January 30th: I arrive in Rio de Janeiro via Buenos Aires a knackered and disorientated schmoo. A guy trying to sell us a taxi ride tells me I look like Brad Pitt - ha. Carnaval doesn't start for a few days, so we have plenty of time to settle into our fun-but-not-exactly-good-value hostel; running water is not always in plentiful supply.
Before long, we're sunning ourselves on Copacabana beach and zooming around town to see the mahoosive Jaysus statue and a very odd cone-shaped cathedral that looks like a cross between a pyramid and a spaceship. At our first taste of street partay shenanigans, Karen & meself get laughed at for dancing like the pasty British tourists that we are - we're so not bovverred though; the sense of joy, or 'alegria' is infectious.
The 'Sambódromo' is the epitomy of carnaval spirit, a huge arena-type-thang where all the samba schools compete and the parades get more insane by the minute. Tickets sell out way before the festivities begin, and touts can charge upwards of £80, so we pretty much decide that it's too expensivo... that's before a dodgy policeman spots us in one of the main squares and offers to sell them to us for a tenner! He even has to take us aside so that his colleagues don't see him in the act - Brazilian corruption is alive and well it would seem. The night itself is incredible apart from one minor detail - just after the first parade ends it begins to piss it down. In an amazing display of supply-and-demand, plastic bag ponchos are immediately being snapped up left, right and centre!
