Brazil

The most popular sport in Brazil is Football (soccer). The National Team is immensely popular, not only in Brazil but also in the many parts of the world where football is appreciated, and there is also a renowned National League, boasting a nation-wide competition as well as several regional competitions.

factor of living in third world countriies like Brazil is that you can’t usually trust the police. They stopped and searched me a couple of times near my apartment in Rio de Janeiro. They couldn’t figure what a foreigner would be doing so close to a favela if not to buy drugs.

I found and rented a apartment in Rio de Janeiro after only one afternoon of looking around. The ad had been put in the paper by a little old lady called Eunice and she rented me a small studio in Ipanema for $200. The bedsheets and paintings on the wall could only have been chosen by a 65 year old lady but, once they were safely hidden away, it wasn’t a bad little den.

I’d met Luciana in the street during the Carnival in Brazil and she invited me to stay her afterwards in her apartment on the other side of Recife. But from the moment I stepped inside I knew it wasn’t going to work out.

As a kid in England I remember that the third most exciting day in the Christian calendar (after Present Day and Chocolate Egg Day) was Shrove Tuesday.

The wealthy in a poor country tend to be far richer than the wealthy in a rich country. There may not be quite as many zeros in their bank accounts but what they do have can buy a hell of a lot more at local prices.

Brazil is a world leader in economic indifference. The division of wealth here is so appalling that you wonder why no one ever seems to talk about it. The glitzy shipping malls in Rio de Janeiro are full of rich kids trying on the Emperor’s new clothes whilst the poor are dodging bullets in the favelas and praying to Maria for a way out.

Most tourists get the wrong idea about Brazilian sexuality. The media hype Brazil as a land of easy sex in order to draw millions of foreign men each year to enjoy the Carnival.

Lapa is the only real Rio nightlife for me. It’s a street in a historic district of the city where all classes and ages of people come to mingle through the drift of faces, tipsy and illuminated.

When most people think of a river trip they imagine a peaceful excursion along the shores of Nature, picnics in the sun and an old boat creaking along in the drift.