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Other entries in Rio de Janeiro

More meat, anyone?

Got up this morning with a desire to see God. Sadly, he was obscured in the heavens, so the family did some shopping :) We wandered around a mall in downtown Rio - reminded me very much of Pitt St mall, except with more "liquidation" and "promotion" signs and reminded me why I don't like shopping with women <yawn> :P

Decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal for lunch, so splurged and spent fourteen reais (under eight aussie dollars) on Churrasco (also known as Brazillian BBQ). Seated at a nice table in a classy restaurant we had unlimited access to a bountiful buffet and waiters constantly circle with different types of meat on skewers, from which they slice portions onto one of your plates :) I think it's available in Sydney, at Wild Flower at Circular Quay... not an experience to be missed! I belive I polished off about three quarters of a kilo of red meat... and some chicken, pork and veges on the side <satisfied smile>.

Sated, the boys spent the evening watching a championship beach volleyball team training on Copacabana Beach whilst the gals went 'tanga' shopping. Now, volleyball isn't the easiest sport... and when you lower the number of players on the field from six to two and change the ground to sand (read: harder to move quickly, impossible to jump), you have a very challenging sport! However the brazillian teenagers managed to put on an impressive show and keep us entertained for a few hours until we headed back to the hostel to get ready for another night on the town ;)

And what a night it was! We (Fraser, Jean Philippe, Joanne, Jean Marie, Johanna, Oliver and I) headed into Lapa (a big outdoor area with lots of clubs and plenty of people wandering and drinking in the streets). After watching a sixty year old go nuts on a drum kit (bloody hell he was good!) we ended up at a carioca (spelling?) with a live samba band. We danced for a while with a few random gringos before leaving with Zach, who supposedly knew where a good dance club was.

Unfortunately Zach was a bit worse for the weather and his height, red hair and staggering was attracting dodgies. Two attempts-to-rob-him later, we thankfully stumbled into Zach's friends, but they were just as much trouble and kept wandering off in different directions. <sigh>.

Eventually, Fraser and I stopped to ask directions and in the process our guides dissapeared. We kept talking to the two local girls and were considering following them to a forró dance party, but noticed there were a lot of local guys eyeing us... so we high tailed it! A block later, we talked to a few more locals... and once again a group of local guys surrounded us, the girls left, and we were being forced into a corner!

As Fraser keep prying hands out of his pockets, I was grabbed by the front of my shirt... and that was it! When you're travelling for two months, a clean and ironed shirt is worth its weight in gold! So I gave him what for (well, a friendly two handed shove) and headed for the relative safety of the main road. <pant>

Some other Rio stories:
* Another aussie, R, who is around six foot four and a hundred kilos, caught a guy with his hand in his pocket (same place, same night). The guy was very apologetic... lot's of 'amigo' and 'tranquilo' - even giving R a cigarette. However, twenty minutes later when R caught him with his hand in a girls purse he wasn't so accomodating... Pulling a knife, it was "This is what I do! You're a cool guy, but you need to leave me alone."

* Later that night R went for a swim with an american guy down at the beach... unfortunately whilst they were swimming, their pants were stolen, so they ended up sleeping on the beach in their boxers :P

* A friend emailed me recently - "Dude, [he is from Ney York] I just was robbed!"
I wrote back asking him for details - "I've just been robbed again!"
Now C is a big black dude who can speak Portugese... and passed himself off as a local in Salvador quite a few times. Unfortunately the Rio taxi driver wasn't too impressed when he drove away with C's luggage. Similarly, the gang of teenagers on Copacabana didn't seem to care when they took his remaining possessions - including his shoes. C loves Brasil, but is never returning to Rio!

* T is a great guy from London. Whilst walking along Copacabana in the middle of the day, he was approached by a young local who asked for a light. T didn't have one, so the local pulled a knife and asked for his camera.

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