travel

Carnival happened so quickly that each day has blurred into one for me, but I believe I left off at Sunday. That morning we were off to do hang gliding, and being the adrenaline junkie that I am, I was super excited. A van dropped us off at the beach and we were all herded into a busy building and asked to sign up on a computer. Then, we paid our national park fee and were given a card with our information on it, and then told to wait. Half of our group was tossed in cars and sent up the mountain, while the other half of us (me included was left to wait). By the time I made it up the mountain, Ryan was strapped up and in line to take off, and within a few minutes he was running off the giant green platform and flying into the abiss. I was the last to take off in our group, and I had to wait over 2 hours before it was FINALLY my turn. After strapping you into your suit, the guide explains take off to you, and you practice running. Then, they strap you to the hang glide, and you practice your positioning and get a feeling for what you’re in for. By this point, I had built up 2 hours of anticipation, and I was ready to go. My turn finally came; the guide counted down 3, 2, 1, run, run, run, and one second I was running and the next second I was trying to run, but my feet couldn’t touch the ground. Instead, I was flying! It was the coolest feeling. To my right were the mountains of Tijuca national park, to my left, the beach sprawled for miles, below me were the high rises of the rich and the famous, and behind me was one of the many favelas of Rio. We soared through the air, and I took in all that I could, before we made a dramatic turn over the ocean to prepare for the landing. The next thing I knew, my guide was telling me to run once again and all of a sudden, the beach was below my feet. It was exhilirating. Being the last one down, the group was eager to go, so after getting my video and photos, we headed back to Ipanema and went straight out for lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant. It was a bit pricey, but really delicious.

After lunch, we headed straight to the hippie market to get costumes for the Sambadrome that evening. The market, like everything else during Carnival, was packed, and the group got split up within a few minutes of entering the market. Nevertheless, we all found fun head garments, hats, skirts, and necklaces to decorate ourselves in, and we finally felt like we fit in at Carnival. One of the Carnival traditions is to dress up in a silly costume, and the streets looked like they would in Canada on Halloween night. It is also a big thing for men to dress up like ladies during Carnival; from Minnie Mouse to Wonder Woman, we saw it all! Unfortunately, no men from our group got that dolled up for the evening’s festivities. By the time we had our costumers and glitter purchased, it was nearly 4pm, and we had only an hour and a half before we had to be ready to go. This was turning out to be a common theme this week; no time for resting, just go, go, go.

At 5:30pm, we began our adventure to the Sambadrome (Sambadromo in Portugese), and was it ever an adventure. We pushed our way through the busy streets, and got in line for the metro. The line was regulated to only let people in when a train was approaching, and with each group that was let in, there was a wave of pushing. As I was aggressively pushed into the building, I clung to my purse for dear life, and focused on keeping my balance with fear of falling over and being trampled by the crazy Brazilians in masks. Fortunately, our whole group made it through successfully, and the only real threat was one girl nearly losing her bathing suit top! After about 20 minutes on the metro, we made it to the Sambadrome and found our way to our seats in section 5, nearly half way down. For those of you who do not know what the Sambadrome is, it is a stadium with bleachers about 600 meters long on either side, with a space for a parade to go through. Each neighbourhood in Rio has a samba school that participates in the Sambadrome, and they have 90 minutes to perform, parade style. This means that there are dancers, followed by a float, followed by more dancers, followed by another float, and on and on. Each school composes a song to dance to, and has a theme or story to their routine. The school’s best dancers are always dolled up in the most exquisite costumes and are dancing on their own at the back of a group of dancers. The schools are judged on dance routine, song composed, costumes, how many dancers they have, floats, etc., and we were fortunate enough to be there for the top 12 to perform. The show started at 9pm, and I was immediately wowed by the number of dancers, the costumes, and the exquisite floats. There was every colour of the rainbow, and costumes as simple as a traditional samba dress, to people dressed as bugs, to people dressed as robots. One of the floats had a giant cowboy on it who was smoking a pipe, while another was composed of multiple rotating pianos with girls dancing and playing them. Another float had a giant canon that shot a man out of it, and into a net a few meters in front. It was all more than I had expected, and I kept saying wow and snapping more photos. After dancing and clapping for the first 2 samba schools, myself and many others in our group began to get tired…. 3 hours of samba is quite a bit! We stayed for the 3rd samba school and then began to make our way back to Ipanema. Some of our group stayed for the entire Sambadrome, which didn’t end until close to 5am, and I was impressed by their stamina – 2am was good for me!

