Day 82 – Rio

With tonight being the final night of Carnival I moved from Ipanema beach into the more central area of Santa Teresa which is famous for it's artists, bohemian residents, fantastic architecture and excessive levels of crime against tourists.

I enquired at the reception desk about the safety of taking a camera to Carnival and – more to the point – it actually making it back to the hotel still in my possession. The receptionist's frown and reluctance to give me a straight answer spoke volumes 'A few of our guests have been mugged' she confessed, 'How many' I ask. It transpires that in the last week alone enough punters have been relieved of their possessions to form a respectable orchestra, so with this in mind and the possibility that I may also being having a few sherries to pass the hours I decide it is wise to leave all valuables behind.

Due to the erratic nature of this trip, I had left getting a ticket to the last minute and consequently Ciara and I were in what was known as 'the tourist sector'. My first impression was that there was no difference between it and the other stands – except perhaps that we had paid four times the price for a ticket, however, as the stand filled with people it became apparent that this really was a tourist section, more precisely, the geriatric tourist section – I was more likely to be mugged at a bingo evening than in this stand. The only danger was sitting on a discarded toffee wrapper.

The Carnival parade itself was fantastic – I have not seen so much flesh, sequined jackets and feathers flying about since The News of the World caught Rod Hull with his hand in the wrong emu. It started at nine and each of the six Samba schools parade for up to an hour and a half each, it was a bit of a shock when I realised that I would still be in the same place at six in the morning watching a glorified Liberace concert I can tell you.

As you would expect from such a huge event every kind of culinary taste was catered for – as long as you liked cheese and meat – a vegan paradise this was not. Our favorite place was Big Bobs Burgers who had the widest selection available, namely; Cheeseburger, Double Cheeseburger or Spicy Cheeseburger (I am not sure how they didn't notice the glaring gap in the market which could have been filled by a Double Spicy Cheeseburger). As the night wore on, I noticed that Big Bad Bob had added a Barbeque Burger to his menu – and at a third of the price! I ordered one straight away was handed a sachet of Barbeque sauce and asked what Cheeseburger did I want to go with it? There was no escaping the cheese at Rio Carnival.

We left at six in the morning having had a great night, the only down side was that we didn't get any photos – at least not our own – I hid in the bushes outside our hotel and mugged a German tourist as he came home – 'Schwein!'.