Morocco - The Travel Diaries

Its 5:19am on an unusually warm December morning, I’m lying in bed next to a beautiful woman, her rich hair cascades towards me across a thousand threads of Egyptian cotton, enveloping all in its path like the darkest waters of the River Nile. My chest rises and falls as my lungs draw heavily on air thickened by spice; shrouded in the grey light of early dawn, hints of yellow, blue and red creep down the terracotta walls, spilling southwards from star-shaped impressions in a concave atrium, the glass within stained by the colours of the sea, sun, and the blood that flows through us all.

There is a silence in the air as peaceful as any I have known, paradoxically so as the city in which I find myself, Marrakech, is quite possibly the most vibrant, loud, hectic, invasive and totally insane place I have ever had the pleasure of visiting, especially from behind the wheel of a hire car at rush hour. Woe betide anyone who takes a wrong turn into a Souk (a covered Moroccan market); although that being said I was the only person who seemed to think the driving conditions were out of the ordinary as I crawled past spice hawkers and leather merchants, gave way to donkeys and piggy backed a number of small children down their equivalent of the “World Foods” section at Waitrose. 

In fact, as an activity, driving in Morocco is the perfect antithesis of lathering yourself in Oil of Olay, chewing on a stick of celery and wearing factor fifty sun cream for a trip to the shops in November. I aged more during my week behind the wheel in North Africa than I did in the interim between my Common Entrance exams and my departure from University over a decade later.

So prevalent are road accidents that the usual deposit of £250 Europcar deduct from your card is raised somewhat to cover the added risk, something which they decide against telling you until you have to ring them from your Riad, at vast expense, because they have cleared out your bank account of, wait for it, 1600 Euros!

“But Monsieur, it is in the small print on the back of the 13^th page of the contract you signed, in size 1 font, not our problem”.

The clock struck 5:20am and the silence was shattered by the call to prayer, across the city Tannoys atop mosques bellowed with the words “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), and Marrakech stirred into action; a few hours later, we did the same.

Using Trip Advisor Jackie and I had pre-booked every hotel and Riad we were to stay in over the eight days, usually we’re happy to wing it on arrival, however with so much to fit in and a few haunting memories of India involving pushy Tuk Tuk drivers on commission, bullying our exhausted bodies, laden with 20kgs of footwear and clothing that “seemed like a good idea at the time”, we decided to get everything in order before touch down. 

I will add that Trip Advisor is fantastic for hotels, and I have taken its advice in a number of very different countries to great effect, however I would avoid using it to find yourself a good restaurant. Perhaps my standards of food are a few fathoms further on than those of where I choose to bed down for the night, however there seems to be a pattern emerging. Just last week I stopped for a (ever more frequent) double date supper at The Salmon Inn in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, en route to the best New Year’s party I’ve ever been to just East of Edinburgh. A Trip Advisor plaque hung in pride of place behind the bar, adorned with the accolade: ‘Certificate of Excellence’ and ‘5*s’, my associate Tom highlighted this and only just managed to conceal his excitement. The affable bar tender looked at us and said, wisely; “Aye, but you’re in Berwick now, not London”. He was right.

Our first stop was Riad Slawi in the back streets of the Medina (old town); run by possibly the friendliest guy I’ve ever come across, Adam, to whom I owe three fantastic night’s sleep in the magical room mentioned in the first paragraph (for which I apologise, that was my attempt at creative writing). An I.O.U valid for one heated phone call to the sub-humans at Europcar to establish why they’d rinsed the life savings from my bank account; plenty of delicious mint tea, a lot of invaluable directions and the best Aubergine spread I’ve ever had, for which I forgot the bloody recipe so I sincerely hope he reads this and sends it to me, otherwise I’ll have to go back.

