Despite temperamental phones doing their best to ruin my social life, I managed to arrange to meet Le Plongeur (as Pod and I fondly named him) in the fittingly named Shenanigans, an Irish pub in Ipanema. Managed once more to navigate my way there on my own on the bus. They have an incredibly dangerous system of paying in the more classy joints here - you´re given a ticket with your name on it when you walk in and as you order drinks they tot them up on the paper and you pay at the end of the night. Dangerous, very dangerous. I stuck to the by now uniquitous caipirinhas, of course. Was very excited by the menus all in english - no cheeseburger for ME tonight. Chicken wings instead. Obv. (Fear not Mummy am endeavouring to balance hefty consumption of junk food with nice fresh fruit - bargain of the holiday = tomato costing 0.07 reais in the supermarket). Learnt a new word - carioca, which is basically a way of calling yourself a Rio de Janeirian, but from what I understood is a play on words - you´re saying you´re Rio from the egg, from the yolk in fact.
I made a particularly big impact early on with my appalling pool playing. Once again of the laughably funny first time I wildly mishit the ball, just dull by the fifth, variety. However I was employed in the girls v. boys (they won but only just) match to sabotage the boys´game. I managed this ably by breaking so badly that they had to rebreak. Whoops. Was really awesome to hang out with a bunch of British types that I felt I technically knew via Pod, so felt relaxed enough the bring up the ´Le Plongeur´nickname before long which was greeted with hysteria and swiftly adapted to ´The Plunger´. Sorry James. The school they all teach at is a British one so packed with wealthy Brazilians - much excitement when a beloved Flamengo player called Pej appeared on screen - two of the girls, Kirsty and Neave, teach his daughters in primary school. Fernando the insanely handsome Brazilian was overcome with emotion - apparently Pej lives in his heart.... We started clapping and cheering when he came on screen, and everyone obligingly joined in. Which reminds me of a conversation I had with Le Plongeur about living in Rio and whether he missed the UK etc - he told me that 2 weeks into arriving he was sitting on Ipanema beach, cigarette and beer in hand, as the sun set. As it finally went down an almost eerie silence settled around him, and then everyone began to clap. Clapping the sun - mental picture that summed up Rio for me in a way. Not that I´ve left just yet, but my 1st experience of South America has been a lot gentler and kinder than I expected. I´ve happily hopped on buses by myself and wandered the city/beach (safe bits only obviously) without a problem at all.
Anyway - we quaffed a few more caipirinhas and then piled into two taxis en masse to head to Lapa. Drunken conversations about why Rio de Janeiro is so named ensued. Turned around me as we drove along the beach (AMAZING sand sculptures) to see the Christ lit up atop the mountain. Stunning.
We went to a brilliant samba club, picked out at random once we got to Lapa. Big old house with club on several floors, with balconies from which you could lean over and watch the samba band. The band = fantastic. They played tirelessly without stopping whilst we were there (including elderly lady on trombone). The music was unbelievably catchy (sorry for all the enthusiastic adjectives) but turns out I definitely can´t samba dance, and as there is little room for tradition Weston-Davies moves I think I prefer traditional club can´t handle us light up dancefloor stylee music. However I naturally gave it my best shot and shambled around grinning wildly with the others til we were all exhausted and rather sweaty. Staggered home v.late, everyone asleep in the taxi, to a cup of apple tea (o woe is me, alas, alack, how I miss tea-with-milk) and bed.
Today - hippie market in Ipanema. Unfortunately preceded by getting on a bus going in entirely the wrong direction (cockiness re: mastering the bus system shortlived) and taking a massive loop before ending in Central, a somewhat seedy part of the city. Figured however it was better to stay on the bus til the end of the line rather than getting off on the endless motorway that was Avenue Brazil and it turned out to be a good choice - massive relief as a bus with the welcome word Copacabana emblazoned on the front came into view. Anyway, I tried again and made it to the market - most glad I did. Could have spent my entire budget on pretty dresses and vast quantities of silver jewellery but managed to restrain myself mostly, bar some coconut rings (cheap) and some wooden parrot earrings. These plus the growing number of bracelets on my arm are aiding my transformation into bona fide Gap Yah tragedy.
From there I caught the bus over to Pao de Açucar (apparently the ç = ess, which makes the word much more similar to Sugar when pronounced) for 4.30. Spectacular views, particularly of Copa beach made it worth it, tho personally nothing beats Christo el Redentor for me. Waited as the sun went down, but as it was pretty cloudy was nothing spectacular sadly. Still, a lovely way to end my few days in Rio.
Tomorrow - Ilha Grande with Michelle and Ruaridh, the lovely Irish couple. Excited about a change of scenery and venturing deeper into Brazil.
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