Saaaaamba!

What a great night, and totally unplanned or expected! We headed into the centre of Rio for a bite to eat and to try out a 'botequin' - rough translation would be a traditional, simple restaurant bar, which usually has a house speciality. We leave a great little book of botequins in the studio for guests' use. Our first place of choice stopped serving food after 3.30pm, so no good. Off we went in search of another about 2o mins walk away, through streets lined with stalls selling all sorts. Success with the second place and we sat at a table on the street had some lovely pasteis there - little stuffed pastries - we had prawn and catupiry and then dried beef (kind of like corned beef) and cheese. Delicious!

By this time it was early evening and we could hear music and went off to investigate. What we found was a square full of people of all ages enjoying the beat of live music from an excellent traditional samba group, set up in a corner. Our timing was just right and we couldn't believe our luck when a table became free with a frontline view! As Bb said on his blip, this great view came at a cost and before we knew it the samba dancer here had Bb up to dance! He did a great job and swung his hips like the best of them while I giggled and recorded the performance, imagining many happy hours of showing it to friends! What a shame I hadn't pressed that little red record button and all I had was 10 seconds of Bb walking back to his seat! Revenge was sweet however and Bb did press the record button when I was later taken up by the 'king' of the street celebration. He's been warned.

The evening wasn't without serious moments though and one was when we were introduced to a 21 year old guy in a wheelchair, who had lost the power in both legs permanently from a drunk driving incident two years ago. His father, the driver, was killed outright. This was part of a government campaign called 'ley seca', the 'dry law'.