Note: I wrote this a week ago, sitting in the Abbotsford airport, slightly disgruntled. My flight home to Edmonton was delayed. Abbotsford has a cute airport but I don't think I'll fly out of it again if I have the choice. Little things got on my nerves - no carts to bring your luggage in from the rental car return, the rental car return guy was rather rude and the cart was squeaky.
In the scheme of things, not a big deal, absolutely a first world problem. But enough that I would choose a different airport in future.
***
So when last I blathered on incessantly, I believe we got to the airport in Foz, just barely in time for a flight that was delayed. We waited in Curitiba. We flew on to Rio.
Last time Val and I had taken a cab from the airport into the city, and it had cost the earth. As I was now travelling on the cheap with the cheap maestro, we took an air-conditioned bus for about $10. I may have already explained that Airell did all the travel arranging - the highly recommended hostel he'd been told about was full on Saturday night. While we'd stopped to grab our bags at the hostel in Foz he'd scanned hostels in the same general vicinity (Ipanema/Copacabana) and found one that had *mixed* reviews. One said it wasn't bad, the other said it was the dirtiest they'd ever seen.
We (I mean, mostly Airell) went with the 'how bad could it be?' and booked it.
So we caught this bus. When we got on the bus, Airell asked if they could drop us near the address of the hostel. The driver said sure.
We drove a long time. Eventually, Airell, who was watching google maps on his phone, decided we'd gone too far and began a long conversation in which he tried to convince the bus driver to drop us off.
Eventually he did. Half a mile or so after we'd already gone way too far.
So. Imagine this. We're on the street in front of Leblon beach, and we need to get back to the very far end of Ipanema, 3 blocks from Copacabana.
That's not that far, if you're going for a run in the morning. It's far if you're carrying a giant backpack or dragging a blue butterfly suitcase. On the jagged sidewalks of Rio:
That's FAR.
I feel compelled to point out that the sidewalk design is not correct for where we were, but you get the idea. Not exactly smooth trailing for a suitcase. (Spoiler: I had to get the suitcase fixed before I returned it to my favorite niece named Anna).
(Side note: Annoying guy is at the airport bar. You know the one. It's his birthday. Makes creepy friends with the waitress and the people next to him. THANK GOD I am not next to him.)
There. Anyway, there we were in Leblon, needing to get to somewhere in Ipanema, but really not sure exactly where we needed to get to in Ipanema.
So we started walking. Walking. Walking. I want to point out that I'd have been fine with walking the whole way, but I was pulling my suitcase, not carrying it on my back so when Airell wanted to catch a cab I was fine with that plan too.
Then the hard part was finding a cab that wasn't already engaged. This was Leblon. Saturday night. After 10. Not exactly crawling with cabs.
We walked for quite a while before we were able to snag a cab. I cannot recall if it was I or Airell that got it, I'm going to go with me because this is my story and I can tell it however I like. The driver had no idea where the hostel was (but recognized the address) and spoke limited English. Out came the phrase book.
So we began wandering the streets with our driver, looking for the hostel until we finally spotted a giant pirate flag for the Piratas hostel.
So we dragged our weary selves in. It's... the second review. Dirty. Dark. Wouldn't be hard to get high just from standing in the doorway. If you know what I mean. Full of creepy looking people. Kitchen piled with dirty dishes about 3 feet deep (wish I were kidding about that). So we get in there, and we wait for the dude who will show us to our bunks for the night. There's a room off to the side of the hallway we were waiting in that was dark and seemed to be full of huddled bodies, pillows, possibly mattresses and sleeping bags. Everywhere.
I leave you to draw your own conclusions about that room. I was there and I'm not really sure what conclusions to draw from it. There was a general feeling of skudge everywhere. The hammocks in the hallway were lovely, though. But you have to get the hammocks right in Brazil.
Airell was already looking for another place to stay for the night. We hadn't even seen our spot and he'd been skeeved right off. He was apologetic and I? Was terribly amused. Eventually the dude who takes the money showed up and took our money (about $12CAD for the night - about $8 too much), showed us to our spots and we were even more skeeved.
I'll simply put it like this. Had that been the first hostel we'd gone to, I'd have said 'See ya!' to Airell and moved into the Copacobana Palace at $400+ per night and seen him when I got back to Edmonton. It was the sort of place you never, ever tell your mother about. (Don't tell my mother!) There was a bucket next to one of the ladies toilets that was collecting... water? I think? It was overflowing and I mostly chose not to think about it. You had to be careful how you perched on the toilet so it wouldn't fall over. Airell told me the mens was too unspeakable for words. We both chose to leave the place in the morning without a shower. I don't think we'd have gotten any cleaner anyway.
