Dapper Dan: Pink Eye, Sambadrome, Missed Connector Flight

Firstly let me skip ahead to present day, I .am currently battling a serious case of pink, or what I prefer to call red eye. I've tried to get some rest in Quito before my diving trip to clear it up as to minimize impact on diving, unfortunatly it is not looking good at this point. I've been to and from the doctor a few times now in Quito, with the latest round getting more super meds from a eye doc, not just a general practicioner. I am hopeful tonight will be the first night of sleep I've had in many days due to the uncomfortableness. I am also dreadfully aware that this will almost certainly impact my diving, my number one goal of this trip, seriously bummed.

< insert gruesome eye photo here >

Onwards to Sambadrome, the Sambadome for most of the pinacle of Carnival, the parade of the Samba schools. Truly a uniquly awesome experience. It started about 9pm and finished at about 6:30am, we bailed at 6am to try and beat the rush, unfortunatly we did not. We ended up in a cab lineup for 1hr, arriving back at the hotel for 7ish, same time those that walked ended up back at the hotel, go figure. At 6am I was so zombie tired I did not want to risk the walk through the streets holding my camera, after all the cautionary tales told to us.

I will leave the photos to describe the amazing array of colour and imaginitivity that has gone into each schools parade. I have nearly 500 photos, of which I imagine only 200 will be non-blury, and nearly 8GB of HD video to edit through. The night was made up of 6 schools. Unfortunatly no school can over lap and it takes 30 mins to go the length of the dome, so that means between each school is like a 30-45-60 minute wait, which drags the night on. Massive numbers of people, we were in Section 13 one of the general admintance type, cheapo seats.

One random Sambadrome event that will surly make you smile, I was headed off to buy a few moer smirnoff ice's and wading through the crowd when a drunk guy just started dry humping my leg and making all sorts of noise, this was funny for the first 30 seconds, but after 60 seconds I was beginning to worry my leg would not be returned was trying to find a girl to pawn him off on. Little was I thinking at that time, that a girl was not what would distract him away from me (no one said I was sober), luckily he moved on shortly there after and I was able to aquire my smirnoff's.

I will let the video and pictures describe the rest, alot of dancing in the stands, alot of drinking, alot of cute girls on floats (and boys, if that floats your boat ;).

I have no photos of me in my mask, as the rule was not to take camera's out, or anything you didnt want to lose for that matter, with the exception I had to take a camera to the Samba parade. Needless, Ricardo, my alternate identity kept the ladies at bay, while wanting Ricardo. Everytime I put it on, I seemingly got random invites, either for photos or to join a party, plain ol Dan got nadda, but Ricardo the brazillian lover got many invites he ofcourse declined.

Club 222 - The official name of the Mic and Dan hotel room, where we smooshed all the ladies with my 2$ bottle of cheap local sugar cane fire water. Rumour had it Beyonce tried to get in, but we where full. We had fun hosting a few tour mates a few times none the less, rather than venture out to random unsure if its actually happening blocko parties. And the bottle of vodka we downed before heading to the Samba parade..

End of an era - Tango and Samba tour group goes their seperate ways. We had a few tender moments as many people started to leave Tuesday and Wednesday, with few staying beyond that. Unfortunatly the goodbye was scattered as some left with no sleep after the Samba parade, some snuck away in the middle of the morning as we recovered from sleep. But the group was awesome, we all had a great time and made many friends.

And then it was time to leave, up at 3am for a 6am flight, off to the airport with amigo Mic who was leaving shortly there after. A sign should of been the last call bording announcement for Mics flight before my flight had even begun boarding. We arrive an hour late in Sao Paulo, no problems per say, have 30 minutes till I have to be on my plane, a frantic ground crew directs us going to Lima into a special van, and off we go. Me and another guy arrive at the gate and request our boarding pass, "You're not making it on this flight, you have to exit the international area and talk to booking about your options". . It seems the first leg of my flight was a code share, so I was not yet checked into this flight and they closed it off 10-15 mins earlier.... Perhaps a problem I could overcome, but then the 2nd problem. We had not yet been stamped out of Brazil... no way I am talking myself out of that one.

The problem lies in that the flight from Rio was eventually going to New York, so in Rio it was a international flight, but because we were not booked onto our 2nd legs, we did not go through customs the same as everyone else. So sure enough, back through the many lines to get into the terminal, a 4 hour ordeal to get new flights the next day, to get comp'd hotel room and to get our luggage.

That delay meant I was not able to make a flight the following day to the Galapagos, meaning a 3 day adventure I had planned for pre-dive trip would have to be forgo'd. Instead I've spent the 3 days trying to rest up my eye in my hotel room, barely leaving for days on end, hermit guy.

Tomorrow 7:15am I leave for the Galapagos, best case some diving, worst case an expense site see'ing expedition from a dive boat. I will reach out to everyone again on Feb 28th-ish.

Jens I hear German house is impressed as to how much beer is being drank, I presume half of all beer drank there is from you!!