Walking to Copacabana beach in Rio the morning after we`d arrived I felt immediately pale and hopelessly overdressed - everyone, but everyone was tanned mahogany brown and wearing swimming costumes - bikinis for the girls, speedos for the boys - regardless of shape and size. Oh there were some sights. There were a lot of toy dogs about, tripping along in the wake of the older ladies and gents who bore the creases and indentations of their age and experience with stately nonchalance, presumably fully aware that you can get away with a whole lot more bulk the more tanned you are. Lots of gold jewelery. After a walk along the beach to get our bearings, dazzled by the flesh on show, I cut loose and dived into the shops to try and find some clothes to wear which would make me look slightly less like Miss Marple age 32. After manfully standing by while I rifled through the racks and shot out of one shop into another with no warning, G bought some flipflops and took himself off to one of the bars on the beachfront to have a beer and watch the world go by. Both of us wondered why we hadn`t been doing sit-ups and press-ups for months in preparation for our visit.
Our good friends Jill and Ryan arrived on 29th, and having met up in the early evening we headed to Lapa, the district where the samba traditionally developed in Rio. We all made a point of how little we had been drinking and what lightweights we were, and once that was out of the way ordered caipiroskas and caipirinhas (vodka in the first, rum in the second) at a bar on the pavement and set about putting the world to rights. We ended the night in a club across the street which was absolutely packed on account of a singer who had a very mellow jazzy voice, and lent our peculiar English moves to the heaving dancefloor. I can`t do the samba. It is nothing like the Latin American couples samba I learned in ballroom dancing at school (this was an extra curricular lunchtime thing I hasten to add, I did not attend a school which had ballroom dancing on the syllabus) - it is very very fast moving of feet which somehow makes the bottom move very fast from side to side, even faster than Beyonce in her video for `Crazy in Love`, and I can`t do that either. Everyone around us was very smiley and friendly and didn`t mind the collisions, although I did get a bit of a dirty look when I dropped my glass of caipirinha on the floor (most of it went down my top so it was mainly the glass on the floor that caused the upset). It was a great night.
It was bewildering to be in a country where we could not speak Spanish - or at least we could, but chances of us being understood were not great. In the end I actually spoke Spanish anyway, as I found Portuguese really difficult. It is a very harsh sounding, almost Eastern European in its tone and the way it is spoken, generally without smiles and with sharp gestures and tone. I had forgotten the embarrassment of not being able to say the simplest things, and how rude and stupid I feel when someone speaks to me and I can say literally nothing that they will understand. Hopefully the expression on my face conveys how sorry I am.
We reacquainted ourselves with the finer things in life over the next few days and had some lovely dinners in places where the hostesses scowled at my flip-flops and shorts and I wished that I had managed to find some pretty dresses of a reasonable length during my shopping spree. We took bikes around the Laguna, walked through the botanical gardens, went up Corcovado (where Christ the Redeemer is) and jostled with the holiday crowds for our turn to take pictures of the stunning views of the city. Rio is surprisingly green, viewed from above; there are lots of parks and trees, a huge racetrack, and other mountains (including Sugarloaf) covered in greenery which create an attractive skyline as well as adding some colour. The ocean is bright blue and the marina is dotted with yachts, the beaches are pale whiteish yellow streaks, and one evening we looked down from Sugarloaf to see the light of the setting sun reflecting off the windows of the city`s buildings, gleaming over the Laguna. It`s a very interesting shape as well, although I never really got my bearings because we were taking cabs everywhere and I wasn`t allowed to have the map. (Maps, like TV remotes, are apparently for boys).
NYE was epic. We got a picnic together and headed to Copa beach at about 8, staking out a pitch near one of the huge screens, and Jill and I started mixing in the fetching orange plastic jug we`d bought from the supermarket. We invented a new cocktail called a `mankyroska` in honour of Jill and Ryan being from up north, and ham sandwiches. Despite our worries about being safe, we didn`t have any problems at all - there were families around us and kids playing football, and no sign of people getting dangerously drunk or drugged up and no signs of violence at all. Everyone was just dancing to the Brazilian music pumping out of the speakers, and watching the dancers and musicians performing on the stage via the big screen. It was wonderful being in the warm, outside, in the soft sand - such a difference from home! At midnight the fireworks kicked off from 3 barges in the bay, and lasted for 20 minutes, they were amazing. before watching the fantastic firework display which kicked off at 12 and lasted 20 minutes. At about 2am G decided to lead an expedition to Ipanema, and we gave the remains of our picnic to a family next to us on the beach (I was very reluctant to give away our remaining tomatoes, and as G reminded me the following day, announced that I needed them more than the family did! how shameful. in my defence I was more than happy for them to have everything else, I think I must have foreseen how much I was going to need the extra vitamins the next morning...). The expedition was a total failure: it took us forever to find a cab (of course it did, it was NYE) and when we arrived at 10 to 4 everything was packed up and people were heading home, so we had to start walking back to Copa while trying to find another cab to take us home. We got back to our hostel just as the sky was getting light, and dropped into bed most gratefully.
