Rio, give me some sugar

A 22 hour bus ride from Puerto Iguazu, Agrentina to Rio, Brazil. Not a great experience but had to be done as the air fare was horrendously expensive.
10 minutes on the bus and we were in Brazil. Once customs was seen to it was straight through hours of rolling hills and green fields looking more like a sunny day in England than I ever thought Brazil would be. Newly farmed fields, of I presume sugar beat as that's what a lot of cars run on here, were everywhere. As are Volkswagon Beetles and Campervans, the latter used as Ambulances in some places.
We passed more jungle type areas before night drew in and a terrible storm that came with it. The movie on the bus was Apocolypto and it couldn't be more apt. Shame it was in Portugese but I got the jist. As the rain hammered the bus and lightening struck fields close by I'll freely admit I was uncomfortable.
After numerous police checkpoints and random stops we arrive in a run down concrete looking Sao Paulo. We dropped a few people off and carried on, it didn't look like the place you'd want to arrive at 4am, or 4pm for that matter.
We arrived in sunny Rio at 10am after a few days of torrential rain here. Our hostel was pretty nifty, our room had a painting of the famous Christ the Redeemer on the wall. We even had a tiny balcony where we could see Christ from. From this moment forth we renamed him Bob. Much easier I thought.
Brazil is a huge country. When the Spanish invaded South America they struck a deal with the Portugese to share the land. Spain got what is now Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and so on, whereas Portugal got Brazil. It's a fair deal when you see it on a map.
Brazil also took the largest amount of African slaves on the continent. Unfortunately there were too many and now huge favellas, rat warrens of shanty towns, exist throughout the city.
Also, for us just getting into the swing of speaking and reading Spanish coming to Brazil was hard. Even words that look the same here are pronounced differently. It was a bit of a struggle but we were told that in most places you can get away with speaking Spanish, which did work sometimes.
There's no denying that Brazil and Argentina are worlds apart. Rio, especially the outskirts, is a very dirty, gritty and ugly place. This is also the most dangerous place I'd ever been in in my life. Not only that it's way more expensive, double that of Argentina.
But still the bay outside our hostel containing the famous Sugar Loaf mountain is beautiful. Shame you can't swim in Botofogo bay as the water is polluted. Nice.
Immediately we booked to go and watch a football match at the Maracana stadium that evening. It had to be done, especially after missing out in Argentina. The game was a dull affair with little in the way of Brazilian flair, no wonder all their best players play in Europe. But the night was good and two other couples from our hostel went who turned out to be really cool people. It was part of a tour of sorts as we'd heard dodgy things about the area around the stadium.
After a few beers it was back on the bus for the half hour journey to the hostel. I was a bit drunk by this point and had already foregone the toilet at half time for the bar, it was too busy. Problem was at full time we had to leave on the bus straight away, I was busting. Another thing about Rio is at night traffic doesn't stop at red lights. It's too dangerous and cars and buses have been attacked and robbed. I couldn't contain myself any longer and had to declare to the guide I was dying! The bus immediately pulled over at a busy intersection and let me out to piss up near the traffic light, I didn't make it to a tree. I felt a bit of an idiot stood there at the side of a busy road but that soon passed when I remembered why the bus doesn't normally stop. I apologised profusely to the 20 or so people on the bus who seemed to find it all highly amusing. Why do I do this to myself I don't know, and of all the places.
Off to see Bob the next day with an English couple and an Aussie guy we got chatting to at breakfast. It was a Sunday so the place was packed, as I'm sure it is most days. After a 20min steep funicular, train thing, ride to near the top you've a couple of options. Walk the stairs for about 2 minutes to the top or take the lift. Yes, lift. Once off the lift you get on a set of escolators. Yes, escolators right next to one of the most famous sights in the world. Odd. We walked.
The views over Rio are nothing short of tremendous. You can see the main beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema and the one near us, Botofogo. You can also see the many lush islands dotted around and the airport built out in the sea. Very Hong Kong like. Except you can also see the biggest favella in the world. It's huge. It doesn't take much to spot the many others as they're usually hugging hillsides just above town.
The other great sight is the odd shaped Sugar Loaf mountain and cable car to the top, that's for another day. Everything looked like a toy town, the Maracana stadium a Subbuteo set, from up there. It looked a lot better than down on the street.
We headed back to get some beach stuff and hit Ipenema and Copacabana. A nice place but it did remind me of the Costa del Sol, except the beach had more rubbish on it. Warnings about Copacabana had been heeded as we left our camera at the hostel and just had enough money for some classicly strong Caiprihnia cocktails on Copacabana. We felt good as there was 5 of us and were getting a bit cocky about how unsafe the place was supposed to be. Still there was always an edge to being there. Whilst sipping drinks a group of Brazilians came over and performed some unbelievable Caperwhera(not spelt right surely). This was an African martial art that was brought over by the slaves. It was banned by the Portugese but the Africans claimed it was a form of dancing and slightly modified it. It's impressive stuff and worth checking out. These guys would really make breaking your spine look good.
After a good, pay for the weight of your food, restaurant we got the public bus at night back. Two things not advised in the Lonely Planet. 1. Walking by Copacabana at night. 2. Getting the public buses at night, this is where a lot of muggings take place. But as there was a group of us slightly modified by booze we felt fine. I was feeling a lot more relaxed about Rio. From all that we'd heard we'd seen no evidence of anything dodgy. Until we hear the next morning about the Finnish couple in our hostel getting robbed in broad daylight at Copacabana at the same time we were there. Hmmm