Jakey Jake

We setup shop at hotel banderantes in copocabana right near the main street, that was to be home for the next week. The first night we all went to the bar on the corner for a few drinks before we decided where we would go out to. After a lot of toing and froing I decided just to jump a cab and see where the night would take us. Lo and behold there were 2 HOT girls in the cab and they didn’t mind the 3 of us jumping in with them. They were very friendly and we thought that Rio was going to be awesome… we arrived at a club called shakra or something and it was then that the cab driver told us that the girls were actually prostitutes, so we got away from them ASAP. The club was rocking too and the girls were also very friendly, the reason???? That’s right they were hookers…. CRAP, aren’t there any normal girls in this town????? So we went home tired and sorry…. The next day we went on an excursion around rio. We took the cable car up to sugarloaf which had an incredible view over copocabana beach and ipanema beach. Though I hate heights I was gald to have made the trip up there. We couldn’t see Christ the redeemer because it was covered with clouds. That was our next stop, so we headed over to the redeemer and caught the train up the mountain. The statue was still covered in cloud and we could only make out his feet from 10m away. But occasionally the cloud cover broke and we had an even better view of rio than from sugarloaf. It was awesome. That night I decided to have a quiet one, which escalated to a big one (as usual) and we ended up at a little disco around the corner where I met up with some of the gang from the other group. I ended up staying there all night as luke and I met some really nice locals, although we couldn’t speak a word of each others language. The next day we hung out at the beach, copocabana is quite a dirty beach, and I couldn’t manage to get that stupid song out of my head!!!! There are all these locals traipsing up and down the beach saying “agua, coca, cerveja” and selling all kinds of things from rings, henna tats, sarongs and even hammocks???? The girls really liked to show off their butts, g string bikinis were the norm although there wasn’t any topless bathing as it is against the law. Anyway the next night we went to an all you can eat place before going to see a salsa show in ipanema which was awesome, the dancers were unbelievable and the capoera dancers were the best, they were so athletic. We had the sad news that Graham was leaving to go to Antarctica the next day and he wasn’t going to be around for carnival So we went out, and I don’t really recall much other than jumping the counter of a mc donalds and trying to show the workers how to make a burger and almost getting in a fight with a bunch of people there because someone was trying to have a go at graham….. pretty crazy night!!! Adam was arriving from Sydney so we weren’t going to do much. I went to pick him up from the airport. It was great to see him again, although there wasn’t much time for niceties as the others were waiting for us to go out. Anyway we went to some classy bar and danced for a while, the Doc was showing his moves and talking up a storm with the ladies, as usual. Somehow we ended up at a nightclub called help. There is absolutely no other club in the world like it (and ive been to my fair share) Think of a nightclub full of hookers dressed in next to nothing…. If that’s what youre into then this is your place. The next night was Carnaval night!!!! We chilled out the whole day. Anyway Ange, Tanya, Bec, John, Adam, The, Annie and I all went. It started off slowly, nothing was happening until the sun went down. Suddenly the fireworks went off and the strobe lights were going crazy. The locals were going mad and suddenly thousands of people in incredible costumes and a massive intricate float turned the corner and started to samba all the way down the sambadrome (which looked like a glorified version of a drag strip. It was an incredible experience, the music, the dancing, the people…. I haven’t been to anything like it!!!! You have to go once!!!! I can’t really write about it, you can have a look at the pictures J The next few nights we went in search of the street parties, and we found them!!! Luke had been raving about them and I have to say they were pretty kewl. Spontaneous break outs of partying on the streets. It was awesome fun, especially the ones around ipanema beach which was soooooo much nicer than copocabana beach. We spent the next few days partying and sunning it up on the beach. It was great. Then everyone had to leave and adam and I decided to head up to Salvador as we heard it was supposed to be great up there.