Mojave Desert

We packed up, checked out and Super Shuttled to LAX Hertz to pick up our "ride". We had initially wanted a muscle to drive through California and Nebraska, however due to the number in our party and our luggage, we thought it best to get the most fearsome looking gas guzzler in all the land... The Lincoln Navigator.

And then it was onwards, out of the big smoke, through the snow-capped mountains of California, towards the big ol' desert.

After a couple of hours we pulled off the highway and headed to Victorville for lunch in a diner which claimed to have been used in Kill Bill 2. However when I asked the staff if they were aware they said they were not... Thus leading me to conclude someone on the trusted internetskis was pulling our leggins.

Three of us ordered the local and yelp recommended Brian Burger, while Flood sensibly chose a burger with some salad on it. The Brian Burger did not have its components provided on menu... But it was essentially cheese, meat patty, cheese, bread bun and cheese, served with a side of cheesy cheese. And fries. No one finished their sweaty Brian Burger. It's not the burger was bad, it was the ridiculous amount of cheese on it. Apparently that's what the locals are into...

 After narrowly avoiding heart disease, and purchasing some girl guide cookies in case we got hungry (HA!) it was back on the road again.

We returned to Route 15 and carried on for about another hour before we saw signs indicating a ghost town up ahead, so we one more detoured from our original route, to Calico Ghost Town (Calico Ghost Town).

Calico is a ghost town and former mining town in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Calico Mountains of the Mojave Desert region of Southern California, it was founded in 1881 as a silver mining town, and today has been converted into a county park. 

View over Calico

We reboarded our monster truck and drove the remaining two hours into the belly of the Mojave National Preserve, before crossing the Nebraska boarder, and reaching our destination by sunset.

Rio 2013 CARNAVAL!!

 
We woke up later and decided to take it easy on day three; the day before the big night of Carnaval.
We headed off to a street carnaval (known to the locals as a Bloco) which was held in an area of Rio that was known for its oranges, thus this was the colour and token fruit of this particular parade! We arrived too late to see the parade, but the after party was still in full swing. Unlike the two blocos we had been to yesterday, this one had enough space to dance about in and enjoy. It seemed the locals were more relaxed and calmer. The whole place had a positive, glowing vibe, filled with laughter and excited chatter.

We thought it best to try to stay cool and hydrated, so headed off to Marina's favourite, and Rio's oldest, shopping center. Although the shops were open, the whole center was ghostly still and quiet as all the locals were spending the day celebrating on their particular block's carnaval. Which was lucky for us, as we whipped quickly and efficiently through the shops with no delay, after a quick feed (NB: Naturally I restrained and had a traditional Brazilian meal!).

We left the shops and returned to Marina's sisters house for showers before pressing onto a friends house who had organised and was looking after our costumes for Carnaval. Everything was going smoothly, we had plenty of time and relaxed in their apartment with beers and cheese bread. Their balcony looks onto a favela, which Paulo (The man of the house) spoke to me about and answered all of my questions and concerns.

Despite the fact there is a train which goes up the right hand side of the favela, this is one of the smaller ones in Rio, thus fairly safe. There are people who conduct tours through the favelas, and had I more time I would have perhaps gone through this one. However, when you see the favela in the day with it's variety of brightly painted houses, it is quite a pleasant sight. I did prefer to see it all lit up at night though, making the mountains look like they were dusted with glitter.

Note : This is NOT the same favela as pictured above!! This one overlooks Ipanema Beach.

And then suddenly it was time to go. Grab your plastic bag of costume, your shoulder piece of bright orange and white feathers, and off out the door we charged. We, or rather, the Brazillians in our crew, had decided that catching the metro to the Sambadome was our best plan of attack. Unfortunately everyone else in Rio had decided that was also a good idea, and we were unable to get on the first train which arrived for fear of creasing our feathers. The second train wasn't much better, but we managed to flap ourselves into several different sardine carriages. We were counting down the train stations so we knew when to attempt to escape our tinny tube, but somehow missed our station and by the time we tried to escape we were crammed against the back wall, with the door closing, separating the gringos from the rest of our chicken party. Fortunately we had Marina still in our carriage, so we weren't abandoned!
After we returned to our afore missed station it was a mad dash (Not unlike a pack of panicked chickens) through the steamy night of Rio from the metro to the Sambadome. We were all in thongs, and there was plenty of ominous puddles of liquid all over the ground so that made the sprinting somewhat less than orthodox. I vividly recall one moment when a millimeter of the heel of my thong entered a puddle of doom, but before I could figure out what was going on, my thong had flipped up to slap against my heel, sending a single drop of danger liquid up to land on my left inner thigh. I don't think my life quite flashed before my eyes, but I definitely remember time slowing right down as my mind told me to quickly wipe it away and forget about it... But my curiosity got the better of me and before my brain could regain control of my hand, my liquid-wiping fingers had reached my nostrils... And I could now, without any question, confirm that yes, that was someone's urine that I had just splattered up my leg. Charming.

