Drugs and Guns in Rio Favelas!!!! - Brazil Travel Story

Ok, so when me and my 2 friends first got to Rio, the first guy that we talk to is our Taxi driver who took us to our hotel. It was about a 30 minute drive so we started talking to him and ended up organising to go out with him and have drinks the next night. So we went out and partied and it was all good. Then the next day, he tells us that he wants to take us to his home neibourhood to show us where he lives so we say sure, why not. So we ask him where he lives on the way there and he says favelas. Anyone who knows about the Favelas would have a general understanding of how we started to feel when he told us thats where we were going. So we get to the bottom of the mountain and drive round this corner and ahead of us is a Y shaped intersection and sitting on a bench at that intersection is 2 kids who look about 14 years old and they are both holding ASSAULT RIFLES!!!!!!!!! Thats right, the kind u see in the jungle on James Bond. So we pull up to these guys and they jump up and have the guns pointed at us in the windows until our driver explains the situation and that we are just here to see the town, then they pull the guns away and let us through. So we ask our driver why the hell those kids need to have guns or at least such massive powerfull guns, he replied well my friends, there are no police in the Favelas, they are not allowed, and if police come round that corer back there, BANG BANG BANG. We were shocked of course!!! So wedrove about a hundren meters up the hill and get stopped again as a guys comes out from a shop on either side of the road, this time its not rifles but SHOT GUNS they are pointing at us until our driver explained again what we are doing up there. We had to go through like 5 of these gunned checkpoints just to get into the town all the while looking out the window at people walking down the street casually holding pistols in one hand and a beer in the other! When we get to the top he askes us if we want to go inside, we thought we had been pretty brave up until now but we werent game enough to go into his house and possibly never come out again so we tried to politely decline so he went inside and brought a beer out for all of us. When he went inside he had to ask these 2 guys to stand and guard us while he went in to make sure we didnt do anything but mostly to make sure that if anyonefrom the street came up to us they could let them know that we were allowed to be there, which did happen a couple of times in the 2 mins it took our guy to get the beer. Then once he gave us the beer, he gets back into his taxi and pulls off the air conditions vent at the back of the center console and pulls out 2 little handfulls of cocaine baggies!! I said whats that for? and he just saidoh just makin a delivery. Then he told us that people that dont live there only come to the favelas to buys cocaine or to buy guns otherwise its too dangerous for non favela people to be there. On our way back down the mountain, he proceeds to tell us about his former taxi life of selling guns and dealing drugs and making deliveries and about all the gun fights that happen all the time between these people and the police and we come to realise that our taxi driver was a bit of a gangster a few years ago and he told us the only reason we were able to get up that mountain was because of who he was!!! Crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We found out later that companies run tour to the favelas which on a few different mountains and outskirts of the city, but NOBODY goes to this one because its way to dangerous to runs tour through there!!! Um, so thats it.... We went back happy to be alive because weve never experienced anything like that before