Rio

The bus pulled into Rio and again the heat and humidity went up another notch. I was already nervous about the Rio part of the trip, particularly carrying the heavy bags in a big scary city, so I was a bit twitchy and tired from the lulling effect sitting on a warm bus. Our job was to find our couchsurfing hosts, but this was not a trivial affair. We bought a map but couldn't find their address on it. We spent hours looking for tourist info but could find no-one who could help us. We paid for an internet session and found a message from them with a phone number, but the line was dreadful and our credit ran out before we could organise anything. Potential stress and disaster! Luckily our hosts, Daniel and Carol, rescued us like angels and came and found us at the station. After 2 or 3 hours there I've never been so happy to see someone!

On the way to finding a bus to their house a guy started hassling me saying 'money! money!' - I suppose we'll have to expect more of this kind of thing. Let me just say that local buses are not made for giant backpacks. Anyway, enough of all that. We were exhausted and starving, so when we got off the bus we stopped on a street corner, where a temporary BBQ and general food stall had been set up. Someone brought us some plastic stools, and we propped ourselves up against the side of a bank and someone else brought us meat on sticks and coke (the drink, not the powder - it wasn't that kind of street). Much needed! The way it worked was that you bought a load of tokens, then could use them to buy things like meat on stick, cheese on stick, etc etc. Really good, if a little bit surreal. There was no sign of the impromptu cafe the next morning.

Another beautiful thing about arriving with Daniel and Carol was access to a shower and washing machine. Sometimes these things just get taken for granted when you have a permanent home to live in! We spent the evening explaining the difference between Scotland and England (the concept of the UK is really baffling to an outsider) and trying to convey the sheer weirdness of Hugh Laurie in House, by showing some old Youtube clips of Blackadder. House seems to be huge in South America. Personally, I don't think I could ever take Hugh Laurie seriously, but I feel a sort of possessive pride at what he's managed to achieve overseas.

The next day we boldly ventured into town and braved the seemingly baffling transport system. Daniel and Carol live quite far out in a reasonably poor part of Rio. Daniel assured us that this didn't mean it was unsafe - the people there 'weren't worth robbing'. He pointed out that at that moment, in one of the posh hotels in Copacabana a bunch of drug dealers had taken everyone hostage and there was a police shoot-out going on. It turned out there were 60 dealers hauled up inside. The dangerous areas are the tourist areas, and the places where the dealers actually live.

We had a wander about town and then went home - not easy, because of the aforementioned stupid transport system (I'm sure it makes sense if you can speak Portuguese!). The wonderful thing about Brazilians though is that we would be standing around looking confused, and someone would always come up to us and ask if we needed help, then try to help. Even if they couldn't speak English and even if their help sent us in the wrong direction. You'd never get that in Britain. We've had a lot of people just come up to us and offer us help like that.

So far we've had a policy of arriving at a new place with no expectations and just seeing what happens, but this tactic doesn't seem to work with Rio. We've just had no idea what to do. People said, 'oh, Rio's amazing - you'll want days there, there's so much to do,' but the problem was, what WAS there to do? Nothing was immediately evident. In Buenos Aires we'd just walked around and come across things, but here it feels like you really need to know what you're looking for, or at least the right places to go. So we wandered around a market selling crap, ate a nice stodgy thing with cheese and ham, and drank sugar cane juice. I'm happy to say, we have not been robbed. In the evening we got back and made cottage pie and shortbread for our hosts, and some Italian couchsurfers who arrived just as we were serving up. It was a proper little party! To finish off, Paul and I played a few tunes, taught Daniel the Gay Gordons, and sang some songs. Good times.

Yesterday we met up with Mum, Dad, and Kat - seeing her for the first time in well over a year. Very exciting. She's changed a lot I think! Or maybe not - maybe I'm just saying that for something to say. We had another wander around, spent a long time trying to interpret a restaurant menu, and have been driving Kat mad forcing her to be the official communicator with the locals. We went to Ipanema and Copacabana (just so we'd been) and admired all the people in their swimwear. The men like to go jogging in just speedos, and the women wear strings with bits of cloth attached. But they get away with it because there seems to be this strange culture of working out and body obsession among the Brazilians. There's even gym equipment on the beach, people playing sports, etc etc. The land of the beautiful. I was expecting to feel a bit intimidated by all the buff bodies, but it's just fascinating to see. We went for a swim on the beach ourselves today. Hurrah! We all looked very pale and wobbly, although Kat has got herself one of the local strings-and-cloth jobs. She says it was the largest she could find.

We walked through Copacabana as it was getting dark and the culture there was so different from other bits of Rio we'd experienced so far. It was all about getting as much of your money off you as possible - people thrusting things in your face, being harrassed with every step. It didn't help that we were a party of 5 pale blonde people I suppose! At one point Paul noticed a white blob on his shoe (turned out to be toothpaste) and a few minutes later, a man ran after him shouting 'shoe-shine! shoe-shine!' It was the audacity of it that annoyed us more than anything else. And though it was quite funny afterwards (especially as he'd really chosen the wrong person to con - don't squirt someone with walking boots, they obviously don't care what their shoes look like), it was also really sad that this was what the guy was reduced to doing.

Today we took our leave of our lovely hosts, and it was a shame we didn't get to spend more time with them! We're staying in a seedy little hostel now so we can be closer to the family (they're staying in relative luxury!) - when we arrived the door was unlabelled and unassuming in a slightly shady street. We would have walked straight past it if some woman hadn't come out and shouted at us. We've done more of the same today - beach and walking about having an explore. We've had coconut water (the stuff that fills a green coconut before it gets absorbed into the flesh) and watched parakeets in the trees. We also saw some weird giant guinea-pig things in a park, as well as a swarm of cats, some ducks and geese, and a peacock (all trying to eat cat food through the park fence). Also, Dad and Kat said they saw a monkey but I missed that. Enough of the wildlife report. Mum had a long conversation with a tramp who wanted her money. She gave him a nut.

That's all for now. Tomorrow we go and look for Jesus. It involves getting up early and taking a train or something.

Ta-ta!