Weekend trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Hey friends,

I am back in Helsinki from an amazing 2 1/2 days trip to Rio de Janeiro...spinning the local BOOTIE Rio Party...so: "Ordem e Progresso"

I arrived Thursday lunch time after an 90minutes bus ride from the aiport directly at the Copacobana beach... (during the bus ride we also crossed some slum districts, interesting first impression for tourists entering Rio...) anyway Copacabana beach was way nicer...the weather was great sun, sun, sun and about 30°C.

The streets are full of exotic plants, and people hanging out on the streets and mainly at Copacabana you have a nice background skyline as hills are surrounding the area...

So I first looked out for my hostel/hotel, it's called Bamboo Rio Hostel, and it's really nice and cute place, nice staff, great bar ...but don't expect German room standards anywhere in Rio... ;-)

Rio de Janeiro and especially Copacobana is a nice & beautiful place in the day, a lot of tourism but you also have here the bad side of Rio or Brazil...at nights it becomes kind of dangerous, a lot of gangs, robbery and so on, especially to tourists because they are Gringo's...so the way of living was: Don't be gringo, act local! ;-)
I was informed beforehand about stories and stuff so I acted wisely and don't had problems...

I just had one incident, when I was walking at the Copacobana beach for 10 minutes, enjoying the atmosphere and stuff, and old Brazilian guy came to me and pointed to my shoe...and oh my god I had fucking big dog or bird shit on my right shoe...and I was thinking how could this happen..."SURPRISINGLY" he had shoe shining & cleaning tools and equipment in his hands but I was directly thinking come on...I know I am a blond european, tall-white guy...I know I am not looking like a local don't treat me like this...I ignored him...his other old friend came...and they tried to talk to me for about 3 minutes and I didn't joined there conversation...I walked back to my room and cleaned my shoes...afterwards I checked the web, and this is like normal tourism treatment of locals, trying to get their money, one puts the shit and when they will clean your shows for a lot of money...Rio & Brazil have a high rate of poor and homeless people and everyone tries to get as much money out of "rich" tourists, taxi drivers will try cheat on you...everyone does...but like with every city of the world...you have these 2 sides...black & white...
Still, Rio is a nice & beautiful city, but you just have to look there to go and how to act...
Unfortunately I didn't made a picture of my shitty shoe...because I was a bad mood that I got cheated directly after 10minutes...but these are experiences for lifetime...haha...

Back to the nice stories & pictures...
So on Friday I took a little tourism tour around Rio de Janeiro, I had a personal guide driving me around some places and he was really cool, explaining me all districts etc...
The highlight of the tour was visiting the Corcovado mountain...
It is known worldwide for the 38-meter statue of Jesus atop its peak, entitled Cristo Redentor or "Christ the Redeemer".

...and you have a great view of Rio de Janeiro...here you see the Cobacabana and it's beach
...the neighbour district Ipanema and the lagoon: Rodrigo de Freitas

....this is the Sugarloaf (Zuckerhut) mountain
On the other side...here you can see in the distance the Maracana soccer stadium of Rio...
Unfortunetaly Steffi couldn't join me on this trip...so I had to travel alone...

...but I took some good small friends with me... ;-)

All over Rio you can see a lot of intersting flowers & plants...

...and you can find some good brazilian beer...I mainly enjoyed: Skol, Brahm & Sol

But now the absolute highlight of my trip...BOOTIE RIO Party on Friday night...

It was a really nice party night in Rio...they have a nice alternative club, great DJs, nice crew members...
Fabiano is the brain behind BOOTIE Rio...great man...he has a lot of great ideas...

The audience was kind of similar to our Berlin crowd at the Cassiopeia...good mixture of pop-rock-electro-funk-rap-metal fans...about the same age...so it was kind of home feeling...;-)
...and they all came for Party: "Put your hands up"

Every BOOTIE Rio Party is about a special Theme, this night was dominated by TV Themes & Television stars...so they dozens of tv series intros over screens...

And people showed up dressed TV & movie related...

This is my favorite picture of me spinning this night...

And here are some more impressions:
(all pictures via: http://ihateflash.net/2010/11/07/bootie-rio-5/)





So on Saturday I had to leave back home...but it was also a rainy day in Rio and no one goes out then... ;-)

So I started by journey back to Helsinki...

I arrived safely in Helsinki...but my luggage was forgotten at my connection stop in Paris and I still wait for my stinky, dirty clothes... and afterwards while entering Helsinki the duty/safety control did a long check of my personal data, passport & personal belongings...asking me a lot of questions what I did in Rio...I think they thought strange about me, just visiting Rio for 2 and a half days... because they directly catched me up after I reported my missing luggage...maybe I'm also looking more terrifying nowadays... ;-)

It was a great weekend but I am also glad to back and safe in Helsinki...Although it's ****ing cold here...I miss my gloves, they are in my suitcase ;-)
Cheerz!
André


Update:
Finally my luggage arrived...yipieh!!! ;-)