The Americas Part 2: Tales of the Unexpected

Some of the highlights of the second part of this trip have included surviving, something I always like to do abroad, and also visiting the Rio Carnival in Brazil. And it was fantastic. Bright colours, original floats, dancing samba girls etc. Thing is, I expected it to be fantastic, and this, in a way, made it less so. Don´t get me wrong, I loved it (especially the dancing samba girls,) but if I didn´t know much about it before going then I would´ve been ultra-amazed by it all. On the other hand, had I not heard about it then I may not have gone and would never know. A dilemma. And guidebooks are partly to blame for creating such scenarios. Why?

Travellers often buy guidebooks for direction. They tell the reader what a country has to offer and what they can do. This is good, but bad if one relies on them as it’s often where the guidebook doesn’t guide you that offers the unexpected, like an odd shaped Christmas present that turns out to be a Swiss Army Knife which you didn’t expect to get but now couldn’t do without, particularly the reusable toothpick.

What amazed me more than what the guidebook or other sources said I should be amazed by was as follows: Bolivia – how dangerous it actually isn’t, though the witches market with it’s dried toads and llama fetuses was disturbing, if not a-llama-ing; Argentina – how beautiful the women are. It was suggested to learn how to tango, but, realising I had no desire to do so discovered that watching beauty is better than imitating it. I also found, unexpectedly, one of the best all-you-can-eat buffets I have ever been to. A gourmet heaven with almost every style of food from around the world there, all for the price of a beer in London. Certainly a toothpick moment. Only thing was I stained my fifth shirt of the trip and should have learnt by now that white is not the best colour to travel with. Next time I´m going hippie, no one can tell the stains in tie-dye, and this also means spending less time in the shower.

Knowing the guidebook could not be relied upon I decided to test its mettle further and walked along a street in Rio that was deemed to be dangerous at night. And what did I find? Guns? Robbery at knife point? No. A street party, with sexy samba played by a live band and with local women, outnumbering men three to one and gyrating their hips at incomprehensible speeds. This kind of thing I´ve come to unexpect from The Americas. The moral is break a few rules, and go to the Carnival. Next stop, back to Europe.