since coming to santa tereza, ive had quite a random time of it. its strange because im bumping into people randomly and taking down numbers. one of alans friends michael has been showing me the ropes and im trying to master the transport system. i wish i was a satnav sometimes! but i guess it is tough on your own. yesterday i managed to find stu n woody in the queue outside shenanigans on a random tip! shenanigans really does make it feel like home maaan proper. its air conditioned and serves PINTS. another random that night was seeing beverly....crazy! she was part of the araial d'ajuda trip.

yesterday also, it was weird how i managed to locate both rachels room and stu/woodys rooms in copacabana, to no avail...i was going to head to the cristo redentor statue but the weather was taking a turn for the worst. i met michael at the bus stop! michael is a guy who lives in my hotel...but we separated in carioca.

the bus was packed to the fullest. santa tereza was about to be hit hard with lots of shakin' booty and samba. it seemed a good idea to get a case of beer and take it back to the room. i eventually caught up with the unavailable alan, whose mobile phone it seems, doesnt function very well. alan and his texas american friend brian had a reservation at a fish bar, it looked nice, sounded nice, but it was expensive at r$40 a dish. the secret was to share the dishes, but i was surrounded by vegetarians. fussy eaters i tell thee. so we the favela's (shanty ghetto people) of the restaurant group fled. which included me.

the parade was warming up beautifully, with lots of people dressed as mickey/minnie mouse, batman, robin, but the onus is on the guys to dress up as women. and no. not yet. i was hanging out with ugochi, ama and this danish woman called charlotte (who is travelling with a kid!) ama got snogged by two blokes after swimming through the sea of capairinha sipping brasilieras, we headed to a churchy type house where a party was about to kick off. big.
if woody were around he'd teach these ladies how to make capiarinhas as it seemed we were sipping raw cachaca. we watched the singing/dancing/instrument playing parade and talked about some strange vibes coming out of the kabula group. as i watched the parade i could just imagine, melton road in leicester full up with people, and a few dhol and toombi playing bands walking the street with everyone singing along drinking bacardi and coke! hahah! diwali needs a revamp!

live bands were setting up behind us, and people began to sing and dance, awesome looking ladies. sorta left me catatonic. a lot of them were rubbing the underside of their noses though. i was quite amazed how well i danced considering all my injuries...i tried, thats the most important thing! we left around 4am, the streets smelt ridiculously like caiparinhas (i really dont know how to spell that!!)

today? i dunno whattagwarn. im hanging in limbo, wanting to see the cristo redentor and get some decent pictures. instead, ive bought a green hat with a bow on it, with green clip on ear rings. im shaking my head sidewards as i type this.

the last few days have been un-eventful compared to the last post. a visit to trancoso beach and a fairly relaxing last day in araial d'ajuda before the 22hour bus ride to rio. trancoso had an amazing beach. i took photos and will show in due time.

my last day in araial d'ajuda was topped off with me beating the football conman! hahah! there was this really weird game, where he sets up a small goal, and places to bottles partially full up with water. the task was to score a goal and knock the bottles over. the previous days, ive always wanted a go, thinking "this is easy!" and indeed, it was. man put the ball down, blew his whistle, and i passed the ball into the net hitting both bottles with ease. i could have done that from 50 yards out Xabi Alonso style. so i won r$3. i was challenged again, this time without the r$1 fee. it was free. i didnt quite understand the rules, so i did what i wanted to do, i tried to chip the ball over the bottles and into the net. ended up hitting the crossbar geoff hurst style. i was pleased with my effort considering my mosquito bitten side foot.

it was quite sad leaving araial d'ajuda. i met some really cool people at the hostel, so i asked for their email addesses, so we could hook up in rio later on. so now, I have safely arrived in Santa Tereza, Uptown Rio to meet up with a few Kabula Angola capoiera friends, only to find that they are planning a 6-hour bus trip to a house in the middle of nowhere!! - which apparently has a waterfall! as much as bathing in a waterfall sounds, another bus trip with a backpack two days running could potentially ruin me! (also, for r$150 sounded rather expensive, if i do say so myself!)

Santa Tereza itself is a very scenic place to be. historically, its one of the last proper brazillian villages in Rio. It's higher than downtown rio, not as high as the favela areas (where i have already heard gun fire!) but high enough to get some really good photos. to get here, you can take the metro tube/buses (like the tube/london underground) or use the bonde do santa tereza tram service, where you get to see some amazing scenes along the way, stopping at Largos Das Neves.

anyway, i'm off to go eat some banana's on Ipanema beach.

mixed emotions about porto seguro! (not Puerto Segunda)
i was a little dehydrated to be honest, since the 22hour bus ride took a hell of a lot out of me, i was offered some weird stuff from this girl from cali, i dont think it agreed with me, some sort of pumpkin seed tasting weirdness. and you know what happens when you get dehydrated right? i aint gonna get into ´it.

met some english girls and south african lads and decided to go out with them. we couldnt afford the 30reais$, so we just went to a few bars around town. where we bumped into an american girl with a bouncer of a boyfriend, damn was she annoying, talked about how her mum had a condo and shouted `STAY AWAY FROM THE CHLORINE! IT TURNS YOUR HAIR GREEEN!´ i was like ´what beach were you at?´ after taking the mickey out of them for an hour, i had an early night and left the tequila bar at 1am.

the day after, we discovered that the south african lads took a trek through the jungle to get to the full moon party! we were well impressed. after a day of chilling, and booking the trip back to rio, we decided to gate crash the party at night time.

the south african lads took lead, there was stu, woody and i following suit. man, i was in havianas and it really wasnt a good idea, there i was climbing through trees following the moonlight to the beach when suddenly a spot light hit us! hahah, security was damn tight. crossing the beach was a no no (but the beach lit up at night time was an awesome sight) so we looked for another route.

