Football and 007

14/15th August


Our plan was to go to Sugar Loaf mountain in the morning and see some footie later on. When we got up though, we realised that it had been raining. Yep. Raining. And it was cold.


We found a pharmacy to finally buy things to wash ourselves with and look at suncream. We didn't buy suncream in the end. Because it was raining. And cold. We then explored a sort of shopping centre with endless amounts of escalators that finally took us about 7 or 8 stories up where there were lots of food places and a spectacular view of Pao de Acucar (Sugar Loaf Mountain). After choosing a nice, pay-by-the-kilo chinese place, we realised that we didn't have any money left so had to go back to the Hostel to get some. I saw a naked fat man in the window of an apartment opposite. We got our money and returned. Never having weighed our food before, we weren't quite sure how much a kilo was so ended up paying around 20 reais each – a lot more than we were expecting. Apparently Chinese food weighs a lot.



We returned to the Hostel and decided to go to Sugar Loaf Moutain. Then we decided not to. Then we 'discussed' the situation for a couple of hours, finally deciding not to as the weather was so bad we wouldn't have been able to see anything from the top anyway. I took some pictures of Bindya. Then it was time to go to the footie.


We were met by our guide, Daniella, who basically was a Flamengo fan who got to take us to see them play and get paid for it. We drove to pick up the other people on the jolly who consisted of three strange Irish girls and one friendly Finnish lad. We then sat in a van outside the biggest football stadium in the world for about 20 minutes, waiting for our tickets. Her English was not very good so we didn't ask her the essential questions such as, “How much is a beer?” and “How do you say, 'The referee is a silly man' in Portuguese?” etc. We got out, took a few photos, then went in and had our faces painted. Daniella took us to where we were sitting, which was basically just behind the drums so we got plenty of atmosphere. She then said this...


                      “Here, in the stadium, you only get the no-alcohol beer.”

I said, “What?” and she repeated herself, saying exactly the same thing. After about 5 minutes I said, “So in the bar you only get no-alcohol beer?” and she said yes. She also told us that she knew someone who sold real beer, so I relaxed a bit. After a while I tried to ask her about this person who sold the real beer and she asked me if I spoke Spanish. I said no and she then asked me to repeat something. I waited for her to tell me what it was that I had to learn so I could repeat it to some man so he would give me real beer but she didn't. It became obvious that she just wanted me to repeat what I was asking her. I said, “AL-CO-HOL?” and looked desperate. She then understood me and took us downstair to one of the vendors she knew. He poured us a couple of beers and went back upstairs happy.

I want beer!

 

I love flamingos!!!!

The stadium looked fairly empty by the time the game started but apparently there was just over 50 000 there. Lots of massive flags, drumming and chanting from the crowd near us. Flamengo were about 10th in the league and playing Ceara who were 3rd. The first half was pretty good, even though the players tended to spend most of their time rolling on the ground. Flamengo scored with a penalty. Me and Bindya got into the spirit of things, singing, waving, clapping, swearing etc. At half time we went back to The Man With Beer but he said something to me that I didn't understand, possibly that there was none left, not really surprising if he was the only one selling real beer in a crowd of 50 000. The second half was not so great but we still had fun.

After the game, we followed Daniella back to the van. As we came to go out the stadium, she looked at us all and said, “When we get outside, walk fast!”. Very comforting.
 We got back to the hostel and washed the paint off our faces before heading out to find some food. Right on the corner near our place was a big cafe thing. Food was cheap and beer was even cheaper – 5 reais for a 600ml bottle (of Skol!). We ordered chicken burgers (at 5 R's) and chips (for 12 Rs). We ended up getting beef burgers and the biggest bowl of chips I've ever seen, covered in melted cheese and some sort of chorizo. Not happy, we sent the beef back, reiterating that we wanted chicken – we even knew the Portuguese for it – Frango. After a bit he said that he didn't have any chicken so for dinner we had chips. And beer.



Ok so that was Neil's long winded version of the day and now here is mine, we got up it was pissing it down, decided not to go to Sugarloaf Montain after lot of “discussion...aka arguing”. Went to get toiletries (I know it sounds dull but in a country where you dont know where your going, what anything means, these activites take a while) Took more photos, got ready for Football. Meet guide who thought I was Brazilian...really!!!! Went to football got faces painted I got heart and Neil got stripes in his face to be “masculine”. Played a game of what Neils calls”Kick a ball through the hole” I nearly got it in (due to my past days as a footballer) and Neil was appalling. We watched the football and it was great, the goal, penalty, atmosphere, flags, noise, chants...everything!!!! The beer issue was a problem (Pete would understand) and I got panicky but soon was calm by the cold, cheap, illegal beer. I got worried as the Finnish and Irish girls I was speaking to said that they had booked their Inca trail months ago and that it was hard to get it at short notice. So When we got back I quickly did research and booked the Inca trail (Not yet confirmed) for November...on my BIRTHDAY!!!!! The we went out for dinner and sent back beef...I'm a Hindu you know and Neil ate all the chips. We went home and watch Eastenders on laptop....my god is Carol bonkers!!!

