Hee-o

I won't lie, Rio is scary. I'm pretty sure I witnessed a car jacking, saw a brigadeof 12 police cars (semi-automatic weapons drawn) driving towards the favelas, and met countless people who had been mugged. I some how managed to escape unscathed...and want to go back.
In a way Rio reminds me of San Francisco. Rio is about 20 times the size, but the physical layout (being situated on a bay and an ocean) and the diversity some how made it feel a bit familiar.
I ended up staying in Santa Teresa, which is a district set up into the hills, far from the touristy beaches of ipenema and copacabana. It turned out to be the perfect spot for me and the most fabulous hostel I have ever stayed it. (minus this one douche bag Australian guy)
I arrived on Thursday morning after getting 1 hour of sleep due to the 3am departure of my flight to Rio. I spent close to 6 hours on Thursday walking around town, snapping phots and trying to get the lay of the land. I could hardly resist a thursday night out, even if I was practically falling asleep, so I drank my way slowly to friday morning and took from the hours of 8am - 10am to recover next to the pool.
It's hard to sit still when you know there is so much out there to see. My first venture was to find this semi famous staircase in Lapa (the district below Santa Teresa) that a man had spent 18 years tiling, using tiles from over 60 different countries. The staircase is beautiful and its designer lives in a flat right off the staircase and spends every morning sweeping and cleaning his staircase. I attempted to chat with him, but his Chilean accent mixed with the Portuguese he spoke basically made him impossible to understand. He did however give me an autographed picture of a painting he had done and told me to send him some tiles from Seattle, so he could incorporate them into the staircase. Sometimes it pays to be a tourist.
I took in the two biggest tourist sites, the Christ statue and Sugarloaf mountain, during the next couple of days. From the top of Sugarloaf you can watch the sun set right behind the Christ statue which is absolutely stunning. I took about 1,000 photos of it. The Christ statue itself wasn't that exciting but it's interesting to think about how Rio has changed since the statue was built. How much crime, poverty, violence, partying, fear and lust Christ has seen in the streets of Rio.
I also was able to go to 2 games at the Maracaná. The stadium seats 100,000 but apparently has been known to hold 200,000. The games I went to weren't nearly that packed, but I did see Fluminense play. The rivalry between Fluminense and Flamengo is Rio's biggest football rivalry and therefore has the most die hard fans. These people were definitely die hard, most sporting a tattoo of their team on their back or forearm. For 4 hours straight people chanted, sang, drummed, yelled and never once sat down. There was so much energy there, I could barely sit down either, even though I still hadn't slept for more than a couple hours each night. I would love to see a game between 'Flu' and 'Fla' and the totally insanity that goes along with it.
I spent a good amount of the rest of my time laying on ipanema and taking in the local nightlife. Lapa has a huge street party of friday nights that is just absolutely out of control. Everywhere you look there are people dancing in the streets, people selling drinks, drugs, shots, beers, water...enough to keep you going until 8am when things start wrapping up. I didn't make it to 8am but I made a good effort until 5am dancing to crazy techno music under the Lapa arches with as many homeless people as locals.
So now I am in Foz do Iguaçu recovering from 7 glorious days in Rio and one 23 hour bus ride to get here. I would say I will spend this Friday night resting, but Megan (from Salvador) has come up from Buenos Aires to meet me for the weekend and my days in Brazil are limited. Besides, I'm getting used to this no sleep thing.