M writing - We found a pretty good hostal quickly - decided to go for ambience over comfort which has proven a good choice even if we are already a little sleep deprived each morning due to the staff treating the place like their personal party-space from 6.30am and throughout the day. Brazilian pop can be really quite bad! Anyway, we are still on the hillside in Santa Teresa - a bohemian, arty kind of area with great vistas over the bay of Rio. It is right next to a Favela, but we think not a particularly poor one as there [View Full Entry]

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Took the ancient tram - the "bonde" back up the hill from town across the old Lapa aqueduct - nail-biting and good vistas. In the evening, after a tipico dinner of fish in coconut cream, cassava and plantain we slept well, despite the arts & culture festival going on next door - interesting. Breakfast in the sun as we like it - Laurent offered me a mouthful of his particularly tasty banana and mid-munch I spied a little monkey in the trees. Around 7 mini-monkeys came when we offered them a banana - called something along the lines of "pacarachas" according [View Full Entry]

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Hello all, Nothing fancy on this very first post. We made it. The longest flight ever for both of us but we did touch down in sunny Rio at 8am this morning. Temperature went up a nice 26°C today and a big sunshine. Not bad for a winter day... Quite a bit of adventure today including making our way from the airport to a hotel at an address even the locals have never heard of by bus and foot. Not possible without the help very smiley, friendly local binmen, especially Paulo! When we arrived, we were told the "Cariocas" (Rio natives) [View Full Entry]

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