Rio for Carnaval!!

It's here! It's here! Like kids anxiously waiting until Christmas morning, we piled off our 24 hour bus ride from Itacare into the Rio de Janeiro station. The day of Carnaval in Rio had finally arrived!! Carnaval is celebrated in every Brazilian city, as we got a sneak preview while travelling through Recife, Olinda, and Salvador, but Rio's party is the biggest and flashiest of them all!!!

Tired but excited, we gathered our belongings and made our way through the station. We quickly realized that we had not heard from our Rio couch surfing host. After a few quick phone calls to previous hosts and some couchsurf emailing, we decided it best to check out the hostel situation. Che Legarto Ipanema Beach Hostel had space for three so we quickly booked it, jumped in a taxi and were on our way. On the ride to the hostel, we got a quick glimpse of the city with a view of Corcovado(statue of Christ on the hill), Maracana stadium signs, Leblon Beach, and the favelas on the hillside.

After settling into the hostel, we headed out to check out the beach scene. We walked a block down to Ipanema Beach where we noticed the sea of volley and foot volley nets. Our faces lit up as we hurried back to the hostel to grab our suits and volleyball, and ended up playing until the sun went down. As we headed back to the hostel, we noticed a large stadium on the beach. Just our luck! There was a girl's beach volleyball tournament that weekend!!! Stooookkeeddd...

When we got back to the hostel, we freshened up and were heading out to dinner when we noticed a large gathering in the lobby. Free Caipirinhas from 8to9. We couldn't pass the offer up! We met a lot of various travellers from Australia, England, and Argentina, . We exchanged travel stories over drinks which quickly turned into a night of competitive drinking games! Standard.

We woke up for breakfast and headed down for another day at the beach. We volleyed for a bit, frolicked in the waves, and managed to get a sweet tan before we realized it was time to go back. We giddily made our way back to the hostel to await Dylan's arrival. As we sat in the hostel lobby, we saw his taxi arrive, bystanders must have thought he was a celebrity, as we ran down the street and tackled him. "BAMed" in Brazil"

After a small struggle with Dylan's bank back in America, we were ready to go. We headed into town for a sushi dinner! Definitely, the best sushi that we have had thus far in Brasil, then we headed for the bars catching Dylan up on all of our Brazilian experiences and stories! He was probably extremely overwhelmed at us rambling at him and making him try various Brazilian dishes and beer.

The next morning we woke up early and headed down to the beach volleyball tournament. The tournament was awesome. When we entered the general admission tunnel of the stadium, they handed us free "Faz um 21" gear consisting of a sweet tank, hand clappers, and sunscreen. They continued to throw out free prizes throughout the tournament and soak our side with a hose while a giant Sun character entertained the crowd during timeouts from the game. As for the tournament, it consisted of the top 8 Brazilian women competing in a round robin tournament to earn the "Best of the Beach" title. They begged Michelle and I to join in, but we kindly declined the offer. Hahaha.

After the tournament, Dylan and I ventured down the rest of Ipanema and onto Copacabana beach. The walk there was insane. I wasn't sure which way to look. The streets looked as if Mardi Gras, Isla Vista Halloween, Floatopia, and the Manhattan Beach six man were all thrown together on the streets of Rio. We enjoyed watching the competitive foot volei games, browsing the trinkets sold by street vendors, observing the ridiculous costumes of Carnaval goers, taking pictures of the giant sand sculptures, as well as following along the giant Bloco parades. The Blocos were awesome. A band played atop a large truck while samba dancers danced in front, schools played instruments, and the rest of the crowds followed along behind it. Definitely a spectacle to see. When we finally made it back to the hostel after a long day of beach going, we were excited to see that Michelle had found our Kiwi friend that we had met in Itacare. We enjoyed caipirinas in the lobby, and then ventured upstairs to enjoy wine on the balcony before heading out for another night of Carnaval.

The next morning while we enjoyed breakfast at the hostel, we got a chance to catch the final game of the volleyball tournament. Our favorite player Maria won the tournament!!! Dylan and I headed back down to the beach for a couple hours. I felt it was my duty to get the white boy some sun before he headed back to Cali. Haha, he burned nicely as he sported his Brazilian speedo. There were millions of people out and about on the beach. We found it difficult to even make our way back up to the street from the water due to the vast amount of people chairs, tables, and umbrellas. On our way back to the hostel we enjoyed watching more bloco parades in the streets as well as the large gatherings of groups in their various costumes. Another awesome day at the beach!

We headed back to the hostel to pick up Michelle and head into the city for late lunch/early dinner. The city was just as crazy as the beach as people gathered around pubs in there costumes and vendors sold costumes along the streets. After a slight food coma nap, we mingled in the lobby, played drinking games, then headed out with our British hostelmates to Copacabana. Not much was going on in the bit of Copa that we were at, so we headed back to the Ipanema beach party. Live music, cold drinks, and good company can always distract us as we found ourselves bringing up the sun.

