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12:00 Went for a bar to have coffee with milk and some snacks. The two first bars didn't have kibe (local meatball) despite of being on their menu. We chose another snack but they didn't have it either. We ordered coffee with milk but there was no milk. We didn't order anything. In the third bar the waiter forgot to clean the table after the previous customers and didn't bring the mineral water we had ordered. He didn't forget the service fee, though.

14:00 Hotel Copacabana Sol in Rio de Janeiro charged extra for a one-time razor. The price of the razor was not mentioned in the price list which on the other hand contained all the other things with additional charge. The receptionist of the same hotel didn't bother to find out the timetable of airport bus when we asked.

14:30 The receptionist of another hotel showed us to the right bus stop. We waited there for 1,5 hours. She said the bus goes every 45 minutes. It never came.

16:00 We asked how much is a taxi ride to the airport. The first taxi driver tried to charge us 70 reals for a trip worth of maximum 30 reals.

17:00 Went to a restaurant in Rio's airport. The prices of the menu and the prices charged differed. The waiter told us that the menu was outdated and the prices had suddenly risen. Also a service "tax" was added.

20:30 When we arrived at Sao Paolo's international airport, an airport official stopped us. According to the official our luggage was not ours. We chose to ignore him.

22:00 We went to an international hotel chain Ibis near the airport. The advertised room was 69 reals. We paid with 70 reals and didn't get any change. The receptionist told us that one extra real was charged as tourist "tax".

23:00 Went for a dinner to a local bar in Guarulhos. We ordered an entrecote with big bowl of French fries, and confirmed that two times. We didn't get any French fries. We were told that they are not included in the portion by another waitress. We got a few loafs of microwave oven dried bread instead. Entrecote was a small pile of junk meat pieces.

23:30 We ordered an entrecote with French fries in Hotel Ibis. The staff told us that they had run out of French fries and we did not get any food that evening.

That's all folks!

The carnival appears in two kind of forms. The one you can see in television happens in Sambódromo, which is a kind of Colosseum built for samba parades. There is about 4000-5000 "dancers" per samba school jumping around, 5-10 fancy vehicles (a real 'himmeli' in Finnish) and altogether 14 schools competing with each other. The Sambódromo is so long, that we watched the parade for 15 minutes after 45 minutes of waiting. One school was enough. They all looked the same to us, and even played the same samba tune about a thousand times during parades. We got tickets free from some people exiting the arena, so we must admit that Sambódromo had a good value for money unlike everything else in Rio. We talked with an English couple who had paid £ 80 per ticket.

The other kind of action happens on the streets. Schedules of happenings, places and quality are totally random, in the Brazilian way, and in reality there is very little amount of things going on. Most of the time streets are empty and people hang around Sambódromo. The best action was in the entrance where dancers prepared and other people drank beer watching them. In Ipanema there was a gay parade with beautiful drag queens. It was actually quite fun. In general the street bands called blocos just play loudly, horribly, and wrong, and the music comes actually from a CD. We have by now seen only one live band playing and it had no audience. Even in Sambódromo there were not many musicians.

In the first day of Carnival we went from the city centre to an ill-reputated place called Laka. We had attended a Lonely Planet back-packer meeting in a nearby bar. After drinking a few beers from street vending sites and some caipirinhas in the meeting Santeri fainted to the street. He was just wearing slippers and bermuda shorts. He fell down to street which was covered with shit and piss and got scratches to his feet. A friendly carioca (a citizen of Rio de Janeiro) helped Päivi to poor water on top of him and feed him ketchup for gaining back salt balance. That helped and we got back to our hotel alive. Next day we were better prepared. Santeri wore rubber boots, army trousers and black shirt. Everything went fine after the first night.

We stayed the five days in the famous Copacabana district. Our hotel was luxurious compared to the previous ones in Olinda and Salvador, and we especially enjoyed the great breakfast buffet and TV broadcasting James Bond films (dubbed into English).

An idea Santeri got today while drinking his morning coffee at 3pm: Democracy has proven it's failure in the US, in the leading democracy of the world. Mad populists are able to take over the power and start wars because of political and financial interests. The next step of evolution might be anarchy. It could provide a better safeguard against blood thirsty maniacs like Hitler and George W. Bush.

A haiku poem in Finnish we wrote of the carnival:

Rion sambakarnevaali

Samba ain samaa
Iloista ihmismassaa
Kadulla pissaa

Do you remember this? A song in Finnish telling about Copacabana:

Maria Copacabanasta

1. Pikkuinen tyttö on kyllä Maria,
resuinen mekko on yllä Marian.
Seudun nimi on Copacabana,

Marian koti on Copacabana.

2. Siskojen katras on hänellä suuri,
nukkumaan mahtuvat juuri ja juuri,
mökkiin laidalla Copacabanan,
Marian koti on Copacabana.

3. Leikki vielä on
työtä Marian,
muitten lapsien myötä Maria
leikkii kujalla
Copacabanan,
Marian koti on Copacabana.

4. Yhtälailla on
leluja vailla
lapsi jokainen niillä mailla.
Köyhää väki on
Copacababan,
Marian koti on Copacabana.

5. Ystävämme on pikku Maria.
Mielellämme me kanssa Marian,
leikkisimme, vaan Copacabana,

kovin on kaukana Copacabana.

It seems that we have lived the Brazilian Samba Carnival and do not have to do it again. Next we head to the Dominican Republic and see hopefully as well Haiti, voodoo and real zombies unlike Paavo Lipponen.

Be happy,

Päivi & Santeri

One of our most important tasks here has been the prolonging of our visas. We went to the Federal Police today for the fifth time and we finally made it. We wore decent clothes, waited patiently in the queues, ran from desk to desk and paid many fees. Now we have a permission to stay here until the end of February but we'll leave right away after Rio's Carnival. Ha-ha!

We've got enough of Brazil by now. Constant cheating is perhaps the worst thing but as tourists it is our divine obligation to enjoy it. As a thanks we are writing a tourist's handling guide to Brazilians containing all the nasty tips and tricks. Hope it will be fun for you, too.

Be happy,

Päivi & Santeri