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So Brazil (pronounced something like the title in Portuguese). Turns out the Spanish and the Portuguese dreamt up some line of longitude to separate their New World empires. Then they discovered Brazil. Or something like that. Long and short of that is they don't even bother speaking Spanish here. Well that's no bloody good, is it?!

BRA-ZEEOO!!!

Graham Perkins
2006-08-21 13:07:04

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lots of people dancing all around the stairs and hallways. Definitely worth checking out if you're in town. As is Lapa, a part of town full of bars and clubs where street vendors serve up possibly the biggest, juiciest Caipirinhas - a tooth-rotting killer of a spirit-plus-no-mixer drink that'll have your gums aching for weeks. And it was here that I finally found some hardcore Drum 'n Bass to prance about to, which naturally made me very happy. Always worth checking out too, is the funk parties they have in the favelas. Your hostel can arrange transport to the one that features in the film Cidade De Deus. Pretty crazy, lots of fireworks and rockets let off indoors and cheap drinks!

And what about the girls, eh? Oh good God, they're hot! Fair play to them, it's about time girls can prance about with all the sexual confidence that men have everywhere else in the world and not be supposed to feel bad about it...

Well, after a few weeks in Rio, Carnaval was fast approaching and I had a hostel reservation in Salvador with my, err, name on it. But by now the Rolling Stones were due to give a free concert on Copacabna beach so it seemed worth hanging around for a wee while longer.

To say I got lucky here would be a cruel understatement. The Stones were playing on the beach in front of the Copacabana Palace - Rio's most famous hotel - and a friend of a friend of a friend of mine happened to own the penthouse suite of the block of flats directly next door to the joint. He threw a party for about 35 of his friends and family and decided to make a couple of quid on the side by inviting about 15 gringoes in for £50 a pop. The night was great and I read the next day that two and a half million people had turned up to pack the streets, desperately after something for free while I looked fifteen floors down at every one of them with nothing but pure and utter gut-wrenching contempt.

So kicked out of the flat by about 1am (What? You think I'm gonna leave a place like that through choice? I just wish I'd had the foresight to stuff my pockets with the remnants of the finger buffet on my way out!) and it was finally time to make my way northwards for the city of Salvador's impending Carnaval madness...