Sampa-Beaga-Rio

Posted by Smudger on 29/06/2014

This stupid annoying broken tablet just deleted the first chunk of this post and so I’m posting it like this – maybe will spend another hour or two re-doing it later…

Sampa

SmudgerSambaCycle, Ride2Rio and WalkToTheWorldCup united at last!

Belo Horizonte

Martin flew home from Sampa – cheers for a crazy six weeks – and I flew to Beaga a day before the other guys because I was going to see Argentina v Iran at the Mineirao (a great stadium that I loved visiting previously) with Jane, my local CouchSurfing host. It was like an Argentina home game and their fans were certainly making themselves heard before kick-off (see video below), then they got quieter as the game progressed into the cracking second half at 0-0 and Iran nearly scored on the counter attack a few times, but in injury time, BOOM, who else but Messi scored a superb winner! The Argie fans errupted again, the Iranians had their heads in their hands, the neutrals didn’t know whether to cheer or console, it was amazing to be there.

Update: here’s what they were singing about.

The next big match was Brazil v Cameroon which we watched in a packed city centre bar and then celebrated the home team’s win with many caiprinhas along with the Walk To The World Cup (from now on known as WTTWC) lads and Ride2Rio Hugh, who kept me out clubbing until the early hours, his energy is insane!

The next morning I woke up in a world of pain, such a bad hangover, but I had to get up at 8am since I had a date with royalty – see the next post for more on that. After the embassy do we headed to the England v Costa Rica game, but there’s nothing worth mentioning from that huge anticlimax other than congrats to the Ticos for topping the group!

View from our Beaga apartment – rented from Jane’s uncle

Farewell Mineirao and England’s WC campaign

Watching a game at the Central Market where…

…you can buy most things, even a black swan!?

Rio De Janeiro

Not a bad place to see out the remainder of the England-less World Cup, and with Spliff now also headed home, that leaves me, Al, Mix and Anthony sharing an apartment in Copacabana – renting the home of CouchSurfing host Mirela – for 5 days before they leave too. It’s been amazing in Rio so far; a chilled afternoon on Ipanema beach, a crazy night in Lapa, a brilliant day supporting Brazil to their epic penalty shoot out win over the valiant Chileans and cheering Colombia to destroy the vampires courtesy of new superstar James!