Rio part deux

Ipanema beach
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A little worse for wear the next day, we decided to walk the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana.  Copacabana is a lore more built up with hundreds of hotels on the beachfront.  Walking along the shoreline, we could see loads of litter washing up in the surf, whcih we later saw on Ipanema beach as well.  The Brazilians don´t take their rubbish home with them but leave it on the beach, where people come every night to clean it up but still, some gets away.  It was a shame to see.  On the whole, i preferred Ipanema.  The beachfront was nicer, not so many hotels.  You see people working out, running, cycling, walking everywhere which made us feel like we had to do somehting, so we joined the

The plam tree lined beachfront
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joggers on the beachfront for a run.  There was even Â´muscle beach´, a free gym for all the posers to buff up in.  A lot of the women, as you can imagine are beautiful.  One thing we noticed was that they all wear thng bikinis, even to walk around in.  Sometimes it was more than you wanted to see but the Brazilians are sun worshippers, trying to get the perfect tan.  As well as baking themselves, they are friendly people.  The language barrier was a problem at times, when sign language came in handy but in all they are nice people.

Flamengo scored which sent the crowd wild

IMG_6880
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After our 3 hour walk along the beaches in the heat of the day (30 degrees), we dragged ourselves to the local irish bar, to watch Ireland get beaten by New Zealand, before heading back to the hostel to get ready for ngiht #2.  That night was another samba night.

Saturday night is Samba school night in Mangueira, a favela.  In preparation for the carneval, all of Rio´s samba bands practise hard in time for the competetion, that is carneval.  Orlando with his VW van took a gang of us to the favela, where he ordered us to stay together.  Again, it wasn´t the safest place to be, so no cameras were allowed.  We entered a huge warehouse where a massive samba band was playing and loads of people were singing and obviously doing the samba.  It was cool!  They played one song for about an hour.  We found out afterwards that this song was one of the new ones so they were trying to learn it.  This particular samba school is in the 1st division and has won the carneval many times so we saw one of the best.

The view of the whole of Ipanema beach
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AFter another night with little sleep (this is a recurrance in Rio), we took a strool to the local markets in Ipanema, before heading back to the hostel to await our pick-up to go to the football.  We were off to see Famengo play Palmerias, a team from Sao Paulo in the Maracana stadium.  At one point the maracana was the biggest football stadium in the world, holding up to 200,000 people.  However, once they made it all seating, it now holds about 120,000.  Flamengo, a Rio team are near the top of the league and with only 3 matches left to play in the Championship, the pressure was on.

IMG_6886
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We got picked up and taken to the stadium (70 reias) where all we could see was a crowd of red and black jerseys.  Again, we were told to stick together and follow our guides as a lot of violence breaks out between fans.  We followed them into the stadium, where we were met with a sea of fans and crazy Flamengo fans.  The stadium is massive but it´s not high like the Millenium.  There are only 2 tiers.  They are re-building it for the World Cup in 2014.

Capacabana beach
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We didn´t have long to wait before the teams came out and the match began.  Within 5 minutes Flamengo had scored which sent the crowd wild.  It was an amazing atmosphere.  I don´t think there´s anywhere else, where you see so many grown men hugging each other!  Palmerias equalized 10 minutes later with a penalty, before Flamengo took the lead going into the 2nd half 2-1.

The sun was beating down on us throughout the whole game.  It was hot!  The 2nd half started. I had predicted a 3-1 win to Flamengo, Rob predicted 3-2 to Flamengo.  We were both wrong!  Flamengo scored 10 minutes in, making it 3-1.  Palmerias fought back with another goal, 3-2.  With 10 minutes left to play we thought that was it...but no!  Flamengo scored another 2 goals making it 5-2 -final score.  7 goals in total.  We couldn´t have asked for a better match.  I think i had the most passionate Flamengo fan shouting over my shoulder during the 2nd half.  The atmosphere was insanely magic.  I had a taste of what the world cup final would be like, especially if Brazil was in it!

Search and Rescue!
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We slowly ambled our way out of the stadium, along with the 65,000 other fans (the stadium wasn´t full).  After grabbing some food back at the hostel, we went to one of the local bars, Emporio for one before hitting the sack.  Rio is a tiring city!  But i absolutly loved it.  There´s so much to do, you can easily spend a week there.  5 days was enough for us.  We needed a time-out to recover!  We had seen Brazil´s 2 passions - football and samba.  We had seen the rich and the poor, strolled the beaches, packed with sun-kissed Brazilians, watched the sun set on Ipanema beach but i was left wanting more.  I think a trip to Rio for carneval might be planned when i get home.  An awesome city - one of my favourites for sure!