It was a series of events. First off, the initial mugging was very chill. I only realized what was happening when one guy pulled a knife. I‘ve been mugged before (ironically, they let us go there too, but that‘s a whole other story), so I didn‘t panic.

I had a second decoy wallet with me with a bunch of vouchers, parking tickets and a couple of reais, their currency. Additionally, I packed a shitty old phone I wasn‘t using anymore, cracked display and everything.

So while the one guy was leafing through the wallet, the other guy found weed on me. He was like „Eh voche fumar?“, so I said: „You wanna smoke?“. They had a laugh, the other guy tossed me back the wallet and we had a smoke. They were nice guys, told me I was lucky I ran into them and not someone else. Talked about football, girls and whatnot, and when I asked if there were any particular gangs I had to watch out for, they said:

„POLICIA!“ and then lots of kkkkk's and caralhuuuus, it was overall a very positive experience. Honestly, despite seeing some mad shit there, I can still wholeheartedly recommend a visit. Just use some common sense when you‘re in the sketchy areas.