrow passages and visited a great shop that sold cakes AND plumbing equipment. There were loads of kids that loved having there pictures taken so me and Craig were in our element. Don´t think you need to sign a parent consent form over here. By in large, all the people we met seemed pretty content with life and were friendly towards us tourists. Ironically, the guide had emblazened on his t-shirt ´Don´t be a gringo! Be a local!´ Walking through a poverty-stricken neighbouhood as part of a guided tour with your camera clicking at every moment is probably the least ´local´ thing you could possibly do. I guess it suggests we show an interest though by being there and it helps their economy.

On the return to the hostel, I had a quick game of pool with Craig, keenly supported by a young Brazilian girl. Then it was off to the Maracana.

After a thunderous mini bus ride, with Brazilian hip hop blaring at full tilt, we arived at the rain drenched stadium. Us ´gringos´ were shepherded by our hefty tour guide into the stadium via a quick beer and found ourselves wedged in at the back of a stand with all the crazed Flamengo fans. Fluminense, despite also being a Rio based team, were outnumbered by at least four to one. The thirty minutes before quick were incredible. Non-stop samba drums, singing, flag waving and flares whipped the crowd up into a frenzy. I almost overlooked the fact that the game had kicked off. When it did, the first half was pretty limp. They don´t do long balls over here, just lots of short passes and so was the case last night, even when either team can´t seem to force an opening. Flamengo came out the traps pretty sharpish in the second half and star man Adriano bagged a couple and sealed a very well recieved derby win.

We then piled back in the mini bus and headed back to the hostel for some Brazilian bean dish that was pretty good.

This day wasn´t over.

At 11.30pm, again we jumped in the mini bus for an even more adrenalin-fuelled journey to some funk party out in a favela. I´ll keep it brief but I was really in the zone and me, Tom and Andrew had a great time laying down some moves to some heavy, if not a touch haphazard, funk tunes. Again, there were topless hunks a plenty looking broody and lots of women shakin´ it all over the dane floor. We seemed to be quite popular standing out as we did with our pale skin and fuzzy hair and managed to avoid any problems. We left at four when it closed and headed back to the hostel, me largely with my head out of the bus window acting like a drunken dog.

On our return at around 5am, me and Andrew decided to go through with our plan we conceived earlier in the day and went to sober up in the sea on the Copacabana, along with another chap from York. Little odd yes, but definitely a good end to a great day.