Mugged!

Friday started off a pretty decent day in Brazil. I finally got comfortable enough with my phrase book to start busting out phrases to the Taxi driver and it ended up making our taxi rides a fair bit more comfortable, quicker, and cheaper. So, there’s one place that Portuguese is coming in really handy, even if it is even just a tiny bit of it. It’s getting a lot more comfortable interacting with the native Brazilians here, probably for all of us, but it was pretty pronounced today, and I was feeling pretty good about it. I had intended to get some pictures at IMPA, so I happened to have my camera today.

Later in the evening, I ended up going for a walk with a new friend I met on the trip, and in the middle of a really great chat about all sorts of stuff, we ended up getting held up by a couple of guys with knives at Copacabana beach around 22:00 or so. Honestly it was really really stupid to be there, and even stupider to be there with anything valuable. So, if you hear people telling you not to go there after dark, heed their warnings, unless you want to learn your own expensive lesson! It really doesn’t feel dangerous at all while you’re down there, because it’s relatively well lit and just not what you’d think of as all that scary, but the truth is that you’re isolated enough for them to get away with basically whatever they want. Again, the bottom line is, heed the warnings and don’t be there that time of night. Failing that, give them what they want–they’re gonna take it anyways. Never carry passports or credit/debit cards unless absolutely necessary(ie, on the way to or from the airport or ATM, respectively). Don’t get caught up in the heat of something and forget your good common sense.

Anyways, basically everything is back to normal now. It was an experience I would have rather not had, but what can you do? Life goes on…