We left Rio a couple of days later, heading to Iguaçu Falls (Foz do Iguaçu) on the Brazilian-Argentine border. It was a 25 hour bus journey and pretty dire. The Falls were absolutely worth the trip though; they can be visited from the Brazilian and the Argentinian side, and we did both on consecutive days. on the Brazilian side there is also a bird park, which is packed with tropical birds such as parrots, parrakeets (don`t ask me what the difference is, I have no idea, unless it`s the size), macaws, rheas (like ostriches), hummingbirds, spoonbilled boobies (well, spoonbilled something) and one mean-looking and huge thing with a blue crest which apparently can kill humans. Plus my own personal favourites, toucans and flamingoes. Remembering my lack of success at making the grey russian parrot talk to me in Dunedin (the notice on its enclosure said that the bird was likely to mimic if it was interested in what you were saying - the ignorant fowl fell asleep while I was chatting to it) I was a little piqued when G walked up to the first parrot that we saw and said `hello` and got a `hello` in return, then a wolf whistle. No accounting for taste. Bah.
Having spent 2 hours walking around and taking pictures of G with a macaw on his head, we moved on to the Falls. It was like a theme park - open top buses (and a mini train on the Argentinian side the next day) and lots of tracks and child-friendly signs about not feeding the animals. The Falls occur at the point where 2 rivers (the Paraña and the Iguaçu) meet, and where the frontiers of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet, and were created by a geological fault that occurred something like 200 000 years ago. The biggest waterfall is 80m high, although there are over 200 waterfalls in the park. For the detail-fiends among you, the water flows at a rate of 1500 cubic meters of water per second. A lot of water. The pounding power of the bigger waterfalls is mesmerising, and strangely elating. They are seen by walking along paths and out onto `catwalks` over the river, from where the spray from the waterfalls is so abundant you get soaked. Rainbows appear where the sun catches the drops thrown up by the torrents of water hitting the river below, and tiny birds flock in and out playing in the thermals. On the Argentinian side we took a boat trip and went underneath a couple of the waterfalls, getting absolutely drenched and hysterical - we bought the DVD of our trip which is utterly rubbish, but it does have the noise that 30 overexcited adults make when they are hammered with tepid water - shrieking and whooping followed by spluttering and coughing and suffocated silence, following by more cheering and whooping. How old ARE you? I mislaid both contact lenses and was thankful not to feature in the DVD much, as I spent much of the time between waterfalls rolling my eyes around my head like a lunatic drunk trying to get them back into place. G spent most of his time saluting at the camera man and cheering. By the time we emerged from the boat, both fatigued and fulfilled, the late afternoon sun was making double rainbows in the spray from the falls and glittering off the trees and rocks. It was an amazing place, set in beautiful rainforest, powerful and violent yet magical at the same time. One of the places that makes you realise how insignificant some things are, and how much strength lies in nature that could instantly destroy everything that men have created, given just the slightest push in the wrong direction.
I was reminded again of this on the way to Trelew (Patagonia) when the bus steward put on Armageddon, a film which I remember watching in the cinema and still sobbing with fear and emotion as I tried to start the car to drive home. It could happen. It could happen, and where will Bruce Willis be then? (I think I started weeping again when I got home and told my mum what the film was about, tearily informing her that I thought my own dad would make the same sacrifice as Bruce does at the end. I was 22 years old at the time, and her reaction was a mix of exasperation, confusion, and worry that I was still so affected after 2.5 years of being at university). I couldn`t watch the film with full volume and took my headphones off so that I could barely hear the dialogue and the music, which much alleviated the strain and tension.