10 fantastic things about Rio

Rio is quite simply an incredible city. Here are 10 reasons why:

1. There is live music everywhere
   Picture live samba bands in bars, live music on the street and crazy all day funk parties with the most enormous sound systems I have ever witnessed. Notting Hill Carnival doesn’t remotely compete, the vibrations from the speakers genuinely hurt!

2. You can go to one of the world’s best Jazz clubs in a favela
   We had the best experience going to The Maze which can be found in Tavares Bastos favela. Getting there was interesting, but even more so for our fellow travellers who were taken to the wrong favela and were greeted by guards with machine guns. Needless to say they looked a bit thrown when they finally arrived! Our taxi wouldn’t take us all the way in so we were dropped at the entrance and taken up in a VW campervan! We then walked through the favela, which was a maze in itself, to get to the club. It is an incredibly unique place (in my vast experience of favela clubs!) The walls are open and it’s high up as the favelas are built on the mountain side so the views are amazing. The club was, as you’d expect, a warren of rooms, corridors and places to sit. All this alongside some pretty spectacular jazz. A simply fantastic evening.

3. You can go to a carnival rehearsal for £10
   We went out to the suburbs of Rio to enjoy a night in a stadium where bands and dancers performed, in preparation for carnival. It was not at all as I expected, I had visions of a mini carnival parade however it was more of a village hall experience and in some ways that made it even better. The bands and dancers were phenomenal and we all tried our best to samba. Ultimately I resorted to salsa and was consequently told off by a Brazilian man. The highlight was dancing with a man entirely dressed in sequins.
   
   
   

4. Caipirinhas are everywhere
   Which requires no explanation but simply a warning that they are dangerously alcoholic.

5. Sugar Loaf
   To be honest, my favourite bit of going up Sugar Loaf was finding a tiny monkey.  
   
   
   
   
   It was totally unexpected and really tiny, all of which made it pretty exciting. That and Chris’ fear of cable cars aside, the view was AMAZING and totally worth the money. Apparently you can hike up, I think you’d have to be mental, it’s massive.

6. Christ the Redeemer (not Christ the Reclaimer as I originally thought)
   Going up on the funicular is an experience in itself. You can hardly fathom how this train doesn’t plummet back to the ground but it doesn’t which is reassuring. You pass doors to people’s houses which is incomprehensible at those heights. The view from the top is really magical and Christ himself is enormous, it’s incredible to think how they got him up there.

 

7. Santa Teresa
   We stayed in an area called Santa Teresa. At first we were a bit intimidated by it as it feels really eerie (we did arrive at 1am after a 12 hour flight which may not have helped). It’s high up, out of the main city and really quiet but soon we realised how lucky we’d been as it hosted art galleries, arty shops and some great restaurants. It was also beautiful to walk around, bohemian in style ad by far the most ‘real’ part of Rio we visited.

8. Lapa
   Lapa is the area just down from Santa Teresa and is the place to go for samba clubs. Unfortunately we didn’t get to one but the bars are lively, fun and full of good music and on two occasions there were street parties.

9. Ipanema beach
   Is stunning. 40 degrees, cool boxes of beer, men selling items you’d never want to buy and a great guy called TJ who bought up some Globo (doughnut crisp things). It was also the location of a great debate between three of us on appropriate bodies for thong bikinis and tiny shorts (using live examples of course).

10. Keepy uppy Brazilian style
    The Brazilians play in pairs or threes either side of a volleyball net and only use their feet, heads, chests and shoulders to pass the ball and get it over the net. The level of skill (and their bodies!) were mindblowing.

We are now on Ilha Grande in a musty smelling room and I am sulking. Chris tells me I need to get used to this!

Until next time,

Smith