The next morning we had a free beach morning, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever been happier to sleep without setting an alarm. I opened my eyes at 10:53, grumbled to Ryan that we weren’t going to make breakfast or the beach, and we proceeded to sleep until 12:30. We grabbed lunch and got ready for the afternoon, and then met up with the group for a favela tour. By this point, our group was really starting to click, and we joked with one another about the occurrences of the previous night. One of the guy’s in our group has a thing for letting one ball hang out of his shorts in photos, so cameras were past around in an attempt to spot the ball – don’t worry, I’ll spare your eyes!

The favela tour was one of the most eye opening experiences I have ever had, and probably one of the best things I have done on this trip. In Rio, approximately 1 million people (of just over 6 million people) live in favelas, or slums. For those of you that are imagining a bunch of gringos walking into City of God, it wasn’t quite like that. The favela we went through, like many others in Rio now, is monitored by police, and although it is still dangerous to go on your own, it is safe to tour through with a guide. The favela that we toured through is home to nearly 250,000 people, and due to the lack of birth control, it is constantly growing. Throughout the favela, there are thousands of cables connected to the power poles, as the people hook up their own cables to steal electricity. Apparently the electricity companies used to try to regulate this by coming in to cut the wires, but people in the favelas would shoot the workers. This must have happened one too many times, so the electricity companies gave up trying to regulate this. We began our tour on the porch of a house, where we had one of the best views in Rio. The favela is built up a mountain, and in any first world city, this view would be worth millions of dollars. As we winded our way through the favela, my nose was greeted with the smell of untreated water and sewage; I saw children smiling and waving, standing in piles of garbage. The streets are narrow and unkept, and the houses and people are dirty, yet friendly. We stopped to admire the local art work, as well as the jewelry made by the women of the favelas, before continuing on to listen to young boys play music on the side of the sttreet, while the children danced for joy, while spraying each other with foam. It was truly remarkable to see the pure innocence and joy on the face of a child living in poverty. It was eye opening to see the way in which these people live, and the fact that they don’t know anything different. Near the end of our tour I accidentally stepped in a pool of black water, leaving my Tom’s covered with what I believe was human poo. I immediately washed my shoes in the shower when we got back – you’re welcome, mom! Despite my far too close encounter with poo water, the favela tour was an enriching experience that I would recommend for anyone traveling Rio to partake in. That evening, we went for a group dinner where I accidentally ordered a plate of meat to myself (definitely thought I was getting a piece of grilled chicken with rice and salad), and then we headed to a local bar where we watched a live band play and drank too much sangria.

The next morning we got up and headed on a boat cruise in the bay, off the coast of Rio. It was so nice to be on a boat, soaking in the sun and the view, and enjoying the coolness of the water. The day was wasted away sipping caiprinhas, eating BBQ, jumping off the boat, and taking photos. It was a pretty perfect day, and none of us were ready to get off when the time came. Nevertheless, we headed up Sugar Loaf mountain to watch the sun set over Christ the Redeemer, and it was a pretty amazing view that lead me to solidify my conclusion that Rio is indeed the most scenic city I’ve ever been to. After a really delicious “last supper” we headed to a famous club called 00, where I was way too underdressed, but danced the night away one last time with my new friends. It was one of those nights that you just don’t want to end because you’re having too much fun!