Samba at the Rio Scenarium

Of course we didn’t cancel!!! Hurrah. Strangely, it was me that was more up for this big night out than Jane. So off we went with Raquel (I’ve mistakenly been calling her Rachel up until now) and Raphael. We drove through the rain over to Lapa and a really cool cobbled street full of bars and nightclubs. This area was quite run down until an enterprising chap converted the old mansion into a three-floor nightclub, full of quirky antique collections. It had a capacity to hold 2000 people and the check in procedures are quite elaborate. You get given a card in which your drinks and food orders are recorded and then you settle up on exit.

Once in, Raquel took us to a table right at the front near the live band which she said was very lucky but I think that once again she’d worked her magic with the staff. She knows everyone! We ordered our drinks and while they came we shuffled off to have a good look round. The place was starting to fill up and as we looked at the other party people we began to feel a bit more comfortable. The crowd was like a mix between a wedding, an office Christmas party and a rather tame hen night for someone who’s done it all before. What I’m getting at there is that this was not an uber-cool crowd but rather older people letting their hair down.

After our little walk round we sat down and enjoyed the first band. This is samba music so lots of drums and beats and the singer looked like the guy out of Fine Young Cannibals. People were dancing and swaying but we sat drinking our mild Caipirinhas which was our new favourite cocktails made with cachaca (rum?), sugar and lime. It’s the National drink of Brazil. Poor Raquel tried to encourage us to dance but we held back. This could be a long night!

However, once the band had finished the wedding disco started up…with ABBA’s Dancing Queen, Michael Jackson and ‘Don’t Stop til you get Enough’ and I finally gave in and got up and danced with the crowd to The Bee Gees and ‘Staying Alive!’. Jane was having none of this forced-fun and held out until finally, she could no longer resist when Mambo No 5 came on. Now we were in the swing of it and sang out loud to Shania Twain (Man, I feel like a Woman) and the Macarena.

We took our seats and listened to the next band. A regular lady singer who sang all about the perils of love. Everyone seemed to know the words which Raquel explained compared love to a pain in your elbow. The songs seemed to be extremely long and we drank another couple of Caipirinhas. I made friends with the group of girls on the next table. They were sitting beneath the sign that had the Guardian article on it declaring this to be one of the top 10 bars in the world. I got up to take a closer look and ended up making friends. They explained that they were all from somewhere in the south of Brazil and they were very elegant and friendly.

The Guardian article was quite appropriate as it described the bar as somewhere where ‘Even awkward English girls with no sense of rhythm end up dancing’. How very rude.

After the second band finished we decided it was time to leave. Lovely Raphael was waiting for us in the car and we all laughed together about the evening as we drove back to our hotel. What a fun night it had turned out to be and I’d highly recommend it to anyone visiting this vibrant city. It was about 11 o’clock when we left and high time these OAPs were in bed.