Maracana - FlamenGhost Town

Saturday was Lilly's birthday and we mainly took a break from tourist activities. In the (late) morning we went to the Red Bull Air Race on Flamengo Beach, complete with giant screens and loudspeaker commentary in Portuguese and English. This is supposed to be a grand prix for planes and Rio was the fourth race of the season, I think. They set up giant inflatable cones to act as gates, out in the harbour, and planes have to fly a course through them in the fastest possible time. It's a time trial rather than a race, with penalties for clipping gates, flying too high or at the wrong angle - Saturday was qualifying, Sunday was going to determine final positions, with a bonus championship point for the fastest circuit on Saturday so that anyone who's sure of qualifying from their first run can really go for it on their second. Or as the commentator put it, "He can really go bananas - it doesn't matter if he hits a gate". I just love the idea that any aeroplane flying at up to 350kph can hit anything without it mattering. (Of course, the gates are so silky soft that when one was clipped, we didn't even notice as it deflated very slowly.) I was a bit sceptical that this would hold our interest, but they rattled through nicely; and it turns out that if you hold it on a beach in Rio, with Sugar Loaf mountain in the background and lots of enterprising chaps selling drinks and prawns-on-sticks, it's good fun. As it turned out, rain on Sunday meant that the action we saw counted as final positions.

We planned to visit the Carmen Miranda museum but, typical of our luck here*, it was closed for maintenance. We found the biggest mall in Rio to make up for it, saw the new Woody Allen film Whatever Works (asking Larry David to act does not work), and after discovering that our intended restaurant had closed down, we had a nice Thai meal.

* I was *not* secretly pleased; it was Lilly's birthday, after all.

On Sunday, in between bouts of torrential rain, we went to the Hippie Market in Ipanema (not very exciting) and then on to the Maracana for what should have been the footballing highlight of our tour: Flamengo v Sao Paulo, the first game of the Brazilian league season*, in this huge, famous bowl of a stadium.

* Coincidentally on the day the Premier League season finished - we saw enough of the last games over lunch to know how that was going to turn out.

The Maracana is pretty cool, if a little rough around the edges, but the big letdown was that nobody thought this was an important game, despite being between 'the biggest team in Rio' and 'the best team in Brazil'. There seem to be dozens of competitions here - you can see live football on television pretty much every night - including the Brazilian Cup, state championships, and significantly the Copa Libertadores. Both teams had played midweek and had already arranged their quarter-final fixtures for the following Wednesday (with a speed that would be impossible in Europe). Both decided to prioritise the CL and, apparently, 'agreed' on Saturday that they would field weakened sides. The fans knew, and couldn't be bothered turning up. I haven't seen attendance figures, but there couldn't be more than 15 thousand people in a stadium that holds 90.* There were few apparent restrictions on where you could sit - some people had whole sections to themselves. In one saving grace, we were sat close to the largest, noisiest posse of home fans, so the atmosphere was decent, although the vast swathes of empty seats opposite us was rather distracting. And the game wasn't bad, apart from some shocking finishing - a lot of enthusiastic but unstructered attacking led to a 1-1 with plenty of chances towards the end. The only players of note were Manchester United reject Kleberson, and the veteran Dejan Petkovic, who was one of the stars of my Plymouth Argyle team in Championship Manager many, many years ago. So probably of interest only to me.

* Oh, the other excuse I was given for the attendance was that it was Mother's Day here! Honestly, we've seen more people in Flamengo shirts around town this week than there were in the stadium.

Nice to see that some football songs are common across S America, even with a different language - our favourite is a distinctive "Allee-allee-allee-ey" (repeat 3 times). The fourth line is slightly different in Portuguese than Spanish, but close enough.

Monday was our last day in Rio, and we've done pretty much everything we wanted to do - so not that many options left because pretty much every museum, etc in Brazil is closed on Mondays. I did manage to stir myself to go for a run along Copacabana beach. One of the nice features here is the pavements, believe it or not - they're mostly composed of small black and white tiles in patterns, and each street has its own pattern. Copacabana, for example, has a distinctive wave pattern that you see on some souvenirs.

At lunch we realised we still hadn't been to a rodizio - basically an all-you-can-eat with a salad table*, and waiters bring round a variety of grilled meats on skewers and carve them onto your plate. You get a little card with a green side for 'more meat!' and a red side for 'I will just eat the meat I have on my plate but I may well want more meat soon'. We went to a place called Carretao - pretty good.

* Lilly had all-you-can-palmito.

When the rain returned, we spent the early evening watching Shutter Island and disagreeing on whether the ending lets down an enjoyable film (hint: it does), and dinner at Braseiro da Gavea for one last chance to be baffled at the size of portions (my grilled sandwich and chips both featured in the same section of the menu, but the chips were enough for 2 or 3 people). We'll never understand.

Next: an overnight bus to Sao Paulo, where music from the driver's cabin and snoring will keep us awake, a flight to Lima and then another to Cusco. Just the 19 hours total. Hopefully Machu Picchu will be well worth it...