Brazil page 6

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The inside is very spacious and, I imagine, quite cool in the summer.

The roof and stained glass were most impressive. (actually, this photos is included mostly because *I* was most impressed that it turned out so well. The exposure was about three seconds long and I didn't have a tripod or monopod... this was hand-held!)

The sun sets over downtown Rio...

The municipal building in the centre of Rio in which all state affairs are dealt with. Rio is a little bit like Melbourne in that it was once the capital... until a smaller city was literally built with the express purpose of being the capital so that the capital city would be located away from anything exciting. Interestingly... Brasilia (the capital of Brazil) also has a really good university as its only other real attraction.

Later that night, I decided to go to a show... no, not THAT kind of show...

No, I'm serious... it really wasn't THAT kind of show...

It all started out innocently enough... this girl came on stage and warmed up the crowd in true Brazilian fashion by juggling the ball non-stop for about 20 minutes (I'm not kidding... no hands were involved)

The audience... where were all tourists... were amused.

This stage show is basically for those people visiting at any time of year when the Carnival isn't on... its quite a spectacular show and the music and singing is live.

...and it isn't all feathers and prancing around... these guys showed us a bit of Capoiera (sp?) a dance-martial art

Yeah, this isn't a trick of the light... this guy is completely airborne

The staff were quite distracting... they spent the night going around the audience and asking us to buy DVDs and photos and such... ah, the joys of capitalism.

There was some very good dancing (and I should know, I dance enough...) and the costumes were really spectacular.

No, tap shoes aren't enough... metal balls on the end of chains... now THAT is a tap routine and a half...

Did I mention that the costumes were spectacular? These lovely ladies would have had to do a fair bit of weight training to work up to carrying those things around...

The following morning, I got off to a 7am start (a relative sleep-in for me considering some of the stuff I've had to put up with). I got on a bus which drove for about two hours to an area to the south of Rio...

To have a little boat trip around some lovely islands... a very similar deal to what we did in Puerto Vallarta as a matter of fact... but the boat was a little smaller. Note to self: not enough sleep + boat = broken brain

Well... we didn't have to worry about the boat running out of petrol... we could just stop by one of these and fill 'er up.

Despite seeming a bit rickety, the boat was certainly designed to be seaworthy (I assume the boat also has a fairly accurate clock on it somewhere... mind you these things can't be taken for granted in Brazil, after all, the Maracana stadium doesn't have a clock).

The helmsman was very relaxed about the whole thing though... we weren't planning on leaving sight of the shore anyway.

 

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