Ok so here it is - the story of being held up at gun point....the one we couldn't tell while we were away for risk of loved ones back home getting worried and panicking.
The first Wednesday you might remember my entry about the big football match between Corinthians and Flamengo (our team). Well the hostel put these tours on regularly during the football season but i think because of the size of the game, more people than planned wanted to go.
So two vans for the transfer (complete with security guard - packing) turn up and there are not enough seats. Sarjiniho our tour guide says, don't worry guys we can take my people carrier (while making a kind of thumbs up gesture, with little fingers stuck out, circling his hands and using full shoulder movement).
Sweet, we jump in....Rose, a 19 year old traveller takes the passenger seat directly in front of me and the two dutch guys, Bas and Daan sit next to me behind Sarjiniho. As we get closer to the stadium the traffic builds (with 80,000+ fans what do you expect!) and every five mins we're approached by people in the road trying to sell us beer/water/flamengo merchandise....everything and anything. We get used to this....
We pull up in traffic under a bridge and its getting a bit dark anyway (about 7ish or something). Two guys come up to both sides of the car. The one on the passenger side (near me) is only about 15 - probably the kid of the guy on the driver side. It then transpires that the guy on the driver side has put a gun up against Sarjiniho and said, 'I want everything from people in this car, their wallets, cameras, everything...' Obviously this is going on in Portuguese and so we dont really know whats happening but the Dutch guys can see the gun clearly so know exactly whats going on. I figure out whats happening when the kid on my side reaches in the passenger window and takes everything out of Rose's bag! SHIT!
The talking goes on between Sarjiniho and the gunman for about a minute or so and we see him giving him stuff out of the window. It all happens really quickly.
The two guys disappear and we get away scot free - we then have a massive conversation with Sarjiniho about what happened...He basically said to the guy that we were Gringos, we didn't understand anything that was being said, we were on a tour and were told not to bring anything out with us so please take it easy and dont do anything stupid, to take everything he had....what a legend...Rose and he were both obviously really shaken....
They got away with Sarjiniho's watch (a present), his wallet (with the 30 odd tickets for the game in it), his mobile and his money....cleaned him out. Luckily for us he talked them out of taking it any further with us, especially as we had cameras...wallets...lots of stuff for the game!!!
He said that if a security guard was in the car we probably would have seen someone shot dead but i guess we'll never know and im pretty glad about that. I know that in hindsight we probably shouldn't have been in a car without a security guard and that windows should have been up and air con on but i strongly believe that Sarjiniho stopped that situation from turning into a really nasty affair and i will never forget that.....
Stupid thing is that we had to buy more tickets for the game when we got to the ground - whats the betting we bought them straight off the person that mugged us!
So there you have it, out in the open now....good story to tell the grandchildren etc etc...i also feel that i have to say that whatever this story makes you think, there are dangerous places everywhere and despite what happened, we absolutely loved Rio and will definitely be going back....I cant recommend it highly enough...what a great city!
Brazil
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