Didn't sleep much due to lack of glass on my window (read: lots of noisel and mosquitoes) and my new French dorm buddy getting home in the early hours and turning off the fan (apparently 30 degrees qualifies as "cool weather") I decided to get up and head to the beach. And for breakfast. Because no breakfast = not an Amiee you want to see.
I went to a place called Gringo Cafe. It's in Ipanema. I ate bacon and eggs and fruit smoothie. I'm not sorry.
On my walk down to the bottom of the favela I saw a guy carrying a new door... uphill... by himself (no shirt.. Reow), a Santa in a blue Santa suit on the back of a motorbike, followed by someone in a lion suit on another motorbike.
Seems like there's actually garbage collection here. The process seems to be... Everyone dumps their rubbish in big piles... Then a garbage truck comes and collects. I'm pretty impressed considering the nature of the neighbourhood. And the garbage man waved to me.
I went to the beach. It was so damn hot I couldn't even deal. 38 and no breeze. I am not tropical. I am not a toucan. I don't even know how I dealt when I lived in Biloela for 18yrs and 38 was a standard daily summer temperature. I couldn't swim because I had my phone with me and you can't leave your damn bag or it'll get damn stolen. So I Iay on a towel and oozed perspiration. Correction, I lay on a sarong because I left my damn towel in Chile. I think I was the most clothed and probably just about the whitest girl in Ipanema. Two beach vendor guys spoke at me.. In Portuguese.. Which I don't understand. I can only assume they were something along the lines of "girl you WHITE" "why you wear such big grandma bathers?".
I was supposed to meet Pablo at 1 but instead it turns out we both waited for each other for about an hour at different beach kiosks about 100m away. On the upside, I drank the coldest most delicious coconut of my life.
After giving up on Pablo and withering in the heat I found a shopping mall to sit in and absorb air conditioning and steal wifi. I promptly forgot to find and buy the things I require (a towel and ear plugs) and instead ate gelato. These fancy shopping malls have concierge desks which are particularly helpful because they speak English and are paid to be polite and helpful so you can ask them anything about Rio in general. I managed to get directions to a grocery store.
I went a little grocery happy. I ended up inadvertently spending my taxi fare back to the favela. So I had arms full of shopping bags and no money. Good work Amiee. Real smart. Luckily I am actually quite smart because I managed to find a bus that went by the favela. The streets of the favela are so steep and winding (and long) that they self organised this fantastic system of moto-taxis and Kombi mini buses that ferry people up and down the favela for 2.5BR. Unfortunately I seemed to arrive at peak period and had to wait for about half an hour in a queue while my butter slowly melted through the rest of my groceries (why do I need butter? Umm for mashed potato duh). White knuckled it up the favela, willing the helmet not to fly off, holding my groceries with one hand and the back of the moto with the other. You get right of way as a moto on the way up because if you don't keep up a certain amount of speed you fall.
I decided to shower off the sweat of the day. The shower is so god damn filthy. Anyone that knows me knows I'm not precious... But FFS the thing is slimey and brown like it's not been cleaned in months. And I lost my thongs in Chile. Must really add that to the shopping list.
Then I cooked dinner and promptly poured boiling water on my hand. So that's fun. There's no hot water for washing dishes, and the detergent is empty an has been refilled with water.. And even the pseudo detergent water is almost empty. Makes me wonder what I've now contracted by eating with the dishes.
So I decided to make myself a drink (litre of vodka - $9AUD) and watch the sunset over Ipanema (the view really is outrageously sublime ... Sublime is really underused as a word). There's a party going on at the hostel bar with about 100 people.. I can't check it out right now though because I've been put in charge of watching over a sleeping baby. From what I can gather the mother is a friend of one of the hostel workers? She doesn't speak any English but she managed to communicate through gestures that I please watch her sleeping baby.. But I don't have to sit near it.. Just listen out for its cries. Oh look! Fireworks over Rio! Beautiful!!
So the mother of the baby might be more than just friends of the hostel worker... I thought he was showing her the empty private room next to my dorm so she could put the sleeping baby in there rather on the hostel couch... But now they're in there with the door closed.. Alone. It seems I'm babysitting while they're banging. Guess I'll just wait til they're done before I check out this party....
Oh look there she is now. I'm gonna bail while I have a chance.
Peace out.
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