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Published: March 6th 2009
Our 27hr bus ride from Salvador to Rio was reasonably pleasent, the chairs were comfortable and they reclined to almost flat with a leg rest, the only bad thing was that we were seated at the back of the bus right next to the toilets! Being next to the toilets on a 27hr bus trip full of gringos with Brazil bellies is the last thing you want. We managed to get by with the beautiful scenery. The vast difference from the outskirts of Salvador (very barron, dry and poor) and Rio (very green, lush and more wealthy) was amazing. The 27hrs seemed to pass by very quickly.
We arrived and got to our hostel with no problems, checked into our first dorm room of our travels and headed out to check out the neighbourhood of Botafogo, where we were staying. Once back in the hostel later that afternoon we met an Irish couple, Ash and Scott, at the bar and ended up chatting until the early hours of the morning.
The next day was and early start (the first of many) as it is very hard to sleep in with the whole dorm room alive and pottering around. We managed to find an internet cafe in the shopping plaza and spent nearly 2 hours putting photos on facebook (it is soooo slow!). We had arranged to meet up with Ash and Scott at Shenanigans Irish pub to watch the Ireland vs England 6 nations rugby match. When we got to the pub they said they weren't playing it till later so we crossed the road to The Irish to watch the game and found Ash and Scott there too. We spent the rest of the night having a few beers with our new friends.
Eager to see the city sights, we got up early the next day and walked through the streets of Rio with Ash and Scott towards Sugar Loaf. There are cable cars that take you up the first mountain, and another to take you across to the second. Simon had the great idea to walk up the first mountain!!! It was a lovely walk through the forest/jungle, but proved a fair bit steeper and longer than first anticipated, and it was stinking hot and so humid!!! It was all totally worth it though as we saw and fed some little tiny monkeys along the way, which were very cute!!! The view from the first mountain was amazing, we were itching to see what it was like from the very top. We caught the cable car (which was a little scary) across to Sugar Loaf, and the views didn't disappoint, it was even better than the first, just beautiful! Next on our to do list was Christ the Redeemer. Once we decended down the mountains we were stopped by a local tour guide who try to sell us a deal for him to take us up to see Jesus with a personal tour, the deal was too good to refuse, so the 4 of us hopped into Luiz' boiling hot little car and went our our way. It was definately a good choice, Luiz was fantastic, giving us a little tour of the city suburbs and stopping along the way to give some us some brief history and general interesting information. He took us to another mountain to see the views and then went up to Christ. He even waited for us at the bottom and said he would take us back to our hostel. When we walked out of the lift that takes you up to the top we were taken back by the sheer size of the statue. It was beyond words. The view again was miraculous! A full 360 degrees of Rio! After such a full day, we relaxed with a few beers and had an early night.
On Monday we all went to Copacobana for a swim and a chill out. The beach is amazing, but the water was quite dirty. It was almost unbearably hot on the beach and so after a few swims and sun bathing we went for an early dinner. The next day we went again to The Irish for Simon to watch his Chelsea match against Portsmouth (Chelsea won 1-0, so Simon was very happy). Wednesday we went to Ipanema beach and walked all the way around and down to Copacobana and went to the night markets. Our last day in Rio we didn't have time to do anything after packing and going on the internet once again.
We again prepared ourselves for another long bus ride... this one 18hrs.. at least they are getting shorter each time!
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Emma
non-member comment
Yay
Wow it looks like you guys are having an amazing experience. So happy for you! Carnaval sounds awesome/scary but thats fantastic that you didn't really get anything stolen. I recieved your text early this morning. I'm not sure whether to reply as I don't know what international texts cost/if it would work! Can't wait to see more photos! Miss you guys xoxo