Carnival!!!

So we arrive to our wonderful little apartment with AIR CON  Ben, Dan and vokda whoop whoop! The first night we just chilled out preparing ourselves for the first day of carnival...

So after another money freak out - as the pin for my card STILL hadnt arrived - the 4 of us spent the day trying to change travellers cheques and getting emergency cash from HSBC - always a delight. This time we managed to get some but only because someone thought the paperwork katie had filled out had been returned from Sao Paulo - which it hadnt - but we certainly werent going to say anything.

After a reasonably successful money run we had to hit the supermarket as apparently everything was going to shut for the whole week. Everyone in the whole of our area had the same idea so we ended up queueing for about 6hrs to purcahse our weekly grub - which ended up consisting of a ridiculous amount of ham and cheese toasties (I never want to eat another one in my life por favor).

After paying someone to trolly our huge amount of food up the hill to our apt we had a visit from a lady who worked with Dan - the guy we rented the apt off. She was telling us that we could get a really cheap t-shirt (you dont get tickets, you get t-shirts for whichever event your doing at the carnival) for the camarote (balcony) where Fat Boy Slim would be DJing. HELLO! She told us she would take us to the black market (scary) where we could buy them for 250R ($100) for girls and 300R ($125) for boys when usually they were 800R (cant convert anymore). BOOM (as Ben would say). So off we trotted to this supposed black market... never having been to a black market before I wasnt sure what to expect but really I thought the whole thing was rather laid back. Well - this is Brazil after all.

The girl who was meant  to be helping us turned out to be as useful as a dead rat. We got scammed by her friend - leaving us with two girls t-shirts at 300R each and nada for the boys. After plodding around for like half an our, the girl turns to us and says either we sell the shirts we have bought or go without the boys. So... we try and sell the shirts. Noone would pay more than 250R for them and we didnt want to loose out on any money. What to do? Useful girl buggers off and leaves K and I having to explain the situation to Ben (who by this point has run to and from the apt 200 times to get more money) and Dan that basically we cant sell our shirts for even the same money we bought them. Very sweetly they tell us to go without them and that they´d do something else. NOT A CHANCE. Katie and I were on a mission, there was no way we were going without them, not after everything they had done for us. So in a whirlwind it seemed like we were on the final task of the apprentice or something, running around bargaining in Spanish with random brazilian men for rank blue t-shirts (you couldnt really make this stuff up) and finally managed to locate two male t-shirts 200R or something cheaper than were told we would get them. GET IN! We were all going to party on down with fat boy and we were excited...

Back to the apt to get ready and put on our terrible blue t-shirts!

And we are off.... but where the hell is the camarote? Only at the other end of the carnival stretch. So its an hour long crowd push and we arrive everyone intact... just!
Our prior minimal knowledge of a camarote was that they were balconies that looked over the carnival. Basically they have Blocos which are huge trucks that have people playing on them and huge ropes surrounding them which people dance in. So the idea behind the balcony is that you are in one place and get to watch all the Blocos drive past. But we were mistaken. This camarote was the COOLEST thing you have ever seen. FREE everything. I hate to try and describe it as it just wont give it justice but il give it a bash...

At the front you have the balcony over looking the carnival where you can get your hair and make up done for FREE... to the left were the (always clean?!) toilets (amazing) next to them you could have your t-shirt pimped (for FREE) next to that was the biggest FREE food hall you have ever seen, apparently all the best restaurants have a stand there... the food was amazing! Behind that was a huge chill out area where you could get a massage for.... FREE which overlooked the sea and then in the corner was the BIGGEST tent/building thing you have ever seen where fat boy would be playing. For the first few hours we just wandered around looking at everything. All the while there are FREE drinks being handed out left right and centre. And all this for a hundred pounds... bit of a bargain really. The best venue ive ever been too (not particularly hard but shusssssh).

We spent most of the night in the "club" (which you could def call it that as it was enormous) dancing! Every now and then we would pop to the balcony to watch the Blocos go by but to be honest we were having too much fun doing everything else. Fat Boy was amazing and ive not danced that hard since... Christmas Eve! AMAZING!!!! Not quite sure how we were going to top that night...

Get back to the apt at about 7am I reckon, after walking the whole carnival circuit home watching everyone clean up for the next days antics. The next night some aussies that the boys had met before we had arrived
and an English couple that were renting an apt in the same block joined us in the apt and we all drank together, and then made our way out. We spent the night watching the Blocos go by, which was more of an authentic experience than the night before, I wouldnt say equally good fun, but good fun all the same. Its all a bit of a blur now but im pretty sure we did the same thing the next night...

