Rio de Janeiro - The start of a love affair?

Before I arrived in Rio I decided I was going to stay in Ipanema. I had visions of myself sitting on the beach, guitar in hand, crooning to the local beauties as they sauntered by. Rio was having none of it and as I arrived there was a rainstorm that would have put Atlantis 2 miles further underwater. I walked into my hostel of choice and said "Hi". There was a guy on the sofa and beer in hand he countered "Soft fucking day, huh?" in a distinctive Cork accent. I smiled, he grinned, we started drinking, we bonded.

The hostel was in a small cul-de-sac with two other hostels beside us and our place turned into a bit of a party central due, in no short measure, to the corkmans & my thirst and my (by now) honed DJing capabilities on the hostelīs stereo. Everyone seemed to be either starting a world trip or were in the final days of their journey before heading home. So the conversations were either of the "Hi, where you from?", "How long are you travelling?", "Wow, where have you been?", "Tell me about x" (For how much I cherish these conversations, see: Traveller Trumps), or of the far more preferable "I donīt care what you do or where you've been, lets talk shite and have a drink" variety.

The week shaped up as follows:
Thursday: No party party
Friday: Lapa street party
Saturday: Salsa party
Sunday: Favela Funk party
Monday: New liver party
Tuesday: Beach

With that I packed my bags and got on the bus to Salvador de Bahia on Wednesday morning.

ps. After 1 week I still know nothing more about the Corkmanīs life and times other than his name.