Sail Away

Monday 12 April
Rio de Janiero

I had a good sleep last night, what with the lack from the night before and the lack of any disturbance in the dorm. A Kiwi guy called Philip (or should I say Phulup), a guy who I met in Florianopolis, was also in my dorm so I hung out with him during the day.

We both went for haircuts, going back to exactly the same place that I had my first South American haircut about a month and a half ago, when I was in Rio the last time. For 8 Reals (about £2.60) it’s not bad value. I did some research on Bolivia in the afternoon and then hung out again with random people in the hostel for a few drinks. The guys from Oxford were there again, Kiwi Phul and we talked to a Dutch guy who was typically tall.

There was a boat party advertised in the hostel that evening and I was toying with the idea of not going due to the journey to Bolivia the next day, but a combination of convincing both of myself and others meant that eventually Kiwi, Oxford, Dutch and I all ended up going.

Before that I had dinner with Phul and the Dutch guy at a nice Arabic restaurant. It became clear that the Dutch guy was relentlessly horny which is always entertaining. He spent most of the night on the boat hitting on a hot Norwegian girl. And the damning evidence from Facebook suggests that ultimately he hooked up in some shape or form with the girl in the Oxford group, which is also amusing.

So anyway we all went on the boat party that was a largish boat that basically pottered around Guanabara bay for about five hours. It departed from Marina del Gloria which was where we went to the Armin van Buuren rave on Mardi Gras (Pancake Day). We went all the way to a big bridge thing that crossed the bay and there was also an huge oil platform within the bay itself. Though we weren’t convinced it was for oil – Phul works in the industry and didn't think it was – it did seem out of place. We also went past one of the airports where there was a big Varig hangar, which is notable since Varig doesn’t exist any more, and that the Varig logo is very 1920s (blocky, art deco style type) as the town of Rio itself.

The party was pretty good although the generator for the music and lights cut out for about half an hour at the start of the trip which got everyone worried. Once it was consistently back on the party was in full swing. Phul covered himself in glow sticks. We all danced to the cheesy dance pop songs that are played the world over. You know the ones. They played the “Revalation” song and the “Brap-pa-pa” song. Towards the end we all kinda wanted to go to bed. Got back to bed at about 5 I think.