SO YOU WANT TO DRESS UP?

Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo: two Brazillian cities of immense contrast. Different one from the other, and huge contrast within each city.
Rio is about 8 million and SP 20+ (pop of Aust!) Huge numbers of poor. Lovely warm people. Security and health - 2 issues that hit you in the face when you come here. Great little corner stores and small bakeries, but also huge shopping malls and chain stores. Quite reasonable prices (though more expensive than Argentina.) Traffic! Traffic! Traffic! Great not driving. Stop signs and stop lights are really just guidelines here as we found last night coming home from Carnaval in a taxi. Big Spanish and Portuguese influence everywhere and Japanese in SP. Efficient and well-patronised metro and bus systems. Nearly all 4 cyl vehicles with the ODD Mitsubishi Pajero. (Like our car.) Pajeros cost a heap (R$200,000) and are often tagetted by bad dudes, so they put in bullet-proof glass! Even seen 5 Commodores!

The 30 m tall Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio was erected in 1931. It is a reminder of Christ´s love for us all, with the statue´s outstretched arms. Indeed, Christ IS the redeemer!

And Carnaval! Unbelievable! Such activity, costumes, elaborate floats, everyone dancing. Hey, costumes doesn´t do justice at all! I think we took as many photos as we did at the falls. The floats and dancers from each school took over an hour to go the full length of the straight with us and everybody else up in the stands resembling the straight at Bathurst car races. There were 7 schools represented, with each school having 4 to 6 gigantic floats. The place was lit up like fairyland.

Too bad I don´t have enough time and space to tell you about dinner at Buffalo Grill. Like the Mercedes Benz version of our Sizzlers. Talk about Food Glorious Food! But then you had to be there .... dining with Jovita, Marcello the King, and the Renata/Roberta/Mum trio. Even Peta pigged out. Glad Jeremy had a crack at the chicken hearts too.

See you in Peru.