Some stories about the crime in Rio...

One guy we met in the first hostel was walking along Copacabana beach, early evening. Made the mistake of carrying his camera on its big body strap so it's out there in plain sight. Couple of guys jumped him, he managed to fight them off... police were a bit down the beach completely ignoring him (more on these guys later!). He got away with his camera and a very, very torn t-shirt.

Another guy was walking home (think this was either in Sao Paulo or maybe Buenos Aires, so not really a Rio story) from a bar one night quite late, by himself. Some random dude starts walking with him, chatting etc. No problems yet. Then he gets offered weed, so stupidly, as he's had a few drinks, agrees to follow this guy into a derelict park (emphasis everybody who's heard this story). Final mistake is when the guy (who now has a mate who's shown up out of nowhere) shows him the weed, he says it's not good enough quality and tells him he doesn't want it anymore... so the guy pushes him really hard, he falls over, his mate clubs him over the head a couple of times with a rock! Wakes up and his money etc. are gone...

Two guys from our hostel try to score some weed (seeing a pattern here?), the moment they finish the deal police jump them and the dealer from a car on the street. Dealer franticly tries to dump his bags of coke. One of the guys goes to take the weed out of his pocket to give to the police - police think he's going for a weapon and put guns to their heads. Cop tells them "We can have trouble (aka jail) or no trouble (aka pay a 'fine')". So not wanting to be thrown in a Brazilian jail - who would? - they agree to pay a R$1000 "fine" each. ATMs don't let you withdraw that much, so the police drive them to a casino where there's no withdrawal limit. They then drive them back to the hostel and say friendly as anything, "We hope you enjoy your holiday in Rio, it's a very safe and nice city". We later heard 1k is probably about a month's wages for a copper.

Tales from the Favela

A couple of the guys in a hostel across the road from us at the moment are living in one of Rio's favelas at the moment, doing a teach english thing. They both say it's not really like in City of God (rampant crime etc), but the drug gangs do pretty much control the favelas. The gangs keep crime really low. One of the guys was visited by one of the drug baron's homies almost as soon as he arrived, to check out what he was doing, but was quite pleased when he found out he'd be helping the cariocas and teaching the kids etc. So he got left alone.

However...you get "invasions" in the favelas. This is where rival drug gangs from other favelas raid each other's territory, or the police come in sometimes too, shoot up a couple of people then leave again. Heaps of people in the favelas carry guns. So our guy was in the gym one day just doing his thing, then he hears a load of fireworks (a signal probably - they also use kites to signal drug shipments/incoming invasions), then a load of gunfire that carries on for ages. All the locals are shitting it, people are screaming etc. Then it goes quiet. On the way home, he's walking down one of the alleys (there aren't many roads in the favelas) and sees a big pool of blood, and what he thinks was brains.

The other guy was walking home one day and saw a bunch of dudes with guns coming out of his apartment block. They weren't after him or anything, but still.


A couple of other people we know also got minor muggings in Rio. It really surprises me that me, Sal or Jess haven't been yet considering how common it is, the worst we've had so far is people nicked their pajamas from the hostel!!! TOUCH ... WOOD.


Another difference between Brazil and most other places I've been: they basically don't have floats, I reckon. They never, ever have much change, if any. In Sana, we got basically let off cos they couldn't change a 50 (about 15 quid worth, or maybe 2 nights in a hostel) twice in a row. Nobody in the town had change! So we had to go back and pay them later when we finally found somewhere that did have change. You'd think it was a basic business practise to be able to give change..otherwise you can't charge some people for your stuff!


The music is almost non-stop but not quite. Between the early hours and morning today - Domingo, 16 de Julio - there was a brief respite. Then there was what sounded almost like Gregorian chants from one of the nearby churches, quite atmospheric. So many churches here. It's now almost 11am, and the drums have started up again...down the road someone just cruised past with some heavy bass booming out. The Pelourhino never sleeps.  ¶ 6:32 AM