this time we had managed to pre-warn giulianna and cahe that we were paying them a visit, so they were prepared. we arrived and met another couchsurfer there, yuri, who we spent a lot of time with and whose company we thoroughly enjoyed. yuri is extremely well travelled and is very knowledgable about every place she's been, making her very interesting to talk to.
the first thing yuri did was invite us to a couchsurfing meeting to go see a samba school practice for the carnival. we arrived at the meeting point and once everyone had arrived there were about 20 to 30 people, speaking about 5 different languages, somehow connected through couchsurfing. we set off to the samba practice and were absolutely thrilled by what we found> a huge stretched out stadium, with a parade of about 2 to 3 thousand people all wearing matching outfits and playing instruments or dancing or just strutting. it was amazing. the atmosphere was fantastic, with everyone moving to the rhythm of the drums and clapping and cheering.
we had to leave early to meet giulianna and cahe to go dancing with them. we came home at four in the morning, exhausted from all the dancing.
day two was spent mostly in the maracana stadium, the big and famous (or so they tell me) stadium of rio. we watched fluminense against someone non-local, and fluminense won. while i see nothing interesting in watching soccer, the people watching at stadiums is good, and the feeling at the game was happy and suspenseful and excited. in the evening we ate falafels and talked deep into the night.
sunday we got up early despite the lack of sleep and humberto and laura (friends of cahe's and giulianna's) took us a to a nearby waterfall. we took a short taxi ride to another part of town, walked 10 min up one street, and entered deep jungle with candomble ceremonies going on around us, worshipping nature. after another killer-ant-ridden 20 min walk we were at a waterfall! in the middle of the city!! craaazy. on the way back we were bombarded with jackfruit seeds by monkeys sitting in the trees having a feast.
the afternoon was spent eating a lot of delicious vegan food, made by the amazing giulianna - how she finds the energy for her life i don't know. she works two jobs, as a plastic surgeon as well as a surgeon in a hospital, then comes home and bakes or cooks, then goes dancing and gets up early to go to work. someone explain that.
time to leave... after a short stop in lapa to see if my dearly missed buenos aires shirt was still there, which it wasn't, we went to the rodoviaria and left to sao paulo, our last destination of the trip.
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