Marrakech is a magical place; we strolled for hours through souks and squares, mosques and tombs, marvelled at minarets and tucked into tagines. Contrary to what we were told about the pushy hawkers and unsavoury locals trying to push you into buying things, we felt totally relaxed. My mother felt harassed there, and I can understand why, but I think the answer is not to let it affect you and take a step back. There were moments when I had to be firm with people trying to flog me things, and one instance when I had to give a bloke a few Dirhams to get him to bugger off after he decided to take on the role of tour guide and got a little aggressive. Such is life, it didn’t hold a candle to the violation I’d felt in Varansi or Delhi.

If you decide to go to Morocco for a week then I would 100% recommend getting a car and pay the extra for complete insurance, as I have no idea how we made it through unscathed. But DO NOT opt for the Sat Nav for an extra £100, outside of the medinas the roads are straight all the way to the next town, and inside the navigation has no record of anything so is totally useless. We learnt this the expensive / terrifying way, it isn’t possible to find your hotel by looking at a screen that’s telling you you’re in Algeria and dodge donkeys and children simultaneously.

Day two and we journeyed over the High Atlas to Ait Benhaddou, home of the Kasbah featured in pretty much every film set in Islamic North Africa. Perhaps most famously in Gladiator as the home of Proximo (Oliver Reid R.I.P), where Maximus is trained up before returning to Rome to deal with Joachim Phoenix’s Caesar. Nothing can prepare you for the first glimpse of the Kasbah, built into the back drop of a dusty hill and circled by a dried up river bed, the northernmost reaches of the Sahara Desert are in full and barren effect here.

Day three and a two hour drive out to the coast and Essaouira, a small city painted in rustic white with a charming medina and laid back atmosphere. Over the centuries it’s attracted artists and musicians who came for the peaceful beaches, temperate climate and the fish. Jackie had a cuttlefish tagine that was simply next level, accompanied with a view out into the harbour and the sea beyond. Jimi Hendrix spent a lot of time here in the 60s and wrote the song ‘Castles made of Sand’, referring to the turrets and battlements protecting the city from the waters of the North Atlantic.

Morocco is a country with a landscape that changes dramatically and almost without warning, from the Northern Sahara to the barren South Western coast; the beautiful beaches of the Mediterranean, a stone’s throw from mainland Europe, are in stark contrast to the battered empty stretches of the Atlantic. The High Atlas south and east of Marrakech provide a stunning backdrop to the city, and further north in the foothills of the Middle Atlas, you can find the city of Fes, the next stop on our journey.

Unlike its bigger brother Marrakech, which sprawls out in all directions across a flat valley flaw, Fes is built atop a hill and flows down the sides in a maze of tiny streets. There is a route indicated by blue tourist signs affixed to walls and beams above that proved a God send, confusing would be an understatement when describing Fes, beautiful, but totally 

nuts.

Two days and a lot of expensive leather later, bought from the Tanneries, Morocco’s largest and a sight to behold, albeit quite pungent, and we were in the home stretch. 

As a treat we booked a spa in the mountain town of Chefchaouen for our last night, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. It was pissing down with rain so we walked around for an hour or so before retreating to our spa, where I spent a good couple of hours lounging by the private pool and enjoying a Hammam rub down from Fatima, who although dressed head to toe in the attire of Islamic Africa’s female demographic, didn’t even break a sweat. Which is more than can be said for me as I perspired and almost expired in my swimming shorts in the forty degree steam room. To top it off the hotelier gave us a memory stick filled with brand new films, and we spent the evening, and the next morning until 11:59am, horizontal catching up on a bit of pop culture.

Our trip to Norway and the Northern Lights at the beginning of the year was in stark juxtaposition to Morocco, but together they acted like the perfect bookends to a pretty bloody good year. So it is with great trepidation and even more excitement that I lunge into 2014, next stop Middle Asia, and a toss-up between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It is going to be a very, very good year! 

Travel Diaries: The Northern Lights

When I touched down at Oslo airport a week ago I noticed that all the Norwegians coming through customs seemed to be carrying an awful lot of booze. Perhaps they needed it to warm their cockles during the long and icy winter months that claim the Scandinavian landscape every year? Or maybe it had something to do with the almost perpetual darkness that envelops the northernmost climes of the country, using alcohol and the escapism it affords you to while away the twenty plus hours a day spent under the shadow of the earth, as it’s rolls through space to the rhythm that gave birth to time.

