Congohas & Rio South America 2005

It´s been a while since update 2 & a lot has happened so I may not get up to where we are at present, which is Costa Rica & the cloud forests in the north.

A lot has happened - some great, some not so great, a few really bad & a couple of remarkable coincides.

I think that I left off last time on Ouro Preto the gold mining town in Brazil near Belo Horizonte. Well the first of the coincides happened there. Walikng up a steep hill to a church built by the black slaves we spotted a guy who had been with us the previous year on our Salt Plains trip in Bolivia. Quite incredible - Paul is from Argentina & he was on his annual leave. To meet him there was amazing. We spent time at a couple of museums in OP (on dealing with oratorios was great) & then departed for a place called Congohas. There we marvelled at some amazing sculptures of the prophets carved by a guy who had lost the use of his arms. He tied the hammer & chisel to his arms & proceeded to create these incredible life like figures. He also did a number of scenes from the Passion (Last Supper, Christs flagellation, carrying the cross etc) by carving all the chahacters in a sort of plaster. They were housed in these small chapels & we were just amazed at the quality of the work. Just hope that the photos come out.

Down to Rio & the city of all my troubles. But a great place all the same. fantastic location which we best appreciated from the top of the mountain which has the statue of Christ (Cristo Redentor). You could see all around & got a great idea of the harbour & how well sited the city is. We scouted out the beaches (Ipanema & Copocabana) - lots of sultry maidens with the skimpiest bikinis I have ever seen. Actually it seemed that all the broad butts had the pieces of string & the better proportioned (to NZ male tastes anyway) were a bit more modest, but not much. I think that the beach was pretty good as well. They had a great system with the roads in the area. One road was blocked off so that people could promenade up & down adjacent to the beach. And lots of the locals were doing just that. A whole section was devoted to beach soccer, volleyball & sort of soccer volleyball ie where the hands & arms cannot be used. God they were good & no wonder Brazil has soccer talent coming out it´s ears.

Next off to a soccer match at the Maracana, RdJ´s Wembley stadium. The teams were Fluminese & Vasco de Gama & it was a real local derby in every sense. The atmosphere was frighteng just getting to the ground. Each teams supporters were simply looking for a fight & one broke out every few seconds as we pushed & shoved to get into the stadium. People were throwing these huge firecrackers into the crowd - they went off with an explosion like you wouldn´t believe. As soon as a scuffle broke out the police would charge in - on horse back with batons waving. Too bad if you got in the way. Other times they would wack away on foot & the crowd would scatter in all directions. If you fell over you would have been crushed. I was pickpocketed (about $ 8 plus my entry ticket) but I could no have done a thing about it. The crowd was just too tight & full on to move or realise what had happened. Lots of others were groped & had cameras stolen soI was not alone. No crowd control whatsoever.
Still the game was superb with fantastic skills from both sides. The crowd was Fluminese one end & Vasco the other. You had to know which section you were in (Vasco for us) & made sure you supported the right team. Otherwise .... well I will leave it to your imagination. On the way out it was fights all over again but at least there wasn´t quite the crush & feeling of utter helplessness.

We went to a free concert (Lenny Kravitz) on Copocabana Beach. We thought OK the crowd will be fairly big so lets get there early. Well we did & were 40 m from the stage at 5 pm. The show was supposed to start at 8. Crowd not too bad until 6 & then wow. People poured in as a continuous stream. It just got worse & worse, tighter & tighter. Drugs in all directions, booze, drunks, food sellers, you name it, it was there. And Lenny did not show at 8, or 9 or even 9.30 at which point we gave up. We were being pushed & shoved, it was raining so we took off. It took us nearly an hour to cover 75m to get out. I have never seen a crowd like it. Someone said next day that there were 500,000 people there - I can believe it. And Lenny finally got going after 10.30. So talk about Brazil time!!

What next - Leah did a visit to the Favelas, the supposed slum areas of Rio but it didn´t seem so bad. I pottered around the Botafoga area & saw a couple of museums. We visited a good market in the Ipanema area & went on numerous bus rides which always give you a good view of the city.

We then took off for Isla Grande south of Rio. Bussed down & then a local ferry across to the island. I caught a chill on the bus. Open windows were the air con & the air blowing in coupled with a bit of a headache did not do too much for me. So I had a quiet day on the island whist Leah investigated what were reputed to be the best beaches in Brazil. Quite a nice place though with a laid back ambience.

Then back to Rio to get a bus up north to Porto Seguro. Disaster for me as my Passport & most other documents were stolen off the bus. Some scurvy individual disguised as a bus employee came onto the bus with blankets & used those as cover to steal my day pack whilst I was down the back getting some water. I was away from my seat for no more than 30 sec & Leah was in any event sitting right alongside. But neither of us noticed the guy. Who does when he looked part of the furniture. What a disaster - tourist police checked all passengers baggage but the thief had gone.

The sequel will have to wait unfortuately as my time is up.