I always feel like I´ve left it a tad long between posts, then realise it´s been about a week. The time here is weird. It flies by, but at the same time you get a lot done and a few days can seem like a week. Can´t really explain it better than that.
So, where to pick up. I should probably credit someone at this stage. Mr Ara… my dear friend, tour guide (often against his will!), a ´traductor´ (translator), teacher, incredible talent, film editor, music appreciator, doting father, lots of fun, and I will repeat again a very dear friend indeed. Thank you for showing me Santiago in style.
Post Chile, I buckled on costs over Rio Carnaval. I kept going back and forth as to whether I should fork out or not, and came to the conclusion that as I had made it all the way here, may as well do it properly.
So, thanks to The Australians, I managed to find my way into the parade, joining the samba school Traduçia (I think. We´ve struggled with the pronunciation of pretty much EVERYTHING since getting here. Why did no one warn me how hard Portuguese was?!?!) to take part in the parade on Saturday night. It was AWESOME. The costumes were shockingly made, but looked incredible for about the first hour, I´d lost half of mine and was resorting to staple guns from the guys building the float, safety pins, and the kindness of a homeless lady with a few fingers missing to stitch on one of my plastic turquiose shells to help keep it together. This was BEFORE we´d even paraded. Just read that back and realised there was a sentence I never thought I´d be writing in this blog!
So, having spent about, ooh, 15 minutes listening to the song (which we couldn´t understand) and looking up ´how to samba in 4 minutes´ on YouTube just before we left the apartment, we obviously well prepared. But we rocked it. Sunday night we went to watch the parade again and having been both participant and spectator I can honestly say I enjoyed them equally.
Missed Fat Boy Slim (we were too tired and had sort feet after parading all night – bloody knackering!), tried determinedly to get to Bob Sinclar on Sunday night, but was a lost cause, and Monday we were going to get tickets to Ritchie Hawtin but decided to let Rio throw fun at us in its own way rather than try and chase it down.
It worked. Had the best nights once we´d stopped trying to find/meet/arrange things with people or places and just go with it.
I´m now heading to Florionapolis tonight to see some beautiful beaches that are less packed and crazy than these.
I bid farewell to my Australians this week who are heading home, luckily managed to meet up with Ella and Kate (from my Arequipa/Titicaca/La Paz stint) last night and ate the most incredible all you can eat buffet. WORLD OF PAIN afterwards but amazing. For about 20 quid. I am turning into a fatty. Just what you want when you´re in a bikini all day.
Ah well. Another churro for me then…
ToBeShaw 
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