Rio de Janeiro

I’ve realised that since we’re about to finally leave Brazil we are really behind on the blog and Elizabeth keeps shouting at me to write something so it’s time to pick back up where we last left off...

Rio: after everything we had seen and heard about the city we had big expectations - and we weren’t disappointed. We arrived after a 24 hour journey on an oven of a bus – incredibly the bus station thermometer indicated it was 41 degrees outside which felt cooler than being on the bus due to the non-functioning air con. We checked ourselves in to a lively hostel in Copacabana and went out to explore the area in the late afternoon. We went straight to the beach and lazed in the sun, checking out the amazing location (jungle covered hills on either side of the beach with urban high rise behind) and the huge waves that were coming in. We had a few drinks and ate some pizza on the seafront, watching the sun set over Copacabana very impressed with our first impressions!

Feeling festive despite the lack of snow!

I should probably mention that Rio is the first place where we encountered a bit of bad weather so far (on the whole trip I think) and over the five days we were there it rained on and off for a few of them, that said it was still more than hot enough and we managed to squeeze a lot of cool things in. In the hostel we met Jonny and Michelle, a very cool couple from the US also travelling the world. Over the next few days we visited Christ the Redeemer (the big statue of Jesus on a hill above the city and the archetypal symbol of Rio), explored some of the other areas of the City such as Ipanema and spent time on the beach there, had the odd drunken night out and relaxed in the hostel.

In addition to this, the two highlights for me were managing (somehow) to get tickets for the final match of the season for the biggest team in Brazil, Flamengo and surviving the biggest waves I have ever seen on the beach at Copacabana.

Standing back as Tom takes his life into his own hands

On the first of the two - we had been desperate to watch some football in South America and thought Brazil would be a great place to see some so when we found out the final match of the season was happening on our third day in Rio and it was Flamengo at home at the Maracana (the world’s largest stadium with a ‘restricted’ capacity of 110,000) we did our best to get tickets. To cut a long story short we managed to get tickets and were excited to learn that the final match of the season would decide who won their main league. The top three teams were all tied, if Flamengo won their game they would win the league for the first time since 1992. If they drew or lost, one of two other teams would win on goal difference if they won their games. It was a three way tie at the top of their premier league, football is massive in Brazil, the whole country was watching the games and we had front row tickets!!!

The world famous Maracana

"Hexacampeao!"

The atmosphere at the game was unbelievable, everybody cheering, singing, shouting, jumping around all over the place. People were setting of extremely loud fireworks (in the stadium) and red flares kept getting lit. Some guys were dressed in costumes and no one seemed to care about seats, rather it was like a concert where you can make your way through the crowd to the front and nobody sat down for 90 minutes. We managed to get right to the pitch side shortly after kick off and after Flamengo had gone 1-0 down! The mood in the stadium had gone very tense and the people around us looked stressed to say the least. Shortly before half time however, Flamengo scored and the stadium erupted. Everybody was jumping all over the place and the fireworks and chanting started again. That said, things were still tense in the second half and everybody kept looking to screen showing Flamengo as third in the league. When Flamengo scored late in the second half the crowd went absolutely crazy again, more fireworks, more flares. When the ref finally blew for fulltime things went insane and the celebrations began. It was an amazing experience and the best football match I’ve ever been at. I watched the news that night and saw that at the match of the team finishing second riots had broken out with whole rows of seats being ripped out and thrown onto the pitch. Riot police were there and I think a few people were seriously injured so I was doubly grateful our team had won!

The other highlight came when in a moment of defiance against the rain Elizabeth and I went to the beach with Jonny and Michelle to see that the waves had become absolutely huge and the water very choppy (presumably due to the storm). The waves were literally 3-4 stories high (no exaggeration) and even the smaller ones were still bigger than any I’ve seen before. Jonny and I decided it would be a good idea to run in and face the waves head on and had great fun getting thrown around all over the place and washing-machined under the water.

Man vs Nature

We had a great time in Rio and thoroughly enjoyed the city and both decided we wouldn’t leave it too long to make a return!