Rio de Janeiro

The bus that I travelled on to Rio de Janeiro, arrived about 2hrs late and after a few discussions with some terminal workers, an internet session, I made my way to Leblon on a local bus. On the bus I got to talking to a the lady sitting next to me, who helped me get off at the right stop (as it was the same as hers) and she also helped guide me to Myla’s cousin’s family shop. I arrived a little later than expected, but once all the greetings, in Portuguese (as none spoke English), were done we loaded the car and went back to their house and met Vanessa, Myla’s cousin. Vanessa’s English was very good and we started to get along very well, even with my strange accent.

It was raining very heavily the night I arrived and all I could say was… it will be better tomorrow, it has to be… I have so many places I want to go and see. Yet again, the following morning it was raining even heavier. I was a little disappointed, as there was also a very heavy fog, which meant you could see about 1km away, but not that well. Not real good for sightseeing and taking scenery photographs, as you do in Rio. So basically I spent the day with Vanessa’s cousin and family, hanging out at home and going to the local mall. He is a real funny guy and we laughed a lot, as he and I shared many things. He is a lifeguard at Copacabana beach.

Later in the afternoon we went to his house in one of the slums of Rio, as we were dropping him off. While there I asked about where I could get a haircut and he said come with me. We walked about 100metres up the road to a local barber. I sat in the chair and he cut my hair for 5Reais. He did a really nice job too. He could not believe it when we told him that I was from Australia. When he asked ‘how much was it to have a hair cut in Australia?’, I told him about 20 Australian dollars… he could not believe it… we would be so rich working there. I then asked him, ‘how much is it to buy a banana, here’ and he replied… ‘oh about 1 Real for 5 bananas’, so he quickly rethought his rich idea when I said you pay about 5 dollars for 5 bananas. Rio is a place of extremes… the haves and the have nothings. The rich live in apartments near the beach and the poor live in the slums in the hills that overlook these apartments. So every day the poor go and work for next to nothing for the rich and every day they look down and see what they do not have. No wonder there is so much violence in Rio. These are only my impressions.

For the first time I saw sunny day in Rio. It was a Saturday morning, so I went with Vanessa to a friend’s house for a prayer meeting. There I met many of Vanessa friends from her church. We hung out for the rest of the day, travelling together by bus to a restaurant, only to go to the local mall to eat. Along the way I started talking to one of the girls in the group, asking the usual questions of does she study or work. She said that she was studying journalism and did some modelling part time. OK, so we chatted a little more… I found out later on that she was Miss Rio De Janeiro State for 2007. She was a very down to earth girl, not like some other pretty girls I have met. The journey back after eating was very funny, with about 10 of us all in a little VW Golf hatchback. Anything goes here in Brazil.

The following morning, I woke up and felt sick… I am not quite sure what I ate to make me sick, but it was the start of my throwing up time… I threw up for about 12hrs. I would sleep, wake up, throw up and then go back to bed to sleep some more. It got to the point that I was thinking that what else could I throw up? I was so bad, that they took me to the hospital. I had an injection and then went home where I went straight to sleep. I basically slept all Monday, only waking to have a drink of juice and some soup. I didn’t do much else. I was leaving on Tuesday afternoon, for Chile, so it was all I could do to pack my bags in the morning. I missed going to all the touristy locations, the world’s biggest football stadium, the Maracana, the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema, the Statue of Christ and Pao de Acucar. All because the weather was bad at the start of my visit and I was sick at the end of my time in Rio. I just think that I will have to go back again one day to see the sights that I missed out on. Thanks for my time with you Vanessa and thanks for opening your home and family to me. My flight left Rio at 1pm.