The answer lies in the less surreptitious and happily veers away from the notion of seasonal alcoholism. In fact, it would be hard pressed to surrender to the bottle in Norway without re-mortgaging your house; the booze, like everything else, is so bloody expensive! You can expect to pay no less than ten of your hard earned British pounds for a single beer, a price considered more than equitable in Norway, and this is in a regular pub comparable to your Nicholsons or Tadcaster sponsored venues one finds on the average British high street. The jump from £2.45 to the peculiar price of £3.03 for a pint of Taddy’s at the Earl of Lonsdale on Portobello Road, now seems more like charity than annoyance when compared to the kilos of saffron and bars of bullion you need to grab a swift half at the ‘Reindeers Head’ in Tromsø. Needless to say the first week of 2013 was somewhat dry; there are very few beers worth that amount of money. (The £14 I spent on a whopper at Burger King was a sound investment however).

Onto the reason for our trip, then: the Northern Lights. For a couple of years now my darling girlfriend and I had been reading in various publications, through the medium of chance, that the winter of 2012 / 2013 would have the highest level of solar activity over the arctic circle for at least a decade. A mere grain of sand in the deserts of time that make up the life of our planet, but for us mere mortals a fair old chunk, the time was now. We booked our flights, cabin and car on the 29^th of December, and on the morning of the 3^rd January we were off to hunt arguably the most impressive of the ‘Seven Wonders of the Natural World’.

Touching down in Tromsø under the cover of darkness we slid to our VW Polo in the car park and consulted the map as our vehicular lifeline battled to warm up in the -15⁰C temperatures. Warmer than I thought it would be having spoken to the Siberian lady who helps my mother with the cleaning once a week, who’s family in northern Russia endured a -45⁰C Christmas day just a week earlier. With our window to the arctic free of ice we drove out into the white.

Once out of Tromsø, the largest city in north Norway yet with a population half the size of Bedford and around the same as my local town of Bishops Stortford, we circled a fjord and journeyed under another through a long and winding tunnel, emerging the other side onto a road of dangerously packed ice smattered with a deceptively reassuring layer of snow. After an hour driving through a blizzard we arrived at our lodgings at Malagen Brygger, a picturesque collection of red cabins built atop stilts on the banks of a dramatic fjord. Reception had closed earlier so we were forced to follow a set of clues left on the door by the owners that led us to a small lock box on the adjacent wall, I struggled with the combination like a panicked contestant on the ‘Crystal Maze’, my bare fingers shaking in the cold, eventually Jackie got out to help me as I grew more and more frustrated with the incredibly simple mechanism. We drove the final hundred yards to our cabin, eager for refuge and the warmth within.

I’ve always been a little sceptical when booking accommodation abroad, a horrific experience in Olu Deniz in southern Turkey several years ago sowed the seeds of perennial doubt. I had booked a two week holiday with an ex-girlfriend in a hotel that was painted the same colour as a pack of Opal Fruits, complete with clientele that ranged from a black cab driver and a woman that I hope wasn’t his sister, to a man who must have worked in sewage maintenance deduced by the perpetual smell of faeces that wafted around him in an effervescent orb. The tattoo on his chest reading “No Regrets” in Olde English said it all.

My initial apprehension was brought about by the price of the cabin, which, unlike everything else in the rest of Norway, was extremely cheap. At around £150 per night for a three bed cabin complete with living room, balcony, kitchen, bathroom, wood burner, and, under floor heating, it was an absolute steal. The whole place was wonderful, so much so that Jackie spent the first half hour wandering around letting out joyful noises to illustrate her approval; and not a pack of Opal Fruits or oxymoronic tattoo in sight!  

The next day we ventured up to a frozen lake half a mile inland from the fjord, “The ice is thick enough to land a plain on” our friendly host Nina had told us proudly when we introduced ourselves earlier on at reception. To put it to the test we jumped onto a push sled, a real favourite with Norwegian children, and I tried my best to propel Jackie into the middle of the lake, my feet slipping out from underneath me every time I tried to exert a tiny amount of forward thrust. Defeated, we disembarked and made snow angels instead.

