After a brief shower-pitstop at Marina's sisters, in the middle of Rio, where we were fortunate enough to be staying, we charged off to see the one thing I felt I personally needed to see in Brazil; Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer). It is the 5th largest statue in the world, situated atop the 700m Corcovado mountain, and stretching an additional 30m up into the heavens, it is iconic of Rio and can be seen from almost everywhere in the city.
We did a drive around Rio's Lagao, which is gorgeous, calm and littered with yachts and boats of the affluent individuals whom live nearby. We also cruised past the Sugar Loaf, for a cheeky picture.
We had dinner at the Outback Australia Steakhouse, for something novel to do. With an entire battered and deep fried onion (Better known as a 'Bloomin' Onion) and seasoned steaks, I've got to say while it wasn't Australian, it was rather delicious!
On the second day, we woke early, 6AM, to ensure we were ready at 8AM (with beer in hand) for the largest street Carnaval (Or Bloco) in Rio, the Street Carnaval do Mondo, which boasts black polka dots as it's defining theme.
This particular Bloco wasn't just any old street Carnaval though, oh no! It currently holds the Guinness World Record for largest street party at a whopping 2 Million attendees! This year they were attempting to break the record, by an additional 400,000 people! These figures sound huge (And they are when you're in the middle of the parade!) but Rio has a population of 20million as it is! And that's before all the tourists for Carnaval season start rolling in to add another 6million people to the city!
Although I don't know for certain, I think we may have set a new record...
After surviving the wild stampede of people eager to see the parade versus those trying to slip away to a larger breathing space, we finally wriggled free and had enough space to turn around in. Although we were now thickly coated in strangers sweat, body paint and had very wet sticky feet... We thought it best to just agree it was spilt beer from an unknown Antarctica can somewhere...
Grateful for space we headed off to the infamous Ipanema beach for some sun.
Despite being hidden under the shade of a beach umbrella, the boys still somehow managed to get sunburnt, thus adding to their already reddening 'Gringo tan'. Being the sensible Hector I am, I'd slopped and slapped, thus avoided any lobster-like resemblance.
I managed to tick off another thing on my bucket list, and that was eating freshly grilled halomi on the beach of Brazil! There's something exciting about squeaky cheese on a stick that I can't quite put my finger on... But I know it makes me extremely happy!
After we were all sleepy from the sun, and a few more cervejas, we toddled up the road to another street Bloco. This one, however, was more of a transvestite theme which was embraced by many of the men, especially the heterosexual ones, including Marina's step-father!
There was a fair few odds and sods, including Snow White, a bumble bee and Shrek's Fiona
We were a tad knacked after this Bloco, which seemed to take an awfully long time to start (I was still coming to terms with the difference between Greenwich Mean Time and Brazil time - usually there's an unspoken rule of adding an hour or two to a start time!)
We were exhausted after this hectic day of sun, fun and beers, so headed home for an early night, in preparation of the following day, which promised to be equally as huge. We were going to be attending and performing in, the Rio Carnaval 2013!!
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