THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD

While on this trip, I one day received an email from a friend, who was concerned about my behaviour. He asked me to be more "Middle of the road" with the way I acted. I replied that I couldn't; as I don't know how. I've come to realise I'm all or nothing. Im addicted to the highs in life and I pursue them sometimes in ways which people would class as reckless or as my sister recently said to me; "You just don't think, sometimes Carly"! There is a problem with the highs though: the fall! I have fallen from great highs in the past, especially the last 2 years and believe me it hurts. I still go back for more though. All that said recently its becoming harder and harder to get back up after these falls and the thought of being more middle of the road on this trip has constantly been in the back of my mind.

Maybe with what I've just said about the way I am, is the reason why I fell in love with Rio. There is nothing middle of the road about it. It's a city that is all or nothing. It's crazy, beautiful, exciting; everything I love. A dangerous combination, me and this city, but I knew I was going to have a hell of a lot of fun here, and that's just what I did.

I arrived in Rio totally exhausted after ANOTHER 24 hour bus journey. I was now once again, totally on my own after leaving Maria. I booked myself into a hostel in Ipanema after a lot of recommendations off travels to stay there. Besides it's the best area to stay in the whole of Rio and I'm in love with the song, the girl from Ipanema. Now after nearly 5 months traveling, and tons more travel experience before this trip, you would think I won't get intimidated anymore. WRONG! I turned up at Ipanema Beach House to find everyone, chatting and laughing with one another. God! I thought, everyone knows everyone, I'm a complete outsider! After getting over my initial fear, I decided to rein in all my people skills and get chatting to everyone. Unfortunately this was to no avail, everyone was completely hungover from the night before. God this is so shit!, I thought and decided to call it a night. Hardly the rocking first night I thought I would have in Rio.

I woke the next morning to sunshine and thought, God dam it! I'm in Rio and there is only one place go be in Rio when the sun is shining: THE BEACH! I hot footed it down there, a long with a French guy from my dorm called Fabrice, who kind of tagged himself onto me, but seemed nice enough. Now I've heard the Brazilians where a beautiful race, but nothing prepared me for what I saw on that beach. I thought the Argentineans where a beautiful, but what I saw there were the most beautiful men I have ever seen in my life. It's not like there were one or two scattered around. No they were everywhere! Every time looked round there was a new one. I was like a kid in a sweet shop. I imagined this was what heaven must be like. God it was amazing. As time wore on, on the beach, it started to become clear to me that Fabrice wanted to be more than just friends! He kept buying me drinks and getting very pissed off with me when, he kept talking to me and I was just nodding and clearly looking over his shoulder and just perving at all the hot men on the beach. I really knew he fancied me when I was lay on the beach and he lay down besides me, grabbed me and started taking pictures of us together like boyfriend and girlfriend. Hello! I've only just met you, I'm not interested and I'm surrounded by hot Brazillian guys! Why do things like this always happen to me? He invited me to go to sugar loaf mountain to watch sunset with him. I couldn't get out of it.

Sugar loaf was amazing. Even though it was cloudly; even though I was with a Frenchman that I didn't fancy and who kept coming on to me; even though I kept thinking I wish I was here with one of the hot Brazillian guys from the beach. Yes! Even with all this. It was amazing! I've seen a lot of cities in my time, but seeing Rio from above I can truly say it's one of the most beautiful cities ever, tucked between tropical mountains, with it's White sandy beaches. It was there my love affair with Rio began.

We got back to the hostel and Fabrice wanted to go out for dinner! SHIT! Think fast! I bumped into some of the guys I had been talking to the night before and quickly arranged that we should all go out for dinner together. No one really had a say in the matter, as that's what I wanted to do, as there was no way I was going out for dinner with just me and Fabrice. Fabrice looked very pissed off. I looked very relieved! After having an all you can eat meat feast which the Brazilians are the best at (totally amazing!) some of us decided to hit the bars. I was left with Fabrice (of course!), the most chilled English guy ever called Tom, and a Israeli guy whose name I can't pronounce so we will just call him Israeli guy! We decided that being in Rio we had to drink Caipirinha's. Warning: After my time in Rio, I have realised that Caipirinhas make you do crazy things, as the following will show. Totally drunk, we realised we were in a gay bar, only after Tom came back from the toilet after being accosted by a man in them. Please bare in mind we had been in this bar for nearly an hour and didn't notice once, we were surrounded by tables full of butch guys in hot pants! This is what Caipirinhas do to you! After a few more bars later, and few Caipirinhas later, we crawled back to the hostel. We all decided to go straight to bed as we were totally wasted. I put my PJ's on realised I needed some water so headed to the reception to get some. Now after this it gets a little bit blurry. I'm at the front desk asking for water and some how I start talking to the Brazilian guy behind the desk in Spanish, as I don't know Portuguese and he starts talking to me in Spanish and we are talking for ages and then he asks me to come and sit with him outside, I say yes, we sit down, we talk, he grabs my face and starts kissing me, I kiss him back and then I stop this moment and go " I'm sorry but I'm in my PJ's. I can't do this!" and storm off to bed.

The next day I wake up with a sore head not really knowing where I am! It takes me an hour of being awake to realise that my handbag with all my money, my phone and my passport is gone. SHIT! I run to reception in an panic and ask the girls at the desk if they have a brown leather bag. They pull my bag out from underneath the desk.
"We just found it left on the desk this morning. What the hell happened to you last night?" one of them asks. Yes, what the hell did happen to me last night I ask myself?
"Caipirinha's" I reply. They laugh back in an all knowing way.

