Day 1

Day 1

12 Hours on a plane
Meet Afro Reggae at the airport, its hot, sticky with warm air. Its dark and its 5.30pm

Its one month before their winter and 23 degrees, we are all sweating haha

Shakes and hugs, old friends together apart in their land this time, singsongs in the van in a darkened air cooled van driving through Rio.

Arrive at hotel SESC, which is a cultural centre and theatre aswell, its only 5 mins walk from the famous copacanbana beach.!

The air is warm and the people are brown, we are white, really white.

Surreal and weird we walk this new place, no one can believe we are here, we are jet lagged, disorientated in a good way.

We walk the beautifully tiled pavements, people watching and observing the eaters, runners, hustlers, workers and tourists.

We meet Paul from Peoples Palace, have local food and a chopp (beer).

Rachel decides to take us weary travellers toa local bar, which seems to function as a meeting place for ladies of the night, gender bending dancing folk, men who watch your every move and drunk burly men from south africa and uk.

60% night ladies, 30% dunno, 10% lost tourists, in awe and shock at the scenes unfolding naturally before us. Feels weird, but strangley we are drawn to this seedy but somehow normal situation.

Few more chopps and head home, on the way back we discover the Rio 'Ghetto Work out benches' which are situated every mile along the strip, drunk pull ups are executed.

Sleep like babies.