Ellick comes to town!

I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. Actually this excursion to Rio for Carnaval was the only part of this entire trip that was planned and had actual dates associated with it. Before I left the States Ellick and my sister Samira had decided to meet up in Rio for Carnaval. This was going to be their big vacation for the year. I had invited pretty much everyone I know to come visit me on my South American and I had gotten a lot of responses like “that sounds great, we’ll check our schedule!” But only Ellick and Samira had actually bought tickets.

About 2 weeks before Ellick was set to arrive in Rio he sent me an e-mail letting me know there were two fatalities of denegue fever in Rio. Uh ok. Then he told me about the recent gang wars in the favelas. “Don’t worry” I told him, “I mean, what’s the worst that could possibly happen?”

We had already made arrangements for a very nice apartment right on the Copacabana beach. It was literally 50 feet from the beach. Ellick was going to arrive a little after noon, so I headed over a little earlier. I was thrilled when I walked in the place. This was by far the nicest room I’ve stayed in the 2 months that I’ve been traveling. The AC worked, the beds were nice and everything was clean!

While I was in the shower I heard a knock on the door. “Ellick! Great to see you man.” He took one look at me “Dude, you’re dark.” I guess a month of hanging around the beach has changed my complexion a bit. Then he started looking around the apartment. “This safe doesn’t look very secure, someone could just rip it out of the cabinet and take it, and these curtains are really flimsy”

Ellick settled in for a bit and then we decided to hit the beach. Yeah Copacobana was right outside our door but we were heading to the Ipanema side to meet up with my hostel friends. I always love introducing friends to each other. It’s a great feeling when two groups hit it off, and then you have one larger group.

Sure enough all the Chileans, the Slovak and the English girl were all hanging out at the beach at our usual spot. Ellick seemed to fit right in, everyone is so friendly that it really wasn’t much of a problem. I asked Ellick is he wanted some beach food, “it looks really dirty, I wouldn’t eat it” he said. I started looking for the guy selling shrimp. Ellick told me I was going to die.

There is nothing quite like a relaxing day at the beach. I love the whole atmosphere, everyone has a smile one their face, the vendors are walking around selling whatever you could possibly want, it’s hot but the water cools you off perfectly. First I went for a swim in the ocean, nice and refreshing. "Watch out for the undertow, it´s really bad here." Ellick warned.

Afterwards I finally felt like spending some money. I saw a great little Brazilian soccer jersey that would look awesome on my nephew Muneer. I´ve had this thing for soccer jerseys lately (sorry, I mean futbol kits). “Be careful of the vendors” Ellick told me “they’ll try to rip you off.”

I’ve actually been really impressed with the beach vendors. They walk around all day in the blistering heat of the beach, with huge packs on their back selling, well, everything. They’re generally pretty nice and take no for an answer fairly well. And I’m sure they completely rip off some people. But I think those are also the people that come down here and speak nothing but English and get upset when no one can understand them, the ugly Americans.

As the sun decided to set, we decided to head back to the homestead and meet up with the crowd a little later for dinner. Ellick and I needed to visit the ATM so we walked by the HSBC bank near our apartment. “Let’s not go in there” he said, “those guys hanging out in front of the bank look pretty sketchy.” Yeah they did look a little sketchy, but I felt ok since but the police station was two store fronts down on the same street. But whatever, we walked around for another ½ hour looking for another bank.

Dinner was great, social as always. Then we all decided to head out to one of the many beach stands and drink some beer. It was Igor (the Slovenian) and Teresa’s (the Chilean) last night in Rio. They were both flying out early the next morning. We had already exchanged contact information and I had made plans for staying with Igor for a few days while I got situated in Buenos Aires and with Teresa when I visited Chile.

It was strange, one group of friends was leaving and another one was just arriving. My sister Samira was showing up in two days and that would finalize the transition. It’s become more and more apparent to me, the two groups were wildly different sorts of people. The Latin Americans are fun and social. People from the US are cautious and paranoid, some more so than others.

But Ellick finds a way to mix his adventurous side and his paranoia together. I know I have a tendency to throw caution to the wind and take a few more chances and do some things I know aren’t a good idea. None of them have really screwed me too much, everything has always worked out and I’ve wound up with some good stories out of it. I find it odd that Ellick and I get along so well considering we do have these different world views.

Sometimes in life you just run across good people. No one is ever perfect, everyone has their own quirks. But the difference with friends is that their quirks are funny and not annoying. And you put up with them, and you give them shit for their idiosyncrasies, but at the end of the day you’re still good buds, because you don’t just find good people everywhere you look.