The mystery of the missing pants...

Not really a mystery per se, but I thought that sounded like a good title. On the back of 3 strongly mixed caipirinha´s that is... But hurrah, my luggage turned up. On closer inspection after initial cuddling of back pack it turns out that it´s full of boring things like a fleece and hiking boots, all of which are totally arbitrary. Have nonetheless celebrated said reunion by changing outfits no less than twice today. Upshot being that I now have lots of washing to do. Ah well.
So -
Spent most of Day 1 still feeling unusually shy (don´t worry, I reverted to usual over enthusiastic self fairly fast). Attempted to book favela tour for yesterday afternoon, failed, wafted around hostel endeavouring to get people to talk to me by sending out mental signals. As this didn´t work I eventually reverted to type and started to speak to a nice Irish girl and her boyfriend. As planned I managed to force them to be my friend and we ended up going out for all you can eat pizza. Generally a success once we realised that the maitre d´was staring at us with ill disguised disgust for eating with our hands.... They had sweet pizza for pudding: I went for melted chocolate with strawberries and picked off the strawbs and just ate them. Sorry Wilf.
Was feeling pretty knackered when we got back to the hotel but stuff was just picking up so I lurked about for a bit and ended up playing cards with a couple of australians and some swedish girls. Bed when it came was surprisingly comfortable.

Day 2 - kicked off with the favela tour. As amazing as people said. Arrived at the bottom of the hillside housing Rio´s largest favela, with around 200,000 occupants (not accounting for fact that people rarely have things like birth certificates in the area). For once was in a position of power - a very chirpy welsh guy on the trip (catchphrase: ´they don´t have this in Pontypridd´) turned out to be terrified of motorbikes so reassured him. My bike man turned up - ´Reeeelax, jus´hold on to me´etc and we headed up to the top of the favela. Turned out he was pretty competitive - they generally dice with death, regularly overtaking trucks etc into oncoming traffic and tucking in behind other cars / beeping ineffectually at the last minute, but he was pretty keen to get to the top first and we overtook most of our group on the way up. Despite thinking at one point ´if I die now, I´ll die happy, and it´s probably a better option than crashing and having hideous scabs for the rest of the holiday´ I ascended with a massive grin on my face, which probably encouraged the guy further.

Break neck trip aside we ducked into the favela itself. The guide was amazing - incredibly articulate and very honest about the way the whole thing works. He managed to avoid making it feel like an ´oh let´s go and look at the poor people, wow they´re so poor´ thing, and more an insight into the infrastructure of the favelas. The place itself wasn´t exactly beautiful, tho´ there´s something striking about the mass of structures creeping determinedly into the forest, but the sense of resourcefulness was extraordinary. Given all the stories/films it was surprisingly peaceful, a sensation no doubt exacerbated by the fact our guide knew everyone we passed. The children were suitably cute - a small boy tried to flog his toy car, demonstrating impressive negotiating skills before pointing to a comically low part of a house leaning over the path and yelling ´watch your head!´ to us. We were shown lots of enterprising parts of the favela - boys playing on tins that play in the parade, a delicious bakery, an artist´s workshop. In the latter we were shown the view from the top of the favela so went inside the house. Comically narrow staircases with no bannisters - the stuff I have nightmares about weirdly. Not helped by the water dripping on the tiles, and having to bend to waist height (yes, me) at points. Apparently there are over 100 routes down through the favela. Near the very bottom we went to a daycare centre that the trip helps fund - loads of very cute kids, though again we were reminded of the commercial element by 2 year olds yelling ´bye bye´to us. Finished up with a relatively serious discussion about the future of the favela - the government is moving in and will do a big sweep out of drug dealers, but basically in the opinion of the guide this will be a short term solution to paint a pretty picture for the 2014 world cup tourists, and the problem will come back 10 fold. Took one last look from the top of the daycare centre around the favela and then headed down. Two boys in our group were sniggering at a bridge below us, that did look somewhat like a bottom as they pointed out (v.childish, v.childish) - cue the guide: ´The bridge below is new, built by famous Brazilian architect. He design to look like lady´s bottom, like dental floss bikini you see on beach´. Powerful. Only in Brazil.
Headed back to the hostel to bore new found Irish friends plus Hugh the South African to death with my like oh my god totally humbling favela experience. Then headed to Copacabana beach, the sunshine having finally arrived, to paddle around avoiding the GIANT waves and try my first coconut water thingy. V.tasty. Sand weirdly sticky. Siesta this pm (getting into the swing of this holiday shiz now) then supper.
Back in hostel now, so should probably stop being so antisocial and go and sup more caipirinhas.

x x x