After we'd seen our bunks (horrors. Horrors. HORRORS. Danger at every turn! From every direction! Of every kind!) we went back downstairs to collect our bags. The money dude was on his way out, but offered some advice for something to do that night.
It was after 11pm at this point. At home, I'm normally thinking about heading to bed at that time. Am old. Am ok with that. BUT! Was in Rio! Carousing is required!!
Anyway, the money dude told us about a samba school that was doing a kind of voting process for the song the school would perform for Carnaval. He said it was one of the best things to do on a Saturday night - and he kept trying to get people at the hostel to go but they were all so hungover from Friday night's carousing that noone ever took him up on it.
I'd read about the samba schools and the practicing in a guide book, and that you could go see this starting in September, and we were nearly to September, so I was up for it. We got an address from the hostel guy, the name of the samba school and then carried our stuff up to the bunks.
I can't even with those bunks. Really. It was dark so you could imagine it was better than it was but I still didn't want to spend any more time in there than I absolutely had to. Airell? Felt the same. I grabbed some money, perhaps changed into something different, locked my valuables in his backpack and we left that scary, scary place. We were both hungry (thirsty!) so we headed for something to eat - settling on one of the restaurants under a tent on the sidewalk in front of the beach. Maybe we ate pizza? I know we drank beer and plotted how we could find a better, i.e. lower disease potential place for the night. There were hotels nearby. How bad could they be?
We traipsed into the Intercontinental? Maybe? I might have made that name up. Anyway, it was big, it was fancy and it was going to cost $700 per night. USD.
Sweet jumping jellyfish. The night was half over and dammit, if I am paying that much for a room I'm going to enjoy the damn room. We somehow backed out of paying for the room on the spot and somehow got ourselves out of the hotel without getting arrested for mischief.
Whereupon we howled with laughter and an excess of beer. And decided that since the hostel was so nasty - either we go back there and spend the night hugging our bags to keep them safe or we go to the samba school thing on the other side of town.
We chose the samba school.
I have vague recollections of Rio spinning by me outside the taxi window and being dropped outside a random building with people and vendors all around it. Walking in and not having to pay a cover fee.
I have pictures. I had video, even. But damned if I can find the video.
The picture is not that inspiring, really. See, what happens is different groups within the school have a song they'd like to do for Carnaval. Each group performs their song, and all the supporters of that song dance and since along, and wave those flags you can see in the picture. This building was huge - must have been 1000 people in there. So they'd play the song, the drums would play and people would drink and the flags would wave. When the music was at normal speed.
When each song did the mandatory kick up to double time (triple time? it was that fast) I kid you not, the whole damn room exploded into the most elaborate, incredible demonstration of samba I have ever seen. That stupid show Val and I had gone to?
Nothing compared to this. Incredible.
We watched, drank and maybe even tried a little samba ourselves (I look like a spastic monkey on crack when I try to samba, I can sorta do it, but damn. Rhythm I may have in a theoretical sense. Possession of my extremities and rhythm at the same time? No, I do not have that).
We rolled back into the creepy hostel sometime after 4? 5? Who the hell knows. Airell, that clever soul, had written the address and name of the hostel on 2 pieces of paper, one for each of us, so we'd know where the hell we needed to get back to.
This plan worked. At least, it worked because Airell didn't lose his little piece of paper. No idea what happened to mine. Maybe got lost in the nasty ass bathrooms at the samba school - think no doors, a screaming woman policing the toilet paper and... stuff.... flowing on the floors.
Good thing I was already drunk. At the time I didn't care. Sure! I'll pee with the door open! Wait, the door isn't open, there is no door! Whatever! That's just water on the floor!!! That screaming woman isn't mad, she's just really excited about toilet paper.
When we got back to our bunks, I discovered someone was sleeping in the one I'd been told was mine (bottom bunk, I claimed age, cancer, girl, whatever, I was not climbing up to a top bunk anymore the end) so I just chose a random bed nearby with noone in it and promptly passed out while clutching my most valued valuables (combination of being really, very ill and very drunk).
When I woke in the morning... well, I'm pretty smart about drinking these days, so I'd had a lot of water before I went to bed. Straight from the tap in that nasty ass kitchen, no less. How did I not get every water-borne illness known to heaven and earth in there? Regardless, no hangovers for me. The first sight of the bed I slept in with the unforgiving morning light?
I prefer not to think about that.
Sweet heavenly Christmas.
Let us never speak of that again.
Anyway. It didn't matter. Rio was about to get much, much better.
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