Samba in Lapa...

Everyone at our hostel hungout at this corner store at the end of the block where our hostel was...it was hilarious. It felt like we were in NY or something... so we would hangout their in the street for awhile drinking our Skol cheap, shitty beer until about 1:00am when it was proper time to go out (yes they START their evenings at 1:00am) This past friday night we met Carlos and Rodriguez these two local brasilians who were just rad... they totally came up to us because they heard us all speaking english and were asking us how we were enjoying Brasil, how it compared to the US, UK and Aus....it was loads of fun to be able to ask real locals questions instead of the local info booth or whatever. Soon Carlos started talking about dancing, he has taken lessons for 3 years...and then we started talking about this neighborhood called Lapa. Apparently every friday night Lapa has this big street party, and boy they were not kidding. They nicely agreed to take us there, it was so great to get into a taxi with someone who spoke portuguese who could tell them not to rip us off! (seriously he had to tell him not to double charge us) ...anyways we got to Lapa and it was like a mini carnival, music, dancing, tons of people drinking and partying in the streets...it was crazy! Then we made our way to this samba club and they took us inside... OMG! It was the most fun we have had on a night out in ages! No sooner had we walked in, Carlos was wisking us girls onto the dancefloor teaching us the moves! He was a great dancer... Andrew and I even attempted it, after some instruction from Carlos..we had loads of fun! It was exactly the kind of Rio experienc we wanted to have!