A night of self-catered pizza and endless episodes of ‘Storage Wars’ on cable TV ensued, a ridiculous American show where people bid on repossessed containers in California and then pawn off the contents to the soundtrack from a Country and Western brothel. Just when I thought this couldn’t get any worse it was totally eclipsed by a fashion reality show called ‘Runway Wars’, which Jackie forced me to sit through (guilty pleasures only extend so far), which had one contestant in it that was camper than the bastard love child of Alan Carr and Liberace. He described his collection like, and I quote, “A woman walking out of a Fragana painting, into new age rock star meets Hasidic gentleman”. A serious look to go for, I wouldn’t recommend taking it on lightly.

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The next day we drove to the most north-westerly point of Sommaroy to walk to the top of a hill, of course by the time we got there it was dark, having been dusk for what seemed like five minutes, so we walked instead to the very edge of the land and looked out towards the arctic across the emerald shallows into the black abyss beyond. The next land mass in the distance Alaska; separated by billions of tonnes of ice and thousands of miles of night, lit only by the ethereal dreams riding the Aurora.

We arrived in Tromsø to join a Northern Lights tour in the hope a professional could lead us the right direction, although this year is blessed with high activity it had been particularly low for the past few days. After two hours’ drive inland towards the Finnish border into the heart of rural Finnmark, we disembarked at a fjord-side beach and looked to the North. In the sky above us was a faint white arc of light moving slowly across the water, I’m not sure that I actually would have recognised it without instruction from Maximo, our Italian guide, however we got down to the water’s edge and set up the tripod in hope of capturing even a little of the natural phenomena we had travelled so far to see. Twenty minutes later and they were gone.

I was glad to have seen them, but I wasn’t filled with the elation that Jackie was at having ticked this box we had talked so much about over the past couple of years. Perhaps because I spent most of the time figuring out how the hell to open my lens, change the ISO, set the timer, worrying about the single battery going flat, and being surrounded by three coach loads of tourists all gawping at the ski waiting for the all-important picture to hang on their wall between the framed snaps of the Taj Mahal and Macchu Picchu (both of which I’m staring at now whilst tapping my keyboard). It wasn’t the peaceful experience I had imagined.

We arrived back at our cabin at 3am and fell to sleep immediately.

Rising at 8am I collected my things under a haze of sleep, donned my ‘onesie’, and headed out to the car to drive two hours south to the base camp of our reindeer excursion. The reindeer ride itself was extremely peaceful, and although we didn’t cover more than a mile in the hour we were being pulled through the snow it gave us time to relax on the warm hide and look around at the dramatic surroundings. Our guide was a Sami reindeer herder who took the job as guide in winter to subsidise his income and support his family. His story was that of a purist, far from the industrial ideals of the money driven westerner, he had taken a job at a factory when he was a young man but couldn’t stand being inside and away from the herd. In his own words his “body was in the factory, but his heart in the mountains”. He decided to quit and moved back into the wilds where for three months of the year he drives his 500 strong herd of reindeer up into the mountains, 400 miles from the nearest road, and tends to them there by himself. He said he talks to his reindeer and tells them things he can tell no human, that they are great listeners and it keeps him sane. He did then go on to mention that once you start talking to trees however, there is something wrong and you should probably head back to civilisation.

After a fascinating history lesson, and confirming that the Sami do indeed have over 600 words just for snow, we were taken into a traditional tent called a Lavvu to have reindeer soup and sweet cinnamon flat bread, the perfect end to another day in the Arctic Circle.

North Norway in winter is a land of stark contrasts; austere landscapes battered by the elements collide with mirror flat lakes in a state of eerie calm, blizzards rage then minutes later they seem like a distant memory as the blue light of dusk, or is it dawn, washes over the horizon followed closely by whisperings from warmer climes and lands touched by the light of the sun.

