Normal one day, crazy the next. This would be the honest slogan for Rio favela tours, ripping off Queensland's era-defining "beautiful one day, perfect the next" tourism campaign. Like a dormant volcano, random eruptions of violence between rifle and grenade toting gangsters and police happen with unexpected but inevitable (in)frequency, the uncertainty in the last word really depends on your perspective. But despite these sporadic outbursts, tours of ‘pacified’ favelas, w

DOES Brazil’s Christ shed a tear looking down over the sadness below him? It’s a question Rio de Janeiro’s residents ask as they gaze up to what has become the most dangerous wonder of the world. Last Friday the steep 4km Corcovado jungle trail to the giant Christ the Redeemer statue was closed the day after a Polish man was stabbed, one of 58 people to have been robbed along the trail in just 10 days. More than 150 people have been robbed this year. Young, armed criminals f

If you’re thinking of coming on a holiday to Brazil and Rio it's a great life choice to make, believe me. There can be a lot to get your head around as a tourist though so here are some travel tips and advice for anyone that wants to jump on a plane for a Brazilian holiday. Follow these and you'll thank me later. 1. COME! Brazil’s reputation is bipolar, it’s either known for out-of-control gang violence and petty crime or for its crazy culture, beautiful nature and even mor

Heading to a music night in the back of an Uber through Centro’s grungy streets dotted with dilapidated, graffitied-covered buildings, I couldn’t help but think ‘Rio is like the Berlin of South America’. These two cities aren’t the the richest in their countries, but they're the coolest, and if walls could talk, oh the stories each could tell. Rio is about as edgy as cities come, a word also synonymous with Berlin, and they achieve it in their own unique ways underpinned by

An Italian tourist who took a wrong turn into a favela and wound up dead with a bullet in his head today is another reminder of the ever-present danger bubbling below the beauty of Rio. The 52-year-old, Roberto Bardella (on the left above), was riding a motorcycle alongside his cousin Rino Polato, 59, to the beach when their GPS led them into the Morro dos Prazeres favela with totally unforeseen and grave consequences just before midday. Wearing professional riding clothes

You'll see Aussie surf brands worn all over Brazil, from the beaches to the gangsters in the favelas just like Quiksilver above. In Australia you’ll find Brazil’s Havaianas on feet from the coast to the bush, on movie stars to the homeless. Despite this, Australians and Brazilians wouldn't usually consider each other all that similar, at least at first thought. But when one travels to the other there are shared traits between us that you can't help but notice. So are Brazil

A newspaper front page with a little girl covered in her dead mother’s blood declared “Terrorism in Rio is everyday”. In the grisly story from July, Cristiane Andrade, 46, was stabbed in the neck in her car's front seat sitting next to her daughter in a supermarket carpark. The girl ran to a nearby taxi who raced them to hospital where the young mum died. Afterwards the driver recorded a short movie of the little girl, 7, distraught, blood-soaked next to his taxi, a police

Amidst the sexed-up excitement of men clamouring to reach Brazil and indulge their fantasies all sense of reality seems to go missing. So I'm going to put a little of it back into the discussion, especially if you are reading this eyeing off a first time trip. Brazilian women it's fair to say are the most searched and discussed topic by men travelling here, they have a global reputation unparalleled. I was going to avoid the topic since it’s been written on more than enoug