Rio de Janeiro!

Getting ready to hangglide!
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We arrived in Rio about 8am and took a taxi to our hostel, Ipanema Beach House.  We took a stroll around the suburb of Ipanema, which is one of the nicer suburbs or Rio.  It also has a beach like Copacabana and its just around the coast from the famous beach.  Later that afternoon I got some bad news from home so in order to cheer me up, Rob paid for me to go hanggliding!  This was something i had wanted to do whilst in Rio and hanggliding was a new one to me!  So we got picked up and taken to the ´landing zone´- the beach, where we met Klaus, my pilot.  He took us to the top of the mountain, where we had a good view of part of Rio.  The rest happened all rather quickly.  Klaus explained to me that all i had to do was run with him, to launch ourselves off and not hold onto anything.  We tested the equipment, did a practise run and then before i knew it, i was harnessed up and ready to fly.  The run-off the cliff looked quite scary but i didn´t have time to think about it.  Klaus got ready and after 1-2-3 we ran as hard as we could (i was in flip-flops, not the easiest to run in!) and we launched ourselves off along with a small scream fro mme (in typical Sus fashion).  Then we were flying.  It was a great feeling, the closest i´ll ever get to flying no doubt it was very peaceful flying over Rio.  Klaus guided us over the houses, a forest, in sight of our loading zone - the beach.  It was really cool to spread my arms out like a bird and feel the sensation of flying.  After about 10 minutes, we came in to land, quite quickly i was thinking but we managed to land on our feet.  I was back down to earth.  Rob met me on the beach as he came back down the mountain by car.  It was a very thoughtful gesture from himm, to cheer me up.

my practice run!
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That night we just had some drinks in our hostel bar, where we met some people we spent our time with in Rio, Tim and Jade from Oz, Alan and Kevin from Ireland, Shannon from the US and Mike from Holland.

...a child walked past holding an Ak47!

Today was the day we were going to visit Christo up on the mountain.  Along with the guys, we caught the very lng bus to the bottom of Corcovado moutain, from where we got the funicular train up to the top.  Christo Redeemer or Christ the Redeemer was inaugurated in Octobr 1931.  Each piece of him was carried up by train and he stands looking over the city of Rio, arms outstretched.  When we left that day, it was fairly sunny with a few clouds floating around.  However....we got to the top of the mountain and there were more clouds floating around...and then more, and more!  Inbetween the clouds we could just about see the whole of him and most of the time, just the bottome half!  He was a headless Christo!  We got a somewhat good view of the city but then all we could see was cloud - nada!  It was such a shame as the view from the top is meant to be spectacular. Oh well - you can´t gt perfect weather for verything.  We walked around for a while but it was getting worse so we cuaght the train back down, just as the heavens decided to open.  We dived into a restaurant with Tim and Jade, which was a typical Brazilian buffet.  You help yourself to as much as you want, then they weight your plate and charge you per gram.  These buffets are common place in Brazil.  That night we had some drinks in the hostel but didn´t venture out as we had some big nights coming up.

our machine!
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We had booked ourselves onto the Favela tour that afternoon.  A favela is a shantytown and in Rio there are 700 of them!  Obviously it´s where the poor people live. It is where you see the huge divide between the rich adn the poor.  Many of the favels are very close to the rich areas such as Copacabana.  Poeple who work in Ipanema and Copacabana choose to live in a favela rather than in a nicer area a lot further away, where the commute would be a lot longer.  You can see favelas all over Rio, built up onto the mountainsides.  They cut down the greenland to build on so soon there won´t be much foest left.  We were going to visit the biggest favela in Rio, home to 700,000 people!

not scared!!!
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We were met by our guide Daniel who crammed 5 of us into a taxi (not illegal!) where we were taken to the bottom of the favela.  We were met by a group of motorcyclists, waiting to take us on the back of a bike (no helmet needed) and sped off through the narrow, busy main treet of the favela, narrowly missing buses and the hundred other bikes on teh same road!  That was quite an experience!  It took me back to Vietnam, where we spent 4 days on the back of a bike with our Vietamese friends.  It was good to be on the back of a bike again.  We got dropped off and started to walk through the favela.  The first mad thing we saw was a pylon, which had millions of wires attached to it.  People tapped into the free electricity!  There was rubbish everywhere and it generally looked dirty and poor.  We started walking through the narrow streets, where we weren´t allowed to take photos, just as a child walked past holding an AK47!  The weapon and drug cluture is huge in the favela.s  Each favela has a drug gang who monitors who enters and leaves the favela.  In saying that, it is one of the safest places to be in Rio.  There is hardly any crime as the locals don´t want the police going in so crime is kept to a low.  There is a bigger chance of being robbed on Copacabana beach than in a favela!

our platform to run off!
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We wandered through the favela stopping at a few places such as the local artists studio, a bakery and to watch 3 boys playing a tune on some drums made out of petrol cans!  The lower down in the favela you go, the poorer it is.  The hosues are cheaper but all the rubbish slides down the mountain to the bottom, so hygenically it´s a lot worse.  The favela we were in was one of the richer ones.  They had water, electricity, shops so there was no need to leave the favela.  Daniel told us a lot of favelas have none of that so you can imagin how dirty they are!  It was really interesting to see how the other half lived.  We stopped at the local daycare centre to see the kids, where from the rooftop we got an amazing view of the whole favela.  It spread out for miles.  It really was huge.  I actually saw it when i did my hanggliding.  To see how the poorer people of Rio lived, was definatley an eye-opener and it onyl made the rich seem a whole lot richer!

IMG_1253
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That night was ´Lapa´night.  Lapa is another suburb of Rio, famous for its Friday night street parties.  After grabbing a quick pizza, we met the guys and managed to blag a lift off Orlando, a guy who worked in the hostel who owned a VW combi van.  It took ages to get there but as we approached we saw the madness that awaited us!  Unfortunatley it had started to rain so we walked through the busy streets, got a caiprainha and headed over to an archway where we found a samba band playing.  This was where we stayed for the remainder of the night.  It was great!  The rain stopped, the caiprainhas flowed and we danced the samba, well we tried to!  Unfortunatley we couldn´t take our cameras, as lots of people get robbed in Lapa so we don´t have any photos.  It was great being outside though, dancing to a samba band on the streets.  I decided to take ROb home at 3.30am, after he feel over and got covered in dirt!  To get an idea of Lapa check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c059xns-rJE&feature=related.