It was a bit of slow moving morning or should I say afternoon due to the festivities the night before. We were a bit bummed that we slept through the boat party, but made up for it with Carnaval festivities in Gavaea. We took a taxi to the Gavea courtyard park where thousands of costumed people gathered around the blocos to parade through the streets. A couple hours later, we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night ahead. We made our way down to the beach to enjoy more Carnaval spectacles. Later that evening Michelle and Dylan headed to the all night Samba parade... so heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's MICHELLE!

Dylan and I decided kinda late that we wanted to go and forgot that atm's close at 10PM. So we headed out to the sambradrome with 90 reais in our pockets. Taxi cost 25. We figured we'd find a bloco type party on the outside of the sambrodrome that would be a lot of fun. However, as soon as we saw the spectacle that was occurring inside, we wanted to get in. We found a scalper who was asking 80 reais for two tickets.. we looked at each other, pulled out our last 65 and offered it to him. I mean.. it was an all night event so we could get a cab to an atm in the morning, right? After a bit of haggling and us trying to explain with vivid hand gestures that that was ALL the money we had, he agreed to sell them to us. We made our way through the crowds and finally found some seats with a decent view. We were seated in section 6, which is at the very end of the 1.5 mile long stadium/parade venue. Could you imagine dancing samba for 1.5 MILES? These people are crazy. :) Soooo.. we watched/danced/learned the samba songs for hours. The floats were beyond amazing. Every one is incredibly unique and there are thousands upon thousands of people for every samba school. Every school had about 5 giant floats each. As corny as it sounds, every sense was stimulated (minus taste since we had no money left to buy food, beer or even water). The music boomed. The colors of the elaborate costumes were beautiful and watching the tens upon thousands of people dance throughout the stadium was a sight to see. The smell of body odor and sweaty strangers dancing too close for comfort was.. well.. an experience. We didn't even think about our money or lackthereof situation until we noticed the empty bleachers to our left and realized that we were witnessing the grand finale for the night. It was still dark out.. no atm would open for at least an hour and a half. Shooooooooot.. so we followed the crowds out which turned into a street parade in its own right. The crowds thinned out eventually and we realized that we were just following a small group of people.. the sun was starting to rise however so we just needed a place to sit down and wait for the atms to open. We found a little breakfast place that accepted credit cards (thank god) and waited out the rising sun.. We found an atm, hailed a taxi and made it back to our hostel just in time for breakfast (8AM). Crazy night. :) Baaaaaaaaaaaaaack to youuuuuuuuuu BRITTANY!

The next day we decided that we should see a bit of what Rio had to offer besides Carnaval. We caught a taxi and headed to Pao de Acucar aka Sugar Loaf, which rises where Guanabara Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. We took a cable car up to Morro da Urca and Pao de Acucar to enjoy the beautiful view. Facing inland you could see right over the city, from Centro and the Santos Dumont airport all the way through Flamengo and Botafogo. Facing Praia back towards the cable car terminal and to the left, we could see the sweep of Copacabana and on into Ipanema and back from the coast the mountains rise to the Pargue Nacional da Tijuca. We found lounge chairs and relaxed at the top enjoy the gorgeous views. Absolutely BREATHTAKING!!

Our last night, we headed to a bar in Leblon. Then, we made our way back down the beach road towards Ipanema. We returned to the hostel for drinks and games then back out for more Carnaval. We called it a night and headed back to our rooms, only to be woken up at 5 in the morning by our British hostelmates who were frantically searching for money. They had gotten in trouble with the British police and needed money to pay them off. Startled and confused by the situation, we lent them some money... Silly British boys...

The next morning, we were woken by aKiwi visitor! Happy to see that he had made it through Carnaval, he convinced us to stay in Rio for another day. We headed to the bus station to buy our tickets to Floripa for the following day and check in our luggage. Then, we headed back to their Beach Hostel for a pool party.

At night, we met up with some fellow UCSB gauchos on the metro and headed to Maracana stadium for a futebol game. Flamengo vs Botafogo!!! Huge match! We sat on the Flamengo side and joined along with their fans cheers. Teatro seemed to be a crowd favorite which means theatre due to all the players rolling on the ground begging for foul calls. Flamengo ended up losing 2to1! The crowd was definitely disappointed.

After the game, Dylan and I headed down to the beach to see if there was any Carnaval nightlife left. We frolicked down Ipanema and Copacabana having a lot of photo fun with boats and tractors along the beach. We ended the night at a club dancing the night away. When the sun was bound to come up, we realized we were not really sure of how to get back to the Kiwis hostel. We decide to head back to Che Legarto the hostel that we were staying at for Carnaval to see if any of our friends were still there. The place was a bit deserted so we found empty beds and called it a night! The next day we were off to Floripa. Carnaval was probably one of the most amazing experiences! Everyone should go at least once in there lifetime. The pictures we put up are only a glimpse of it. The disposables are bound to have much more!!!