We then went to another camarote which was an experience getting hold of tshirts for. We went back to the black market but nothing to be found, then went to the front of the camarote to see if they were selling them there, no joy. So a girl that Dan had met helped us buy tshirts of people that were leaving the camarote so we bagged ourselves a bargain. The camarote was as we had imagined them to be at the beginning, basically a balcony playing music that overlooked the carnival. It was great fun but not quite the same experience. Katie was watching the Blocos go by when she spotted a few of the boys that we had met in Pipa, thats it.... you have never seen us run so fast out the camarote right into the mix pushing and shoving our way through trying to get their attention. Lucikly we managed to dance with them for a bit in their bloco despite not having a tshirt and managed to say hi to pretty much most of them. Made our way back to the camarote and carried on dancing. Then I decided to watch the Blocos go by and you´ll never guess... I saw some of the boys id met in Bariloche (argentina) dancing behind a bloco. Crowd barge numero dos. We had the most amazing night catching up, drinking, dancing. I thought I would never seen any of them again but I managed to see all 8 of them! AMAZING! And I cant believe that we had managed to spot both groups that night. Perfect.

On our last night we went in a Bloco that had Will i am djying in which was bloody good fun. The only way to descibe a bloco is mental. Hundreds and hundreds of people dancing and jumping around. Totally insanse but amazing. At times there is a serious crush which can be a little daunting but you just have to go with it. Couldnt really think of a much better place to be crushed to death!

Again not particularly authentic but a bloody good night. I loved it! We were dancing the whole carnival strip for like 5 hours to English music not samba... I dont think samba much. We bumped into the boys from Pipa again who were in the same bloco which was a hoot and basically the night could not have gone any better.

Its quite difficult to explain without you being there but all I can say is that week was one of the best ever. Thanks to katie obviously, Dan,Ben, the Israeli boys from Pipa and the Israeli boys from Bariloche, fat boy and will i am oh and the aussies. BLOODY BRILLIANT!

Olinda - Pipa - Sao Paulo - Paraty - Rio - Salvador

Sorry Sorry Sorry... no excuses im sure you have all (3 of you that is) have given up on my blog. What has it been... 2 months? All I can say is that Brazil has had some sort of crazy effect on me where I have become the laziest most horizontal person ever and the thought of sitting at a computer typing and thinking seemed too much like hard work which is a terrible excuse but better late than never I hope...

Get the kettle on I have a feeling this may be a long one...

So after travelling solo and nearly dying on a plane I checked myself into a hotel in Recife in the North of Brazil to await the arrival of Katie. The hotel was rather nice with a pool, a double ac room and a balcony with a hammock. Thank you very much... il stay here 2 nights. Slightly hammered my bank balance but some R´n´R was much needed after BA.

I then made my way to a nice hostel in Olinda (near Recife) where I made myself comfortable with my terribly cheesy Nicholas Sparks book in a hammock feeling very laid back, when I heard "WHAT A CLICHE" yelled from the other side of the hostel... Katie had arrived! We spent nearly a week in Olinda, a dinky little colonial village by the sea dipping in and out of our hostel pool as well as cute cafes and very yocal brazillian bars. In hindisght Olinda didnt have all that much to do but we happily mooched about watching various pre-carnival rehersals and meeting random brazilianos. EVENTUALLY we managed to get off our asses and made our way to a small beach town called Pipa, recommended to us by an English bloke we´d met in our hostel, called Nick. Well Nick all I can say is THANK YOU. Pipa Pipa Pipa... noone has heard us speak about much else since we have been there.

We bundled into a bus that comfortably sat 6 but somehow they´d managed to squeeze in 12 (later we have discovered this is the brazilian way). I found myself on the laps of two strangers... nothing like getting involved straight away! And after a 45min bus ride we found ourselves in paradise. As soon as we walked down the main strip we both looked at each other and said "I like it here already" and we were right... having decided to spend 3 nights it was a slight shock to realise at the end we had actually spent TWO WEEKS there. And what fun those two weeks were. We met some amazing people, sunbathed on beautiful beaches with dolphins bobbing up and down in the water and spent many-a-night dancing away in the 3 bars Pipa had to offer. After a couple of days it felt like home.

Whilst we were there we invested (and you can call it that because they cost a small fortune) in a 3 day surf course. For some reason I have always had an inkling that surfing was going to be my thing, ever since I was 10 and found my first quicksilver t-shirt I knew it was def going to be for me. Oh how wrong could I be?

After a quick chat about waves and all that jazz we grabbed our foam long boards (technical term I may add) and lay on the beach for humiliation round one. So the key is to learn how to stand on sand before water... makes sense... how hard can it be? Well apparently very easy for Katie and the hardest thing in the world for me! CRINGE. I was so special that they had to teach me the spastic way of standing up as I just couldnt manage the "normal" way... I think secretly they were hoping id pick up the normal way in no time at all.... apparently not.

After shaking off the slight embarrasment of my standing up technique we were ready to hit the water. And ill tell you... you would have been impressed - we were standing within about 20mins and I knew my inner surfgirl was coming out. YES... despíte the spastic standing I was def looking pro already.