The next day, our last, we spent relaxing in front of the wood burning stove honing my new fashion style, a mash up of Bon Jovi and Matisyahu, whilst eating a combination of everything we had left in the fridge. I didn’t quite get the ratio right in the wood burner so I spent a good chunk of the day in my underwear in our own personal sauna. In the evening Jackie and I agreed to make once last effort to see the Northern Lights and walked up the hill to the frozen lake where we went kick sledding on the first day. As we drew closer we could see a fire burning in one of the huts and upon arrival came across a young Canadian couple and their two children, the youngest, a five year old girl called Dilly, immediately started throwing snowballs at me. She was a little too small to wage an Arctic war against, and the snow balls disintegrated before they made contact so I wasn’t too worried about being taken down. The best way to defend against an onslaught like that, learnt through entertaining at many children’s parties, is to pick them up and hoist them aloft. Or alternatively let them know you have a pony at home and they will then become your best friend, deciding, without hesitation, to leave the bosom of their loving family on the off chance of a ride! The offer still stands Dilly.

We were invited in to the hut to sit around the fire and share in their hot chocolate, cookies, and spicy chips (crisps to us Brits) that were distributed by my new best friend from a bag the same size as her. I managed to melt my boots by getting them too close to the flames but I wasn’t bothered, I had chocolate and popcorn. Bradley, the Dad, showed me how to set up my SLR properly, and with a pre-warning delivered by a Northern Lights iphone App we ventured back outside for the greatest show on earth.

The sky lit up as though the angels were dancing in the heavens, dipping down and weaving across to the North then driving out to the west in an Arc of vibrant green. My camera picked up blues and reds in the mist of particles that weren’t visible to the naked eye, I let it do its thing, shutter open for thirty seconds at a time as Jackie and I stared in awe at the otherworldly show playing out before our eyes. No bus load of tourists, no indiscernible white wisp paling into the darkness. These were the Lights of legend, Lights that gave birth to myth and fable, Lights that stole away sailors of old and led them through their incandescence into the ancient Norse realms of Thor and Odin. This is why we were here, why we had come this far toward the roof of our planet; everything else, the reindeer sledding, the warmth of our cabin, the fjords and the forest and the world of ice around us, all paled into insignificance when overlooked by this pure and extra-terrestrial phenomena, lighting up the heavens like a slow burning flame from somewhere far greater than here. It was a humbling experience, evoking the kind of juvenile excitement that is usually only afforded to the young and impressionable. I felt extremely small, but it also gave a warm feeling of contentment and a great sense of what it is to belong.

As far as we were concerned the trip was now complete, another one of life’s great experiences fulfilled and my thirst for adventure slaked … for now.

The next twenty four hours were spent in transit, waiting on snow locked runways and sleeping on cold marble floors in Oslo airport in an attempt to save money on a hotel room the price of two weeks rent in London, the prospect of being able to see the sun spurring me on. Of course when we landed at Gatwick it was raining and grey, but on the plus side, the beer is considerably cheaper. I think I’ll head down the pub and plan my next trip, the Southern Lights perhaps? 

Augustus: Officially Published 'Rio de Janeiro' City Scoop

When I was asked to elaborate on my experiences of Rio de Janeiro for Eat Me Magazine's South America edition I was naturally very excited, I managed to commandeer a lap top whilst on the Caribbean coast of Colombia and spent a few days sweating over the keyboard, as I attempted to compile a muddle of anecdotes into an article with some sort of readable fluidity from the pages of my journal. Little did I know that six months later I would be shaking hands with the man pictured on the front cover below, the front cover of the magazine in which I have managed, some how, to get a double page spread. 

As far as I'm concerned I can now pack my knife away and hang up my apron, I've reached culinary Moksha and come face to face with my hero. 

“Tall and tanned and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking, and when she passes, each one she passes, goes aahhh”.

