I feel that the time has come to re-emerge from the depths of society. That place where you sleep on people’s couches, feed on scraps of bread, live out of a backpack and don’t write stories on your blog.
Thankfully the last month of travelling has been the most rewarding experience of my time away from home so far, so I don’t care about the depraved position we’ve been in for the last month and a half. Brazil is the best country i’ve ever been to. I don’t say that lightly, I can be like the guy with the megaphone on Oxford St hailing the end of the world unless we trust our lives in the lord, sometimes, when I start talking about Melbourne, Paris and the Cinque Terre - but Rio trumps them all.
The Brazillians are an amazing bunch - no pretension, friendly, always smiling, funny people. Their country is similarly spectacular. Incredible crumbling mansions in the Santa Teresa region of Rio to the secluded beaches of Ilha do Mel.
Of course the experience wouldn’t have been the same without my beautiful Angi. We met at Galeão airport after i’d spent about 40 hours on planes and in airports - I was in Santiago for 20 hours and I didn’t leave the airport. It was so amazing to see her again, and wierd, it had been a couple of months since we last saw each other and I almost felt like I was on a first date again. I was so nervous, but I think thats good.
We were staying in a hostel in Santa Teresa. Don’t let the word ‘hostel’ give you a vision of where we were staying however. This place was beautiful. A rustic mansion, plenty of hammocks, on a mountain with a view over the valley towards the North, warm breeze, tropical smells; paradise. Down the road a bunch of shops - my favourite the fruit shop where you could buy 3 bags of the freshest fruit and veg for about £1, Avocados the size of Watermelons - and some really nice restaurants. Santa Teresa is where the artists reside and resultingly there is a lot of creativity, even the graffiti is amazing to look at.
A few days later we moved further up the mountain to Ange’s volunteer house. From here we had a view over central Rio, Christo Redemptor (the statue of Christ the Redeemer), some nearby favelas (slums) and a church that played Ave Maria at midday every day - very useful as an alarm clock. The contrast was amazing - we were living in a mansion with 5 floors and an incredible view from the rooftop balcony and about 500 metres away was the nearest slum with nightly gunshots, police raids, drug dealing and kids holding Uzi’s. Nearby was our friend ‘Shack man” who had opened his garage up as a restaurant serving perhaps the best pizza i’d ever eaten. A hole in the wall out the back gave you another incredible view.
More tomorrow shortly (busy at work!)…