After the lesson katie and I were both on a high and already planning our proffessional careers... as you do. Plans to go to cornwall and many other surf holidays - how this was going to change our lives. Day 2 the enthusiasm wasnt exactly at an all time high as I think the realisation that our inner surfers werent quite as pro as we thought had hit us. There was a lot of punching the waves and the boards (which is not recommended because you cant really hurt the sea but you can certainly hurt your hand!) and little surfer strops were coming from our direction. But we were not to be defeated and by Day 3 we were ready to hit those waves again. Day 3 was probably the best we were standing up and turning AND apparently catching the waves ourselves. So obviously feeling very confident a couple of days later we were ready to go solo.

So off we went to our surf school to rent some boards and hit the water. After 2 hours of not even being able to balance on the board and a lot of tantrums later - enough was enough. Katie left her board on the sand and went out to sea with me to push me into the waves, as the surf instructors had been doing... FINALLY I catch a wave... oh yes here we go can I stand... oop nearly... one foot forward and OH SHIT fall down and somehow manage to get the fin in my HEAD. Yes my HEAD. Please dont ask for details all I can say was the wave was GIGANTIC (naturally) and VERY STRONG and not only was I in a lot of pain but a rather fit instructor had witnessed the whole show and was laughing hysterically at me. Damn it. SOD the surfing. I hate it and its certainly NOT COOL. I think its time to go back to the hostel, get drunk and forget about the fact that my professional surfing career dreams had been dashed in one swift blow (to the head).

That night we party away and I wake up in the morning and show off my surfing head injury... at which point everyone started to panic and carted me off to hospital... they all thought I was going to have stitches. Luckily I didnt but for a brief moment I nearly panicked. A couple of days later everyone had been telling me to get back into the water... so I took up their advice rented a board within 10 mins of being in the water I got hit on the HEAD AGAIN. I wont repeat what I said... put it this way its going to take more than a fit surf instructor to get me back on a board!

Other than a rather short but sweet surfing lover affair we had such an amazing time in Pipa that as some of you know we extended our trip to go back there. Its hard to describe why it was so perfect but we both had the most enjoyable relaxing time most of which was spent on the beach, in a hammock or in a bar. What more could you want? But after two weeks and Carnival fast approaching we thought it best to move on... 

So we set off for Sao Paulo... didnt like that much. We had one good night where we went to some bars. When we realised we didnt have enough money for more drink (said like the old man in father ted who always sits in the sofa) I asked if I could pay by card, which of course we were told would be fine. Erm... not so fine when your card isnt BRAZILIAN. Hello do I not look like a gringa to you? So we had a rather eventuful evening being driven back to our hostel by two of the waiters from the bar to collect the money that we owed. Thanks, that just saved us a $60 cab ride! Love Brazil!

After that experencia we moved from there to Paraty which we were hoping would be another Pipa... not a chance. The only memory I have of Paraty was that I lost the one card we had between us there. Little did we know this was just the beginning of our financial nightmares. So that tainted my opinion of Paraty somewhat, but luckily I had enough dollars to exchange to pay our hostel and get us on a bus to Rio. How exciting... we are in RIO BABY YEH... oh but hang on... with about $30 between us and its the weekend and the bloody banks dont open on a weekend. Bugger. Luckily we met two English boys (ben and dan) from Landan that let us transfer some money into their account which they withdrew for us. Then we were ready to party on down. (Little did they know that they were going to spend the rest of their 3 week holiday having to do this for us... sorry boys!).

So we hung out in Rio for a few days which involved spending the day doing touristy things like going to see big jesus and things, only to find that when we got to the top it was SO cloudy we couldnt actually see anything, well maybe Jesus' feet.. What a waste of time! BUT we did see the famous tiled steps to a favela that Snoop and Pharell filmed their music vid to beautiful girl to... infact sod writing about that day just watch the vid and you will see what we were meant to see (minus the clouds and the famous people)

Click to see vid! CLICK TO SEE VID

Other than that we had a couple of nights out in Lapa (which sounds like some sort of chav holiday destination) and we had a GREAT night out with a girl who was from Rio that we had met in Pipa, who took us out for a much more authentic brazillian night. Which was great... we met all her really nice friends and spent the night in a gringo-free-zone. Parfet. Our last day we spent the whole day in HSBC trying to withdraw emergency funds from Katies account which is not exactly how we wanted to spend the last day but admin and stuff isnt really Brazils strong point and when we got told at 5pm (after having arrived at 11am) that we werent going to be getting any money and we would have to come back tomorrow... we nearly cried. The poor guy that had been looking after us all day had no idea what to do and ended up giving us 500R of HIS OWN MONEY?!?! beacuse he felt so bad. What a babe! 

From there we made our way to Salvador to meet Ben and Dan who we had decided to rent an appartment with them for Carnival! What a good idea... it would have been AWFUL staying in some rank smelly hostel crammed packed with drunk people. Carnival was AMAZING but I have def run out of energy to write about it... soooooooooooooooooooooorry but this has been the most strenuous exercise I have done since getting battered in the head by a fin!

CLICK TO SEE FIN WOUND

To be continued....