Stan Getz it, and so do I, but it’s not just the beautiful people watching that draws millions of people to Brazils ex-capital and one of the world’s most famous cities. It is the lifestyle that it affords you. Tropical weather, delicious food, even more delicious people, a party atmosphere that is simply unrivalled and a setting so iconic that the droves of movie stars, directors and musicians that have descended upon it for over eight decades have been enveloped and inspired by its magic. The final nail in the coffin of desire is that every year in February it plays host to the world’s largest party, the infamous Rio Carnival.

With the above in mind Rio de Janeiro seemed the perfect place to kick off six months of post Uni vagrancy in style. So it was in dreary February I found myself at Heathrow on a 777 bound for Brazil with two of my closest friends along for the ride. We landed and grabbed a cab to Copacabana before walking to the beach of the same name. The heat was stifling, even at 11pm as we strolled with intent towards the seafront and the promise of a Caipirinha. The beach was incandescent with floodlights and the sea crashed against the yellow sands beyond, past that the moonlight flickered across the crests of the waves as they pulsed in a constant lunar motion toward the warmth of the toasted terra firma.

        Rio has plenty to keep one occupied in the way of culture, and the first main attractions on the list are the beaches. As big a part of the national identity as Samba and the Surf, Ipanema’s ‘Posto Nove’ is the hot spot for Rio’s beautiful elite to come and tan their annoyingly chiseled physiques. There are no two ways about it, unless you’re built like Charles Atlas and stand at 6’5” (I’m neither), you will feel like an inferior specimen betwixt these Brazilian buns. The only thing one can do to fight of these body blues is to eat, and there is nothing faster, cheaper, or more delicious than South Americas synonymous snack and the humble cousin of the Cornish Pasty: the Empanada. Chicken, meat and corn are the components of most, along with a host of extra additives and satellite sauces to wet your whistle. They are a survival staple for many a cash-strapped-traveler, and beyond being absolutely delicious, I haven’t come across one for more than a pound throughout the whole of South America.

At the far end of Copacabana beach in the shadow of Sugarloaf Mountain lies an absolute gem of a restaurant, Brazil is famed for its grill restaurants (Parillas) and ‘Marius’ is one of the best there is. There are two options: meat or fish. The simplicity of this choice is a good thing as the décor can be a little overwhelming. The ceiling is covered in various wares and trinkets and a pirate theme runs throughout. For me this confusion manifested itself in the lavatories, wherein I attempted to take a picture of the various ornaments, hanging and otherwise, and at flashpoint a bemused woman exited the cubicle. I had walked into the ladies, and as far as I could tell the look behind her eyes was a mixture of confusion, shock, and accusation of perversion. I thought it best not to explain in Portuguese, as I speak none, so I smiled my most innocent of smiles and made a swift exit.

The only thing for absolute certain in Marius that night was the quality of the beef.  We ate sirloin, rib eye, t-bone and filet mignon, all of which were cooked to absolute perfection and as is the Brazilian way the meat was covered in salt. The waiters / pirates brought the cuts to the table on large chopping boards and skewers and we chose each piece individually before they sliced effortlessly through the beef. The buffet salad bar served its purpose as a pallet cleanser, but by the end of the meal we only had room in our hearts for the carne.

After a night of sweet dreams and beef sweats a freshly squeezed fruit smoothie and a long walk was the best way to tease out the taurine. Countless juice bars throughout Leblon, Ipanema and Copacabana offer any number of refreshing vitamin fueled supplements. My personal favourite remains the banana and pineapple combo, yet it would be a travesty to visit Rio and not indulge in an Acai smoothie poured over a bowl of granola, it is actually possible to feel yourself getting younger after one of these. As for the long walk, in the City of God it is absolutely essential to pay a visit to his most famous son.

       Christo Redento (Christ the Redeemer) stands a top the 700m Corcovado peak and looks in the direction of Sugarloaf Mountain, the best way to scale it is without a doubt by the funicular railway, despite the insistent hoard of taxi drivers at the bottom telling you otherwise, and the view once you get up there is simply breathtaking. Although you’ll feel you’ve seen it before on many a postcard, the sensation of being up there in the most vertiginous of situations makes almost anything you’ve seen before, somehow smaller. As both an atheist and a sufferer of vertigo I kept my distance from the chapel and the edge. That said it would take a severe lack of faith and balls not to revel in the sheer scale of your surroundings.

