Friends of friends!

Sunday dawned fairly early for me as I was awaiting the arrival of a girl I've met a few times, who has many friends in common with me. I knew her flight was due at about 6.30am, so when I heard the doorbell ring at 8am, I thought it might be her...but it wasn't.

I was up anyway and decided to have breakfast, I also had long chats with Tracey - a really cool Aussie woman who works at The Mango Tree. As time went on, we learnt more about each other and more of the hostel inhabitants surfaced and said hello. 

And I waited...

"Are you coming to the hippy market?" Various people asked.

"I'm waiting," I replied.

Finally, by about noon, I'd had enough of waiting and decided to sod off to the hippy market. I left a message with the lovely Tracey, to let the girl know I'd be back in about an hour. As I walked out the gate, lo and behold, there she was, walking down the street! We greeted each other fondly, she left her bag at my hostel and we pottered off to have a beer (by the hippy market so that I would be able to do that too!).

We stopped at a bar and perused the menu, as we did, a cardboard tie was lowered down from above. On it, in three different languages, it asked if we'd like to go upstairs for a beer. We looked up and saw lots of Brazilian guys looking down on us. "Brilliant!" Exclaimed the girl, "Free beer! Are you coming?"

"Um no, I want to go to the hippy market." (Yes I know I'm starting to be rather like a dog with a bone on this one, bear with me!)

We made a plan to meet later at my hostel and to find the girl a place to stay as she had arrived in Rio with no bed for the night. I happily perused the stalls in the market for about an hour and managed not to buy anything - quite an achievement for me!

Heading back in a hostel direction the girl called me from the boy's apartment and asked if I wished to join them now. I thought, 'What the hell, why not?'

There were many boys to meet (all about 23 I think and obviously all from a fairly privileged background), beer and cocktails to be drunk. The girl seemed to have had a few cocktails already, I decided it was safer to stick to the beer, pace myself a little. 

From the apartment, we watched a bloco gathering below, which was very cool. We also chatted, laughed and listened to Florence and The Machine - all was good. Well apart from the fact that the girl had nowhere to stay still - but she seemed to be getting on pretty well with one of the boys and we both thought her problem might be solved. We danced; sang; blew kisses to the crowd below; drank; okay I was also getting slightly inebriated at this point - but you know me, love an audience!

I suppose this is the point to admit to enjoying the attentions of one of the young men in particular.

As the afternoon wore on, the girl got more drunken. 

We made our escape at about 6pm and returned to the hostel so I could make curry - I felt it was very necessary at this point to have some food. I happily cooked while the girl loudly entertained some of the other folks at the hostel. Food was eaten and more was drunk. We were joined by two lovely Canadian sisters who found the girl to be very funny - which she was and sweet too. We all decided to venture out onto the piss ridden streets of Ipanema. 

Walking along the front and the beach, the girl tried (sometimes successfully) to make friends with all who crossed our path, we steered her away from some and got talking to others. I learnt about Bianca, who is from Rio, but lives in Spain. She is unhappy in her marriage and doesn't want to go back - she stressed this many times to make sure I understood. I assured her I did and told her the only thing to do was to make the decision to change her life, if that was what she really wanted. Haven't had anyone giving me their life story whilst drunken for a while and parts of her story didn't quite add up, but she was clearly unhappy. Meanwhile her brother attempted to snog all of us. Again (with the help of the wonderful Canadians, we made eventually made our escape and decided to head back for a necessary pee break - we were not planning to join the locals in pissing on the streets.

Back at the hostel, tiredness overcame and the girl still had nowhere to stay. She tried hiding in the hammock, but the over night guy knew she shouldn't be there. I was faced with the dilemma of feeling responsible but also kind of pissed off for feeling like that. I talked to the girl about it and she assured me she'd be okay. In the end I decided to head to bed and leave her to her own fate. Sometime later she came to retrieve her bag. I didn't sleep for a while because I was worried and thought maybe I should have done more to help her find a bed - however I'm not her mum and she is a grown up who should make her own decisions.

Next morning she returned after a night on the beach - she'd left her things at my hostel after all. We found some hostels on the internet and she went off to sort herself out. She was also fairly mortified and very apologetic. I accepted all of this and was happy to draw a line under all of it. We made a tentative plan to meet the next day - she would send me a message.

I never did manage to see the girl again, she did leave me a lovely message at the hostel and she was also seen with another very drunken girl not being allowed into one of the local supermarkets. At this point I'm afraid I washed my hands of her - there is a reason why I travel on my own. I hope this doesn't seem mean, but she was on a completely different vibe to me and I knew she would be okay.

Another note about a friend of friend - I met one on Friday too. She was forty-five minutes late; didn't apologise; told me I was 'big like her'. Obviously I was not overly impressed by her either.

*Note to self: friends of friends can be great and in the cases mentioned above, not! Trust yourself to meet good people wherever you go!