Brazil Part 3: Rio

Some cities are really beautiful to fly into. Seattle's landing pattern gives passengers a great view of the downtown and a vista of the water and mountains. It didn't even register when compared with flying into Rio. The city is built where the mountains meet the sea and the buildings spring up in the strips of level land.

We landed and got a cab with Ping who it turns out was staying at a hostel near ours. We got her number and talked about hanging out later but Rob already had a pretty full itinerary for our stay. Rob had been up in Rio a few months ago and had made some female friends. He also knew some people from Couchsurfing and whatnot.

ABBA Art is the true mark of a Swedish hostel

Our hostel was located in Ipanema and was 3 blocks from the beach. It was a pretty cool little hostel on a small colorful alley that was filled with hostels. At the end of the alley there was a newspaper stand where for $2 you could buy cans of beer that the merchant kept hidden in a cooler. We checked in at the hostel and dropped our stuff off. Rob was making sure the toilets still flushed the other direction in Rio and I hung out in the lounge and met one of the guys also staying in the Hostel. He was one of my favorite characters that I met in Brazil. His name was Charles and he was from Sweden. He had graduated high school and embarked on a career as a hot dog salesmen in an airport in Denmark. Apparently the Danes like hot dogs so much that Charles was able to save enough money to get to Brazil. He had decided to move here but didn't really ever get around to planning on where he was going to live, or what he was going to do for money. His biggest focus was getting his workout on and it showed. The first time I saw him I almost asked if he was a US Marine.

The beach at Ipanema

Rob and I decided to check out Ipanema and invited Charles to walk around with us. Charles kept talking about how he had to get on a bus to go to this boxing gym. Since he didn't bother to learn any Portuguese before he came to Brazil Rob had to ask a local how to get there for him. It turns out the Boxing gym was located right near the Favela. You know, the Brazilian slums where lawlessness reigns. We put him in this vanpool thing and figured it would be the last we would ever see of Charles.

We grabbed some delicious food of grilled onions, chicken and melted cheese over potatoes. During the meal Rob was busy on the cell phone setting up plans. We went back to the hostel changed and then left for Copacabana. There was a big Couchsurfing get-together on the beach which would prove to be great mingling. I met ex-pats from a bunch of different countries as well as Brazilians. I ended up getting pretty sloshed on Caipirinhas (Brazil's national drink, rum, sugar and lime).

I stepped away from the party for a minute to find a bathroom and was walking down the boulevard when a guy came up to me and asked if I was looking for Charley and Steve. I had no idea what he was talking about so I asked him what he meant a couple of times. Eventually he just said "You know, Charley and Steve, Cocaine and Weed" I did not know, but then I did. I politely declined.

After the party we got some Bob's, which is a burger place almost exactly like Burger King, but a Whopper is called a Big Bob, which I enjoyed ordering. It was about 11 and we weren't done partying yet. So we got in a cab and headed to Lapa. Rob tried to describe Lapa and I didn't quite know what to Imagine. We spent some time there that night walking around, but I wouldn't really get a feel for what Lapa was truly like until we would go there the next night.

Hanging out in the alley outside the hostel

We woke up the next morning late. The two Norwedgian girl who were sharing the bunk beds in our room had gotten up hours before probably to do dumb touristy things. We got up and went straight to the beach. To our surprise, Charles had survived the Favela and was back at the hostel. He came with us to the beach. After a "good value lunch" as Charles called it I got some work in on my underarm tan. For those who don't know, getting a solid underarm tan is one of the hardest tans to get, and it takes hard work to get one. I wasn't going to go all the way to Brazil and not come home with a decent looking underarm.

After the beach we went back to the hostel for our patented 20-minute hour long power nap. We got dressed and were heading out to dinner when we ran into Charles and Dutch Paul who were also going out to dinner. Dutch Paul had spent some time traveling to Africa, but similar to Charles didn't really have much going on in the way of life plans. After dinner they took off for the Favela again, and we went to find some more normal people to hang out with.

Getting into Lapa

We went back to the hostel and found some of the other people from the hostel hanging out in the alley drinking and chilling. There was Marcus and Fanny from Norway, Alara from NYC and Mike who was coincidentally from Seattle. We hung out with them drinking and talking about traveling the world. Mike had been to Thailand before, and Marcus and Fanny were just starting a trip around South America. Rob had a friend who came and met up with us and brought a few of her friends along too. We all decided to go out to Lapa together and at the last minute convinced the Norwegian girls to come. We were rolling a solid 9-person crew.