                                 A huge THANK YOU to MIKE and SAL who paid for the football adventure it was great xx






So we got up early today in order to get to Sugarloaf Mountian incase the weather was not good later in the day and as usual we had white bread/rolls with cheese and ham and watermelon. Neil and I were fed up with this by now and the rude free for all attitude of the other backpackers. Anyway we ate and then headed out to Sugaerloaf Mountain. On the way we passed some excellent colonial buildings which were not in a great state but it added to the charm and mysery of it all. I went Happy snappy with the camera and got photos of the architecure of the place and the great graffitti on the walls. We then approached the entrance to the cable cart to get us up to Sugarloaf Mountain, Now guys for those who do not know Neil very well he is fine with heights but he has a high centre of gravity and a big dislike of dodgy railings as this makes him dizzy....excellent! As were about to go up 396 metres.

Anyway we head on the first cable car which suprising fits 60 people on, I'm not going to lie but the cable car and wire didnt look that strong but it look a whole heap better then the wooden shed attached to wire they had in 1912. We got on..me with excitement and Neil slowly by steadily and we began our jouney up to the mid way point. It took about 2 minutes and in that time again I was Happy Snapping as the scene was fantasic and the clouds look soooo dramatic. At the midway point we got off and had a wander around, I was running around, going to the edge, looking down over the small wobbly rails while Neil admired the view from a safer distance!!! There will be lots of panoramic shots you will see soon I am sure and the sight was truly breathtaking. We took our photo with the cable car used in the film Moonraker where the famous battle between Bond and Jaws took place in (not the one that blew up in the film of course) this excited Neil a lot and you could see in his eyes he was imaging being Bond in the cable cart. Althea I know you would have loved this too.

I saw a little monkey thing and insisted that B take a shot of it – we got it's arse but saw another one on a table and got a good full-frontal shot. After a quick look in the very expensive gift shop we had a look at the short 'Historical film'. This consisted of them filming tourists telling us how great it all was so we headed up to catch the second leg of the cable car to the top. I was coping well with all these heights, as long as I didn't look down for too long. Top was scary, I won't lie. It was well windy and the fences were looking decidedly rickety so I kind of hung around the middle a lot. Think I saw some big condors in the distance, but they might have been small seagulls in the near distance. Getting back was the same except backwards. As we walked past the film place we heard some explosions so quickly ran in and just caught the very end of the Moonraker scene. I'm pleased I didn't see the cable car exploding just before getting on it to go up.
 

Don't look behind you Neil...

At the hostel we checked out and I heard them tell B that it was 390 Rs – this worked out at the best part of 50 quid per night. This was really not what we were expecting – more like 30 – but they were quite certain. This sent B into a fluster as she began to work out how much we'd spent already and that if we continued at this rate we'd be back in London by the end of September. I put it down to experience and to make sure that we sort out the rate as soon as we get to a place. They would also feel the lash of my fingertips when I come to write them a review...El Misti Hostel in Rio – El Cheating Bastardos more like...etc. I mellowed a bit when they offered to get us a taxi to Santa Teresa and also that they had someone to share a lift with us as well. When we dropped the other lass off, she paid the full 15 Rs fare so far and the meter was only 19 when we got to ours – sweet I thought, I'll be generous and give him a 5. B was more practical about this by now, “We would assume that, but things don't always work out like we assume here.” she wisely told me. Actually, he wanted the full 19 Rs fare. So taxi sharing in Rio is flipping great if you're a flipping taxi driver – you get to charge 2 bunches of flipping dimwits twice for the same flipping journey (if you know me, then you know what to substitute for 'flipping').



Anyway, the new place was some old, run down, pink, colonial building – I thought it very charming – we were checked in by an English lass called Suzie who told us that she didn't work there so couldn't confirm what the rate was. We dumped our bags, sought out a supermarket and bought pizza, noodles, pasta, sauce, vermouth, lemonade and skol. After hiking back up the insanely steep stairs and then the absurdly steep road we couldn't work out how to turn the oven on so forgot the pizza but I managed to sort us out some noodles for lunch.


Just spent the rest of the day sorting out our next stop and how we'll get there. Realising that the laptop and free wi-fi is invaluable – I have no idea how we are going to cope when we can't get it. As B says, people who didn't have the internet to help them sort stuff out must have been 'stupid'.