Day 33 Rio de Janeiro

I was supposed to be in Salvador de Bahia today, but instead I chose to stay here and hang with Billy for another day. The way Rio has treated me you would think I would know better.

In fact I forgot - in my exhaustion last night- another funny part of the Rio story. After being rained on and getting whited out at the top of the Christ statue - someone had told me that a complete dip in the salt water of the ocean would cleanse all of the bad karma. So Billy and I went to the beach just for me to get wet and change my luck. I went into the water and when I came up I noticed that there was lots of crap floating in the water. It looked like a sewer had backed up and trash and who knows what were floating in the water and we were the only ones in??? Rio, I think you hate me.

Today I went on a tour - not of the usual tourist stuff but of a slum. They call them Favelas and 350,000 people live in 4 square kilometers. The only plus is that this one is located on the side of a mountain overlooking one of the best beaches. If you are going to be poor, this is the place.
In order to get "in" you had to be an approved tour guide and one of Billy's friends gave us the tour of Favela Rocinha .

The police never come into this area. It is governed by a boss - mayor whatever. They are the drug dealers and live here anonymously. There are rules though and we were told that if anyone was to rob or hurt us they would be dead in 5 minutes. That made me feel safe enough.

No building codes, no addresses, no paint colors. no identifying marks.

80 percent of the people work (very hard) in the city in normal jobs.

One guy that lives here has a deck and charges the tour guides something to come in and see the view - which we did. He also sold sodas, water and to use the bathroom was 30 cents.

Very densely populated.

10 percent of the people here are unemployed and 10 percent are in the drug trade.

This walk way is one of the main "streets".

This is a self contained city with all of the usual stuff.

This is where the tourist park the cars so it is a good spot for the local crafts. I actually bought a few things here as they were very interesting. Lets see if Meghan and Kelly agree.

The mayor built a bridge for pedestrians - it is just scaffolding.

This is a samba school. The Favela of Rocinha - as well as all of the other favela's - get about a million dollars from the city and about 2,000,000 from the drug people and they spend it getting prepared for Carnival.

They take this very very serious and each favela competes for awards in the carnival.

It takes 8 months each year to prepare.

View from the scaffold bridge toward the favela.

Tomorrow - me and Greg and Diana will fly to Salvador de Bahia. It will be different to have a pilot in my airplane. Being alone I make no mistakes - when I have a pilot in the plane it is funny I make lots!

Today was not as weird as the last two. Seeing a slum was a really different thing to do and not too many people - even the Brazilian's, have ever gone inside. It was interesting. Now I really am starting toward home. I spend two night in Salvador and then one night in each place till I am home sweet home. Wow that is going to be weird!