Rio Favelas

The divide between rich and poor is huge in Brazil, and so to experience exactly how the poorer side lived we did a tour through one of the biggest favelas in Rio.

The favela that we visited homes between 250,00 - 300,000 people and is run by a 23 year old Brazilian man - who incidently is the big poncho in the drug running world. The last head of the favela died last October when the police set up watch and shot him down. We all thought 23 years old was very young to be running a favela, but apparently this is quite old as most people do not live past 14-15 years old.

The inhabitants of the favela are proud to live the way they do, it is cheaper than anywhere else in Rio, they do not pay taxes, steal water and electricity and the favela is a safe place where no crimes are prohibited. The downnside (well, they would not see it as a downside as they are quite happy with their life) is that they will never leave the favela and see the outside world. The drug dealers are likely to get arrested or shot down by the police if they leave the favela.

The children that live there are happy and playful, they get excited when 'gringos' come to visit as they hope that our photgraphs with make them famous one day. If you ask them what they would like to be when they grow up, the boys would say a footballer (football is their passion) or a drug dealer and the girls would say a footballers wife(they have WAGs here too!) or a model - they have no inspiration to be anything else because they don't know anything else.

It was great experience to see how life happened in a favelas, and to interact with the locals who couldn't get enough of the gringos looking around there homes. 60% of our money that we pay for the tour is invested into the favela, improving schools and facitilies. Definitely a tour I would recommend if visiting Rio.