Bed Bugs,Favelas,Beach And Lapa


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Published: April 16th 2008
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So i was up early for the favella tour and it turned out that bed bugs had entre´s, brekkie,dinner,lunch,super and light snacking on me during the night as my back and smaller areas were covered in bites, the most expensive hostel of my trip so far and i get eaten by bed bugs.....lol.

So i went downstairs and complained and i was moved to another room, got a free meal and two drinks and i was told id get money back for my last night, so it itchs like hell and not pleasant but well it has an upside and they washed my clothes and fumigated my bags too, so it saved money on washing....lol.

You have to laugh at this things otherwise id be crying....lol, so the bus turned for our favella tour and it was late as well it was running on Brazillan time, our guide Daniel spoke really good english and we picked up some others from other local hostels and headed to the favela.

The Favela we went is called Rocinha and is one of the biggest in Rio and i think possibly in south america although do not quote me on that and each favela has a round 20-25,000 living there and they do not pay taxes, they get free utillties and most work in the roich areas and would rather live in the favela near to work as appose to having a nicer place outside the city, the favels are pretty close to the rich areas which is pretty crazy to have a 5 million real place like 500 mtrs from a shack.

So first we all got the back of motor bikes which are the favela taxis, no safety gear or helmets and im sure my travel insurer would love that....haha, diving in and out of traffic up to the top and daniel explained about how most people in the favelas are from the poor north east of Brazil and they come to the rich citys of rio and sao paulo to earn decent money.

The house get more and more cramped and closer together as you go further down into it and you start of with a wide street right down to a squeezed path with sewage running down, a big problem is HIV, teen pregancy, dengue fever etc.

Daniel took as to a graffti artist shop and some other spots as the people her do not beg they try to make something to get cash, the are drugs in the favel and it makes the gangs 1.5mil a year but the favela people do not see any of the money, part of our tour money goes to help a day centre for the kids and we saw the lovely kids and the day centre and an italain company provides funds for day centres etc in the favelas.

It was deffintley a worth while tour and mkes you realise how lucky you are, also lenny kravitz visted the same favela. We finished up and got back to the Hostel and scott went to get his stuff ready as he was flying home at 8pm and me and Colin headed to copacabana beach and i bought a brazil shirt while i was down there as my brazilan souvneir.

I had a dip in the hostel hot tub and then grabbed some food and colin then joined me and this group of swedish guys and english girls and we had a good laugh and then we went to a street party in the centre of Rio called lapa and it was ok not the best night ever, but we had fun and these brazilan guys were stalking the english girls....lol.

We ended up getting a collectivo back to the hostel and we were back at 4am....im too old for this.....lol.

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