I spend most of the day trying to avoid the guy from the desk that I kissed. I don't even fancy him, I think to myself. It was only because I was drunk on Caipirnha's and he was whispering sweet nothings in to my ear in Portuguese that I even went there. Besides Im a bit besotted with the other guy that works there at the front desk in the day. I ask him to write down the music he plays in the hostel which i think is cool, to add to my growing South American playlist. He does so with his glaring beautiful eyes, smooth smile and sexy voice. God he's so hot, I think to myself. On the good side Fabrice checked out before I woke up. Some one later told me he found out about me kissing the guy at the front desk and was pissed off. What ever!

To try and avoid the guy I kissed even more, I book to go on a tour of the favelas. Favelas for you who don't know is the name for the slums of south America and were made famous from the film The City of God (in my top 5 of best films of all time) and that snoop dog video, Beautiful, with all those girls not wearing much with big asses. On the tour I meet a fellow northern called Jen, who is also at my hostel and we get on like a house on fire. I tell her the favelas are a bit like Salford; we both realise we love guys and motorbikes; we get a lift with some guys from the ghetto on the back of their bikes; we see gansters smoking joints; bullet holes in the walks from gangland fights; drug dealers and the fattest roughest girls you have ever seen. All on all a good day out.

I go out with Jen and everyone from the hostel again that night and yes more bloody Caipirinhas (I told you can't do middle of the road; I never learn)! As everyone I knew was leaving the next day for the beaches of Brazil, we decided to stay up late for farewell drinks at the hostel. This means me and Jen do Northern measures and in no time we are completely drunk! Everyone seems to pass out and goes to bed and I'm left once again with the Brazilian guy that I kissed on reception and his hot volley ball friend. At some point, very drunk I kiss the Brazillian guy again (what the hell am I doing)! After coming back to my senses, I decide to go to bed. As I'm coming back from the toilet, I find the friend, the hot volleyball player friend blocking my door way. Before I continue this story, let me tell you that a lot of travellers had told me about what Brazillian men were like. They are extremely sexual, on heat all the time and very forceful! I was now about to find out, this was very true. As I tried to pass the door, volley ball guy asked me where I was going?
"To bed I reply!"
"Why?" he asked
" Because I'm tired".
He grabs me and tries to kiss me. I push him away. The next thing I know he picks me up, like Tarzan would do to Jane and starts to carry me away. I'm hitting him, but there is little I can do as he is so strong and I'm no match for him. I'm feeling a bit scared. He sits me down on the pool table at the far and starts kissing my neck and chest and whispering, "I want you, I want you"! Oh God, what am I going to do? Suddenly, I remember what the Danish girls had said to me about dealing with full on Brazilian men: You have to just punch them sometimes! So that's just what I do; I full on punch him (I'm a northern girl, I've got a good punch)! He stops in surprise and then I realise Carly is back in control again.
"When I say no, I mean no!" I scream at him, "Now as I said I'm off to bed!" I gracefully stand up, compose myself and walk away. It's as I'm walking back to my room I realise I'm shaking a little.

The next morning I wake up to find a new addition to my room; an Aussie girl called Natalie, who turns out to be a stripper. Natalie is one of lifes characters, very strong, doesn't give a shit and extremely funny. I like her instantly. I tell her about my incident with the volley ball guy, the night before. She just laughs, tells me she had a fling with him last time she was in Rio, that's he a complete arse hole, and that he is like the hostel bike, as everyone has had a go. We then both laughed! We decided to go on a mission to go and see Christ the redeemer (a must see in Rio). This is harder than you think when you don't speak any Portuguese. I had realised by now it was better to speak Spanish than English, but this still wasn't always understood. Two buses later, lots of lost in translation and being escorted by a kind Brazillian woman, we stood at the foot of Corcovado, in the pouring rain looking up to the skies, to realise you couldn't see a dam thing! God dam it! I never got to see Christ the Redeemer, due to the bad weather. We spent the rest of the day in the hostel, feeling miserable as the rain poured down. It's Rio, it not meant to bloody rain, I thought to myself! As we sat around talking, the boys from the hostel told me they were going out that night to a club where there was Samba music and free Caipirinhas from 10-12. Really, the sensible thing to do here, would be to say no, after my last 2 nights on Caipirinhas seemed to have got me into a bit of trouble, but as I'm not sensible, I said yes to going straight away. Besides it was my last night in Rio. I had to make the most of it.

We arrived at the club and it was crammed with people dancing, and downing Caipirinhas. I noticed volleyball guy was there, and I avoided him at all costs. I also noticed that there was a cute guy that kept looking at me. He seemed quite familiar to me, but then I just thought I had one to many Caipirinhas again. As the night wore on people got drunker, the dancing got crazier and everyone I was with seem to have hooked up with someone. I got stuck being chatted up by some boring English guy, when I turned around and saw the guy who had being looking at me all night, stood there. He walked over to me.
"Hello" he said "You don't recognise me do you? I work at your hostel."
Suddenly I recognised the beautiful glaring eyes, the smooth smile and the sexy voice. It was the guy from the front desk that I really fancied, only that he had shaved off his beard.
"Yes, I recognise you now" I smiled.
I spent the rest of the night talking to him, dancing with him and of course kissing him. I got my sexy Brazilian guy after all.

The next day as I left Rio in the taxi, I felt full of sadness. It had left a deep impression on me this city. It felt like a city that suited my personality. It was a place where I didn't feel bad about not being middle of the road. I then remember a conversation I'd had with Tanja one the Danish in girls in La Paz, in a bar, about being middle of the road. She told me that night she envied me.
"Why?" I replied
"Because you take risks! I don't because I'm middle of the road, which is safe but it's ultimately boring!"
I don't do boring, I thought to myself. I'll try the middle of the road, when it becomes exciting. Until then I'll carry on as I am, which isn't bad is it? Next stop, is my final one: Miami.