Wow! Rio kicked me in the teeth as soon as I arrived. Firstly, it was raining, yes the wet stuff that falls from the sky was coming down in Brazil as soon as I touched down. Not quite the carnival weather I was hoping for. However, very soon a little sunshine had entered the grey morning, in the form of a little Portuguese Dynamo – Sara! Sara and I were staying at her friends’ (Cris and Vince) apartment in Tijuca Rio, and as soon as my very friendly (and well paid) taxi driver dropped me off, I got straight into bed for a few hours sleep. After that Sara and I headed into Rio to have a look around.
We had coffee and cake at the famous Confiteria Comple before having a wander around the city centre. Rio is a mix of quaint cobble streets, noise, smart shops, and roads you really shouldn’t even consider walking down. I felt a little useless in Rio, since I speak no Portuguese and my Spanish was getting me no-where. Luckily Sara was by my side and always ready to be my native voice!
We queued for the famous Santa Teresa tram (or Bondinho) up the hill to Santa Teresa. The queue was very long and we had a lot of time (probably too long) to talk to the artist in front of us in the queue. He was heading up the hill to sell some of his work to the shops up there. He talked us through two photo albums of his work, while we queued. Did I mention how long the queue was?!
The tram is a fun way to travel, and well worth the wait. It costs about 20p and winds its way steeply up a hill that passes amazing colonial houses left to crumble with age, the houses are covered in plants and flowers and look like the kind of places you might find a Brazilian Miss Haversham. We stopped for lunch and got quite a surprise.
More for lunch than we bargained for
We found a restaurant on the hill and shared a lovely meal of beef, rice, yam, and beans. Behind us a large group of Brazilians were clearly getting very drunk and Sara and I had to talk very loudly just to be heard over the racket. As we were finishing our meal, one of the men from the table came over and introduced himself. Guillaume, was very drunk, but still quite charming (to begin with) and we said that once we had finished our meal we would, of course, join him and his friends to chat. I hadn’t lifted another fork of food to my mouth when the next man from his group came over. Less drunk and more charming than Guillaume, this man insisted on buying us both a shot of Cachaca which is potent stuff! (spirit made from sugar cane) Then a very girl came over. All of them were insisting very loudly that we join them at their table, in fact by this point they could hardly stand they were so drunk. Just about all of the restaurant were looking over.
Because Sara and I were making no moves toward their table, Guiellaume practically picked me up and transferred me to a chair on their table. At the same time he smashed a glass on the floor and a gypsy woman came over to try and sell me a necklace. She was selling at the top of her voice, while the drunks were all introducing themselves to me at the top of their voices, and whilst this was going on I looked around and saw Sara gesturing for all her life was worth to get the bill. The waiting staff at the till were all laughing at the situation, as was I, but everyone else in the restaurant looked astonished at the rowdy crowd, and Sara was getting distressed. When the bill was eventually paid, we practically ran out of the restaurant with the gypsy woman running after us, shouting to Sara “Look after the gringo, take care of her, she’s sensitive!”
When the gypsy woman finally gave up chasing us, Sara and I couldn’t stop laughing, it had been such an odd lunch, Stupidly, Sara had given the drunk girl her phone number with the promise of meeting up for carnival on Saturday. We really hoped she wouldn’t call.
When we made it down the hill we headed to “Amareliho”, a restaurant/bar on the Cinelandia square, where we enjoyed a couple of caipirinhas (cocktail made from Cachaca, lime, sugar ad ice). It had been such a lovely day catching up with Sara, and getting into bother, we had a feeling there would be many more strange encounters to come. That night back at the apartment we met Vince’s brother Bernardo and his girlfriend Joanna, they were also staying at the apartment for Carnival – it was a full house – Bingo! The next day, carnival would begin for Sara and I, we didn’t really know what to expect, and were excited by the prospect of our first Rio Carnival!
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