        Brazil has more Japanese ex-pats than any other country on earth so it isn’t any wonder that it serves up some of the best sushi in the world, and the best restaurant in Rio for this is ‘Sushi Leblon’. We queued for 20 minutes with no reservation and were seated by the polite and incredibly attractive hostess. The Sashimi, Nigiri, Maki and Tempura were made to perfection; the choice of the evening was the teriyaki eel and avocado California Rolls, all prepared in full view in a kitchen at the centre of the simplistic and chic restaurant. Having eaten sushi all over South America it seems the style is more complex on the other side of the pond, many more ingredients are thrown into the mix, fusing the basics of the genre with the wider spectrum of the Japanese kitchen. Couple these with a pinch of Latin American influence and you have a truly unique recipe for culinary kudos.

Rio’s second famous null that deserves a slice of your time is Sugarloaf Mountain, and Marvin and the grape vine had brought us news of a party at the top. A day of dedicated sunning down on Copacabana and we caught a cab to Playa Vehemela at the base of the loaf. After paying through the teeth for tickets and noshing a few healthy slugs of Bacardi Dark, we took the cable car up to the first level. Before we could get a drink we were accosted by a Brazilian TV station that interviewed us about our opinion of Rio, my drunken amigo Jamie, evidently not destined for a career in television, began a long and incomprehensible monologue about his beloved Scotland, I made rather uncouth remark about the concentration of ass on the beaches, whilst my other friend had the most fitting of gambits – “I f***ing love Rio”! For our sake, and theirs, I hope it wasn’t going out live.

The drink of choice for any self-respecting citizen is the Caipirinha, made from Cachaça, (fermented then distilled sugarcane juice similar to rum), lime and sugar. It is sweet, sour, refreshing, and so delicious that you could easily drink several without a second thought. We didn’t think twice and got stuck.

      The party was fantastic and the beats were sweet like Tropicana, electro in the main room and funky techno on the deck. Beautiful people and a serious view to boot, we danced till the early hours and swilled punch until the banter bus pulled into town and we bought a one-way ticket to Bedfordshire. Non-refundable.

A trip to Rio simply wouldn’t be complete without a visit to one of its many slums. The vibrancy of the favellas is as concentrated as it is chaotic, the jumble of houses drench the mountain side in an array of colour, self proclaimed electricians balance precariously atop step ladders wiring their houses into the unofficial mains that hang like heavy rubber vines throughout the larger streets, dispersing outwards into the tributaries at random like the dendrites of a brain working with confused intent.

Some of the areas have become much safer in recent years, so much so that some of the population is moving into them as a matter of choice rather than necessity. The majority are still far too dangerous for a gringo to simply stroll through, and the last thing you want on holiday is to end up a statistic. The best way to visit them, as we did, is to organise it through your hotel or hostel or find one that does. Every Friday night locals and tourists alike can buy tickets to a party in the favellas. A massive warehouse holding upwards of 2000 people bounces to the beat of the Brazilian drum till the early hours, then party goers spill out into the streets where more speaker rigs pump out an array of dance music.

      Moving on from Rio? There are endless possibilities: Isla Grande for a stunning beach break, Salvador for a taste of the Africa in Brazil, Florianopolis for the surf and the gorgeous Southern Brazilians, Foz de Iguazu to catch a glimpse of the biggest waterfalls on earth, or perhaps even Manaus – Capital of the Amazon rainforest. Whether traveling or just on holiday, there are few places on earth that can offer you so much, and get it so right, as Rio de Janeiro. These are merely my experiences that I have put down as best I can, yet I urge you, nay, implore you: book a flight, grab a couple of friends to take with you, and go and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

“Oh, would I give my heart gladly, how can I tell her I love her?”

‘The Girl From Ipanema’

- Antonio Carlos Jobim, Norman Gimbel, Stan Getz.