We pulled up to Lapa and got out of the cabs. The first thing we came across was some sort of street demonstration that is now ingrained in my mind forever. It was some sort of sexual freedom thing where about 7 people wore all white and drank cow blood and walked around like zombies and sat on each others faces and masturbated in the street and had sex with each other and dropped trow and pissed on the street. It was pretty weird.

The weird ritualistic sex show has begun

Step 1: pour cow blood on each other

Step 2: big gay pile

Step 3: feverishly masturbate under viaduct

Step 4: piss in street

After about 10 minutes of watching the sex show with a bemused expression on my face and drinking a caipirinha while everyone else used the bathroom we moved on. Lapa was a lot like the French Quarter of New Orleans. People were everywhere in the streets and the bars open right into the streets. We went to this place with 4 stories, and the top floor was a nightclub. Everyone had a great time dancing and partying. I got a little bit of liquid courage and jumped in the middle of a Brazilian dance circle. I've never danced so inspired and they loved me for it. We stayed there until about 2am and then most of us came back to Ipanema. I ate a street hot dog and then we drank beers on the street. Marcus and I headed back to the hostel around 4am while everyone else stayed at the bar. It took us awhile to find the hostel because neither of us really knew where we were.

Last night with the Norwegian girls

On Saturday I woke up super hungry. I had only one thing I really wanted to do while in Brazil and that was to eat at an authentic Brazilian Steakhouse. Yeppers, a real live all-you-can-meat buffet. Rob and I made an event of it. I think we were there about 3 hours, just living like kings. They had some of the best chicken hearts I ever tasted.

All that meat and I only took a picture of the cheese

After our meal we headed to Sugarloaf mountain which has some of the best views of Rio. On the way up we ended up seeing the Norwegian girls, but we were actively avoiding them at this point. Sugarloaf was absolutely gorgeous. I didn't go to Christ the Redeemer because I wanted to save something for my next trip to Rio.

Rio at dusk

We went back to the hostel for our usual 20-minute hour long power nap. I woke up and went down the alley for some beers to drink in the shower. We polished off a few more beers before heading out to meet with some more girls Rob knew. We went to this area of the city where the locals live and not filled with tourist like Ipanema. We met up with these girls one of whom was the sister of the DJ. They got us VIP wristbands which was pretty awesome. It didn't even matter that the girls were only 19. We made them all do Tequila shots since it was Cinco de Mayo even though the Brazilians were very confused why we were doing shots to celebrate Mexico's independence. It was awesome going to a real Brazilian club and verifying that the hottest ones don't just hang out where the gringo's are.

19 year olds.

The next day it was back to the beach. I did some more work on the underarms and did a lot of work with my eyes (if you know what i mean). After the beach it was back to the hostel for beers with the rest of the guests. There were a few English chaps who were terribly boring and these two guys from Honduras. After enough beers we went out to this bar that Seattle Mike knew about. We were hanging out there when this very drunk Brazilian girl came over and propositioned all three of us for sex. It wouldn't have been so bad if she wasn't super disgusting. We drank a lot of liqour drinks to forget her and then the night opened up. The bar was full of people from everywhere. A few blokes from Australia, a girl from Ireland, more English guys, the Norwegian girls (we were not avoiding them anymore). We went outside the bar for some hot dogs and cheap street beers and hung out with more Europeans including Charles, who amazingly was not dead. It was a pretty awesome night in Rio, and a great last night.

Seattle Mike with Russell Brand & the other Aussie

Finally my trip had to come to an end. The next morning we headed to the Airport to begin heading home. When we got to the airport we had the pleasant surprise of being told that the airline had canceled our reservations and we had no tickets home. Luckily for us, we could rebuy our tickets from the shitty Brazilian airline for 3x the original price. It was total bullshit but since I had a connection international flight I pretty much had to pay it. Rob on the other hand had no reason to get swindled going back, so he decided to stay in Rio for a few more nights. When I got home I immediately called Visa and disputed the charge. The weirdest part of the whole thing was that the flight was nearly empty. They charged me $421 to take a flight that had 22 people on an 180 person plane. Given their pricing and customer service no wonder the plane was empty.

I eventually made it back home and slept for 18 hours before going into work. Everyone asked me about my trip, but who really wants to hear a 5,000 word story about a trip that they didn't go on. You apparently.