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Everyone talks about how good the weather is in Rio! When we landed it
was pouring with rain! However, it didn't last long! We made a four day
flying visit to Rio, literally, as we took a spectacular helicopter flight
over the city.
Our
first day we went to Copacabana beach for a beer and in about an hour were
approached by more than forty people trying to sell just about anything
you can imagine! Seeing monkeys leaping around the palm trees on the
beach was quite amusing though!
The following day we
went on a city tour, where you realise why Rio de Janeiro is the beach
capital of the world!
Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, Barra Da Tijuca and Sao Conrado beaches. All
of them kitted out with foot-volley and volleyball courts, football
pitches and gym equipment! They play football and other sports at all
times of the day and night! Sugar Loaf Mountain was ok, you get to ride
in a cable-car up to the top which is nice and we did get to see the
monkeys again, but Christ the Redeemer was quite simply breath-taking.
You cannot imagine how huge it is, or how high above the city it is! To
travel through a rainforest in the middle of a city was also quite
strange!
We
never felt totally relaxed in Rio, but our scariest moment was still to
come! The following morning we went on our helicopter ride and when we
were picked up by the helicopter company, they explained there were
another six people to pick up on the way. These two English blokes, in
their late fifties, got into our taxi and were accompanied by four
"friends" in another taxi! These friends were female, about nineteen and
didn't speak a word of English! The police over here are cracking down on
two things, one being drugs, the other being prostitution!
They
pulled the taxi over with the four girls in and just a few miles down the
road, an armoured police car with four coppers with very big guns pulled
us over! They immediately searched all of us and very, very thoroughly
searched the car. At this point we were making it clear that we were
nothing to do with the two English guys, but I think they guessed that!
It then became clear why we had been pulled over, one of the dirty old men
had one of the "friends" ID cards in his pocket, as she didn't have any
pockets to put it in! It is a fineable offence to not have ID on you in
Brazil! They must have described the car we were in, etc, etc, and so
there we were in the middle of a busy road, with four coppers with fully
automatic M16s who were convinced these two guys were up to no good! In
the end they let us go and as we laughed about it they still tried to
convince us that they were old friends! Funny, but when one of them rang
his wife on his mobile he didn't mention the girls, the fact that he
didn’t get in until 6:00am, or the police!
The
helicopter ride was incredible. Thirty minutes flying over all the
beaches, around both Sugar Loaf Mountain and Christ The Redeemer, the
Maracena Stadium, the City Cemetery and many other places of interest.
We also
went to a Samba show, which was an amazing spectacle of energy and flesh!
I have to say though, the bodies may look fantastic, but these girls
couldn’t have got anymore makeup on if they tried! Still there were lots
of wobbly bits to distract you from the faces!
We
sunbathed for about half an hour on the second to last morning and no word
of a lie, by the evening, we looked like a pair of bright pink lobsters!
Apart from around my nipples which for some reason I put sunblock on as
well as my nipples, so I had two lovely white man boobs to go with my
lobster skin! Angela spent so long laughing, so hard, she very nearly wet
herself!
A
couple of things that you might find amusing about Brazil!
Firstly, they have a television channel purely for bull sperm auctions!
You can call in and put a bid in for "x" units of bull sperm, whilst they
show you a video of the particular bull that will be providing the sperm!
Secondly, they hold a football and beauty queen competition in Manaus each
year, which over eight hundred teams and beauty queens complete in! If
the football team loses its match, but the beauty queen wins her round of
the competition then the football team are allowed back into the draw!
Only in
Brazil!
On our
flight to Santiago, we were sat talking to the cast of a TV Show in
Australia, called Fat Pizza, which according to them is similar to Ali G!
They were filming some overseas episodes and didn't seem at all impressed
that we had never heard of them and insisted that we ask people in
Australia about them!
We
spent a few more nights in Santiago, before flying to Australia. We
actually changed the date of our flights to Australia to make sure that we
weren’t flying when the tickets for the New Zealand Rugby 7s went on sale,
which would have been the day we totally lost due to the time zones.
One day
we went to the Casillero Del Diablo Winery, which is one of the oldest and
most famous wineries in Chile and is home to the "Cellar of the Devil."
This was a tale, that became a legend, first told by the cellar manager to
stop the locals from breaking into the cellar and stealing the wine. We
both enjoyed the tour and the wine, although we were instructed in how to
appreciate the wines, when we tasted them we still preferred the one that
cost US$9 per bottle to the one that cost US$90 per bottle!
Our
final night we went back to Brannigans and this time ended up having a
great night out with a couple of Colombians, who even had their own
money! One of these guys was the absolute spitting image of Jason Leonard
in looks, size and build. Initially I thought he could also drink the
same amount as Jason could, but as the night wore on he proved to be a bit
of a lightweight, in drinking terms, not in actual weight! His mate owned
all the sex shops in Santiago, so you can imagine the conversations Angela
had with him!
The day we were due to fly
to Australia we went for lunch in a beautiful courtyard where there were
several little eateries. As we paid our bill and headed back to the hotel
this enormous hand landed on my shoulder at the same time as a hearty
laugh woke up the dead! It was “Jason,” wearing very dark sunglasses to
hide the hangover! He had been to the bank, spotted us walking past and
wanted to say thank you and goodbye. |