Rocinha

The last few days ive been hanging out in Rocinha. Rocinha is a favela (slum) in the south west of rio. It is comprised of a patchwork of houses covering the 2 brothers mountain.

Favelas are often painted with a very negative brush by outsiders - due to poor health, poor sanitation, little education and general poverty along with drugs and gun crime.

All of these things are true to some extent - I saw kids of my age and younger with sawn off shotguns, pistols ...etc jus chillin in the street (or lanes in actual fact due to the sheer density of people and housing). It was scary at first with motorbikes fling past you, guns surrounding you and the general hustle and bustle.

But the energy is amazing with baille funk (like hip hop, dance hall and funk music combined) playing all night. And I met some lovely people - like our hosts who were real friendly and welcoming. After 2days I felt quiete safe in the favela and my veiw slightly changed.
We did have a couple scary 2 inch cockroaches on our beds tho - not acceptable!!

The overall experience was amazing and im glad i got a real view of the people and their home rather than a safari like tour of the habitat organized by millions of tourist offices here.
I felt quite brazillian after leaving and I will miss it in a weird way - but not the cat shit everywhere or bin bags thrown inthe street.

So this concludes my hour long favela synopsis - you can wake up now ive stopped rambling.

Gonna go on a bout tour now or go to iguacu - i´ll stop being slack on the photos and star to load em up x x x