the building was made out of pine trees and sort of floating like a pier on the beach. so we headed directly through the bushes to the raft. slipping off tree branches occasionally. as we got closer to the party, our stealth skills had to come into play. we were crouching in shadows waiting for the security to move. we waited a really long time. the south africans bust a move, rattling the tree gaining attention to our spot, woody legged it as the security guards closed in on us.stu´s havianas had a suction in the mud that left him literally stuck. i tried to turn back, but it was pitch black out there, couldnt see a thing!

so we got caught and were thrown out after a few slaps. that was just a crazy night that had to be attempted really. normally we´d just pay, but hey, we followed the south africans :( a caipirinha calmed our nerves as we waited for the rest to get thrown out. woody apparently ended up being electric shocked under the raft and luckily found a ladder to climb out of his surroundings. the south africans, the jammy barstuds managed to get in by asking where the loo´s are! bloody hell man. well jealous.

man this is tiring stuff this holiday lark!

now we are in Arraial d~ajuda and its by miles the most impressive beach ive visited so far, ive taken nuffadem pictures so i´ll upload ´em soon. the hostel is owned by a welshmen and most of the tennants are english, which is handy. couple of nights ago we decided to make a bucket full of capairinhas to share and head out. Arraial d~ajuda is awesome at night, with live bands playing randomly on the cobbled streets and people dancing in sync with one another. People just randomly joined in from the streets.

for some reason we ended up on a beach even though we were no where near one. s´what you get for drinking so much i suppose. yesterday we just chilled and watched the rolling stones concert on a big screen, there were a couple of dressed up little girls rocking along...well cute they were really going for it! early night after we shopped on the square, which sold lots of beady and wooden things.

today, the whole hostel walked to trancoso, its a nice quiet beach around there, with nothing but locals and brasilians. i have a feeling something weird is going to happen tonight, we are going to a hip hop party, which is right up my street! hopefully my mosquito-bitten-blistered-feet can move a little! i hate mosquitos...

oh and crouchs header went down well didnt it? got a feeling liverpool will meet chelsea somewhere down the fa cup route (preferably the final) i hope someones recording the matches for me!! and shameless!!

leave your comments!!

Ola from Puerto Segunda!

Its been a long long long 4 days! The first few days in Rio were washed out, yep, raining. but this only brought the people in the hostel in an extremely steep copacabana road closer. met two guys from northampton who~ve introduced me to all you can eat buffets and caparinhas on the first day. it was quite fitting that theyve got 10 days to kill before the carnival starts on the 23-24th and plan to go back to rio. because so do i!

so ive decided to latch intothat group. went to ipanema beach and watched a few people play volley ball the following day. them girls really do have amazing bodies, i joked previously *it must be the beef, all that protein* because they damn sure love the cow. after the beach we were planning ongoing to seeing a cup final with botafogo vs america (local brazillian team not the country). but we werefeelinghungry and the damn spacebar dontworkproperly! so we found a place where you pay like 15r$ for a plate and people just come round with skewers of meat, inticing you into accepting. i tended to stay away from red meat and opted for chicken. anyway!

there wasa frantic rush outside the hostel when they delivered the newsthat there may not be tickets availbale for me and this french girl.
so we decidedtomakeour own way there til the taxi said that maybethe hostel can get some spare tickets? ran up the steep road in aflash (the van wasnt able to go up it! thats how steep it was!)

eventually i got tix and i was able to relax for awhile. outside the maracana stadium, the fans were going mental! you wouldnt get this at anfield...they were singing rhymes and a few wereso passionate that they came face to face at us and shouted these senseless words! that wasa tad intimading.

in a tight first half botafogo were 1-0 down, i was sort of frustrated at the movement ofthe front two, but that all changed in the second at they were instrumental in the 3-1 win. it was quite weird though, i know my football, but these goals were insignificant through my eyes, and they brought no emotion. to them its like they beat chelsea in the final, but wedidnt know. i guess its like a liverpool supporter heard that middlesborough had beaten chelsea 3-0! if only hey? hahah! i was impressed with the crowd anthems,the only one we knew went by thetune of !when the saintsgo marching in! the passion in the crowd was immense and the 2ndgoal was celebrated amazingly, there was this hot girl leaping repetitively shouting !campiones! allong with the crowd. funny that. our teams always sing championes, ole ole ole....but erm its not really rightisit?

anyway, i was broke after the match, got lost in copacabana findingthe hsbc bank, ended up sprinting the roads, whcih was fun.

on a last minute tip, ended up going to a favelas nightclub in the hood of the ghetto. amazing. the music was sorta hybrid hip hop samba, lots of lady boys, onehuge 6ft5 one too, bloody hell he didnt even close to looking likea she.

had a fairly decent night.

decided that couldnt stay in rio with the weather like this, so we took a 22hour coach trip to puerto segunda, where the beach is amazing (the sun is beaming down here), and everything is significantly cheaper than rio. its more like a thailand beach. but the night life, i am yet to discover as there is a full moon party tonight.

we are going to work our way back down to rio, where the festival is at. puerto segunda is supposed to have the 3rd biggest carnival behind salvador (3 day bus trip - so forget that!) and rio, so it should be a good couple of days!

liverpool beat arsenal!! garcia! awesome.

anyway! happy valentines day! havea few skols!

Sat

p.s. forward this email on to people you may think i have forgotton, because, heathrow didnt allow me to press the return key and slowed me down, strapped for time! OH YEAH! i met gita samani at the airport, she gone to rina khilani/s wedding. random man. proper.