And so to our adventure in Rio! First, we throw in our beautiful hostel, which includes a relaxation area with hammocks, pub overlooking the street, rooms with noisy fans, showers and well-chosen music, icing on the cake .... a group of round jacuzzi on the terrace! In short, we were in the legendary Mellow Yellow!
The hostel is located near one of the most famous beaches of Rio, Copacabana. What is famous for? Of course there are so many pretty boys and pretty girls in bikinis walking. Certainly an example of this type of beauty can be found below, but it is rare to see them all together ... ;)
These beauties had not yet reached absurd levels of tanning ... well ... burn! The long sandy beaches, full of sellers-of-any-thing (caipirinha, guava juice, fresh, delicious skewered shrimp ... etc. etc.!), We drew from the very beginning ... and that was how we went where did not have to go ...
I still remember our footprints on the sands of Copacabana, that our first night. The memories are a bit 'blurred , because we were tired from the trip and a bit' vulneraBBoli, perhaps dumbed down from the trip .... and that false sense of security that gave us the light. The place was lit up, almost. We ate across the street from the beach, populated by many bars teem with people and the Hotel Excelsior. Beyond the street, others stood on the sand bars (even a crappy McDonalds by way 'of tent!). Further on, a group of kids playing soccer near the sea, where light thinned out, but still near the road, some little family sat in the sea breeze to watch the waves.
Everything happens quickly. Two kids knocked down Derek, the one with the backpack, and a cautious but determined approach to Jason asking the time. Yvette Derek tells me on the floor, I see Jason back .... and so I started running and Yvette why we ran into the street. The sand made the slow steps, and we were afraid of being chased, but when my head has had the courage to lean on the shoulder to look back, everything was calm. As nothing has happened really ...
So were the people to turn to for help in English, calm and indifferent. Someone tells us of the lights. We do not find anything. We return to the bar. Someone pulls out the phone hesitantly but does not call. Trust the police here? Better not have anything to do, maybe he thought. We find an ambulance, no injuries but does not move an ambulance. FOR DINCH, someone who moves! The boys are doing well? What happened?
breath, we finally reach a police car, but it is not set up special police to help "tourists" like us, who are robbed every day, but a normal patrol. No one speaks English. I do understand with the English but it takes at least ten minutes until they move. They make me stupid questions like: what did they steal? How many were there exactly? As if I had stayed there, waiting to find out!
Eventually we move, and find the guys on the roadside with our sandals in hand. We had left on the beach. Indeed, as Jason had been buried by Yvette game, and he had taken the time to find them after the attack! Luckily it did not happen anything: a head injury of Derek when he fell and held out a threat never carried out with a knife in Jason, and a camera and the equivalent of twenty dollars lost. Little stuff, and all safe and sound. Luckily my friends are still with us in this world!
Actually thieves-assailants are often young kids who maybe have not yet entered in the drug trade and that probaBBolimente living in poor areas of the city. These are favelas, ghettos slums , rustic houses built on each other, and particularly in hilly areas of the city, in direct contact with the richest, inhabited by the elite, down to the sea. One of the most interesting contrasts and typical of Rio is precisely this juxtaposition of rich and poor, luxurious and anti-hygienic, high and low. All together, mixed in a web very difficult to dissolve, and is also found in many other parts of South America.
But what are the favelas? Our group went on a reckless way to find out ... In the next post.
So were the people to turn to for help in English, calm and indifferent. Someone tells us of the lights. We do not find anything. We return to the bar. Someone pulls out the phone hesitantly but does not call. Trust the police here? Better not have anything to do, maybe he thought. We find an ambulance, no injuries but does not move an ambulance. FOR DINCH, someone who moves! The boys are doing well? What happened?
breath, we finally reach a police car, but it is not set up special police to help "tourists" like us, who are robbed every day, but a normal patrol. No one speaks English. I do understand with the English but it takes at least ten minutes until they move. They make me stupid questions like: what did they steal? How many were there exactly? As if I had stayed there, waiting to find out!
Eventually we move, and find the guys on the roadside with our sandals in hand. We had left on the beach. Indeed, as Jason had been buried by Yvette game, and he had taken the time to find them after the attack! Luckily it did not happen anything: a head injury of Derek when he fell and held out a threat never carried out with a knife in Jason, and a camera and the equivalent of twenty dollars lost. Little stuff, and all safe and sound. Luckily my friends are still with us in this world!
Actually thieves-assailants are often young kids who maybe have not yet entered in the drug trade and that probaBBolimente living in poor areas of the city. These are favelas, ghettos slums , rustic houses built on each other, and particularly in hilly areas of the city, in direct contact with the richest, inhabited by the elite, down to the sea. One of the most interesting contrasts and typical of Rio is precisely this juxtaposition of rich and poor, luxurious and anti-hygienic, high and low. All together, mixed in a web very difficult to dissolve, and is also found in many other parts of South America.
But what are the favelas? Our group went on a reckless way to find out ... In the next post.
