Wednesday, 2 January 2013

New Years Eve – day 27



We went for a walk around the big lake that is nearby and had a big coco juice on the way – its non ripe coconuts so the taste is weird at first – its not sweet which is what I was expecting. 

Trying to hold your belly in (for the photo) whilst sucking on a straw is really hard...

It’s a beautiful lake right in the middle of the city.


After the lake we headed down to watch the sunset at Ipanema Beach and it was spectacular – and when it finally went down everyone stood and clapped, whistled and cheered.  I have never seen that before everyone applauding the last sun of 2012!  Great to watch.



We headed back to our apartment - all the shops seems to be either packing up and getting out before the madness or taking huge deliveries of beer!  There were thousands of people dressed in white all heading to Copacabana beach – its quite amazing to see. 

We had a bottle of prosecco in the apartment to welcome in the new year in the UK and then headed out.  The beach was absolutely chokabloc – mostly people wearing white and everyone being very good humoured! 

Out to sea all the cruise ships had come in to watch the fireworks display – there was one HUGE ship, which must have had about 20 levels!! The excitement was building right up to midnight and when we all did the count down to midnight and when we hit midnight the champagne started flowing all over us and the fireworks display started – I couldn’t see the first few minutes of fireworks because I had champagne in my eyes!!!  Everyone was cheering and hugging each other – it was brilliant!  We all then just stood open mouthed watching the amazing fireworks display – I hate fireworks but these were absolutely amazing and it went on for about 20 minutes.  I wonder how all the sea creatures are affected by the fireworks – that’s why I hate them so much – they may be spectacular for us to watch but so many animals don’t understand what its all about and are terrified by them.

The Heaving Beach!


and spectacular fireworks...

Happy New Year!  Yep it was all a bit out of focus after the champagne went everywhere!



After the fireworks everyone heads into the water to do their 7 wave hops – you need to jump 7 waves and make 7 wishes!  Mark was straight into the deep end wave hoping with his whole body but I had our phones and money in a waterproof bag but I didn’t really trust it would be really waterproof so I hoped the waves whilst not going further than my knees until one big wave took me down and also took my Lapas Lazuli ring!  Gutted, I loved that ring especially because I bought it in Chile but if the Goddess of the sea wanted it that much she could have it!  I believe that Crystals are transient and my Lapas Lazuli had obviously done its task with me in the 3 weeks I had it.  I am sure another Lapas Lazuli will find me at some point.

I wanted to dump the phones and the rest of my jewellery just in case so we popped back to the apartment which is just a 2 minute walk so easy to do and dropped everything off and left our sandals behind as they were going to get swept out to see too and headed back to the beach for some serious wave hopping!  I must have jumped a thousand waves!  Big ones and small ones – it was brilliant fun and the water was warm.  We stopped jumping occasionally to have a beer but pretty much wave hopped until about 2am and then headed back to the apartment to change into dry clothes and went back out to go and watch the music.  There was a big stage on the beach not too far from our apartment so we headed there to listen to the Brazilian artists – all the people watching could sing a long knowing all the words all we could do was dance along.

Brilliant New Year – it really doesn’t compare to any others as it was so huge (apparently 2 million people on Copacabana beach!) and it was free and it was hot!!  Great fun, loved every minute.

suzxxx


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