200m on from the scene of the 'incident' we came to an abrupt holt and frantically began removing our clothes and slipping into our body-hugging, lycra onesies. Just what you want to slip into after running a kilometer and flicking filth up your leg.

No time for water; it was onesies, shoesies, hands, shoulders, knees and toes, hat and wrist covers then another dash, this time looking significantly more ridiculous and uncoordinated, through a crowd of equally as feathered individuals.

Arriving to meet the rest of out Korean Chicken comrades we were informed that the Carnaval hadn't even begun, and it would be a good nother 30-60minutes until we were "on". I had a quiet word with my bladder and told it to ignore the 3 beers which were at that very moment attempting to infiltrate my kidneys. Despite Marina's effort to communicate with the organiser, he had no interest in the fact we were Australian, thus had no idea what was going on, so would very much like to be kept all together. Instead we were separated and ordered into lines and made to hold hands with whomever was beside us... In my case a 25 year oldish Brazilian girl who had spent a month living in New York so we had a mostly failed attempt at communicating and, thankfully, Robert on my right. Robert didn't have quite the luck I did, and instead had an 86 year old Brazilian woman who wouldn't let go of his hand, even when everyone else had two free hands to jazz with.
We were abruptly reorganised into lines of 8, and much to Carnaval Grandmas disappointment, Robert was moved into a different line and she was left to hold my hand. This was apparently not how she had planned on her evening panning out, so she then moved to the line behind to leave me to stretch my arms longer than Mr Tickle to keep the basic construction of two peoples arm-span the lines. Naturally I failed.

And then it was go-time. We shuffled, samba'd, ran forwards 5 meters (and back 2), over and over again for a good half hour before we even reached the entry to the Sambodome.

 
We all had a quick look around at each other to make sure we were all together and ready for our once in a lifetime experience... and to convey that we were all already knacked from the half hour of practice samba! Never the less, we numbed our nociceptors and proceeded into the kilometer long cement stretch to samba and "sing" our little hearts out. The crowd was extremely excited (I think it helped we were the first school of the night) and stretched from ground up into the air. I remembered Kanye and Kim Kadashian were in Rio and wondered if they were present. I looked up at the private boxes as we danced on by, and eventually spotted an arrogant looking idiot with sunglasses on, who was presumably going to "let us finish", with a female who looked as though she had never accomplished anything of value in her entire life, apart from being a courtesan and took solace in knowing that they had paid to see me, but I would never watch them, even if I were paid.

We samba'd. We sang along (as best we could) to the Portuguese song, which involved moving your mouth and more or less repeating 'I samba everyday', which wasn't even an actual lyric! But no one seemed to notice or mind and although we were exhausted, had aching feet, were saturated with sweat and more parched than a 40day stint in the desert, we eventually crossed the finish line, with a buzz of endorphins in our blood.

 
All of our group, but one little one in particular, was suffering from the heat and experiencing exhaustion, so ice water was extremely well received and we quickly removed our head dresses and stumbled off to find some space in which to breath and take a knee.

After catching our breath, and stripping down to our extremely sexy onesies, we pressed on to the grandstand to finally take a seat, neck a Coke (before moving onto beers) and enjoy the remainder of the impressive parade we had just been a part of.

It must be noted that although taking part in Carnaval was an absolutely amazing experience, it was extremely demanding, and kicking back in the grandstand knocking back ice old ceverjas was considerably less taxing! Although we were all thoroughly exhausted!!

 
As we were the first school to perform in the parade for that night, we were able to see the next 8 schools which were very impressive. There's was a lot of colour, feathers and passion present
although the public liked our parade best - Turns out the Gringo Samba was rather well received!!

The following are a few of the many pictures and videos of the schools which followed us, and performed in Rio's 2013 Carnaval.

Rio 2013 (Excluding Carnaval)

After surviving an hour flight from Manchester to Heathrow, 10 hours from Heathrow to Miami, AND 8.5 hours from Miami to Rio, I was greeted by the lovely Marina, her mother and the Robert duo. I very nearly collapsed into their arms from relief, but held myself composure as I now had a mere five days to cram as much Rio into my hungry senses as possible!
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!!