John Malathronas dances on the wild side of Salvador Carnival

So here I am, drinking beer happily from my Skol can and enjoying the deep drum sounds and startling sights of Salvador Carnival, when I feel a hand behind me frisking my shorts.  Frankly, I don’t mind being touched up, but I would like to consent as to who’s doing it, so I turn back quickly to challenge my Bermudas intruder. I freeze. It is the Brazilian Policia Militar. “Don’t resist,” whispers my Brazilian friend, André.

Mendoza River is the heart of the Argentine wine country but today it’s running fast with melt-water run-off and is almost exactly the colour of milky coffee. As a wave rears up and crashes over the front of our bucking raft I get the impression that it really is coffee: the water is loaded with dust that leaves a layer of ‘coffee grounds’ in my mouth.

It seems to me that Boca Stadium is trembling. I’m up high in the press stands and down below on the terraces where ‘La 12,’ the fearsome hoodlum Boca fan-base, is leaping, I can see the rowdiest element of this crowd. 50,000 people are leaping in unison in some sort of barbarian tribal dance. Boca stadium is perhaps unique for the way it moves when the crowd jumps. Jump it does – but tremble never. The stadium doesn’t tremble say the Boca supporters: It BEATS!

Foot-volley – or, as it’s known here, fut-volei – was born in Brazil as a reaction to a law that actually made soccer illegal in the early ‘60s. It has developed into an international sport that is played throughout the Americas (Uruguay are the current champions).