Rio de Janeiro


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Published: June 25th 2014
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We arrived at 4.30 am to an unexpected wet and dark Rio de Janeiro. After taking a rollercoaster of a bus ride, we were dropped somewhere near our hostel. It was raining pretty heavily by this time and after 24 hours travelling, spirits were not particularly high. After first arriving at a brown garage door, which I insisted was the right address, we then realised we were on the wrong road and after a walk to the next block we saw the welcome sight of our hostel. The hostel was clean and our private room had the unexpected surprise of a rooftop balcony, we dropped our bags and headed where all Rio residents would...Ipanema beach. However, as I've already mentioned it was raining, and although it had eased off a little, this out of character rain had kept they Rio residents at home and we had the beach nearly to ourselves, sharing it only with some speedo clad runners, surfers and dog walkers. From the beach we could see Morro Dois Irmãos, in English translated to 'two brothers hill', at the base sits Vidigal, a pacified favela, which lit up quite spectacularly at night.
That lunch time we learnt that Ipanema was quite a sought after neighbourhood and the prices at cafes and restaurants reflected this, a 'budget' recommendation from our trusty lonely planet left us feeling stung and we vowed to buy lunches from the supermarket from now on.
That night our bed called to us and after a 12 hour sleep the next morning we were ready to roll! After a trip to the supermarket to buy what we thought was brioche, we headed for breakfast on Ipanema beach, which had a lot more activity now the sun was out. The brioche however turned out to be cake. So, we ate a lot of cake for breakfast, laughing about it and commenting that people walking past us must think we're odd for eating cake at 9am! We then walked along from there to Copacabana beach, wherever you went there was a heavy police presence, we assume this was for the world cup and not normality. Before we'd reached the sand of Copacabana, Chris noticed a radio 5 live microphone, and at the other end of it was Alan shearer, after a stop and a stare we continued along, taking in all the sights. There were sellers aplenty, and if you had enough money you wouldn't have to leave the beach all day, with locals bringing you everything you could need: grilled prawns, beers, fruit, sarongs, bikinis, speedos, massages, caprihanas, jewellery, football shirts and they would even bring you a chair. We then took the obligatory trip to the fan fest on the beach and watched England leave the world cup with the Costa Rica vs Italy match, the group of Costa Rican's seemed much happier with the score than the England fans who, at the 86th minute, started chanting ' we've only got four minutes left in the world cup'. Oh well, there's always Russia 2018.
A further walk, which turned out to be up the side of a mountain, and we were in Botafago to collect our world cup tickets. After a simple collection we headed down to get the iconic view of sugar loaf mountain. We were surprised by the location where many a photographer had ventured to get the shot. There was a suspicious sewage smell along the small and empty section of road side(more like a very busy dual carriageway) beach. We took our photos and promptly left, negotiating the local bus back to Ipanema. After choosing the cheapest option on the menu at the Gringo cafe for dinner, we called it a night as we were knackered from our all day beach front walk.
Another sunny morning led to another breakfast on the beach. We then went to Rodrigo de Freitas Lake where we hired bikes and cycled the 7km around the lake accompanied by many locals going for a Sunday morning jog, dog walkers and tourists on bikes with the same idea as us. The lake was lovely, with Christ the redeemer nearly always in sight. The lake was tainted slightly by being surrounded by a busy, main road, but you soon forgot it was there as you negotiated all the traffic on the cycle path, narrowly missing dogs and small children; a bell would definitely have been useful!
We spent the afternoon on Leblon beach, basically the same beach as Ipanema but it's separated by the small canal that leads to the lake.
That evening we went for a quick dinner, but our lack of understanding brought me some greasy cheese filled filo pastry and a handful of crisps. Chris enjoyed my disappointed face and had a little chuckle as he enjoyed his scrambled eggs. A pot of frozen yogurt on the way back soon cheered me up though!
Our last day in Rio , and the forecast had said it would be the clearest so we had saved visiting Christ the redeemer until today. An early start got us to a line of minibuses without too much of a wait. The bus took us up the steep and winding road to the entrance point, passing crazy runners and cyclists on the way, those guys deserve a medal! We'd noticed our tickets had been stamped with a red 'no visibility' stamp, but we were sure the clouds would soon pass, leaving us with a clear birds eye view of Rio. They didn't. Not for a while anyway. Our first view of the statue was one obscured by clouds. We made our way up for the majestic view of the 40m high statue of Christ. We waited amongst the hundreds of tourists to see him cloud free and to catch eagerly awaited view of Rio, we were there for over an hour and did eventually get to see all of Rio, just not at all the same time. The city was revealed to us through the clouds in pockets like a game resembling catchphrase.
That evening we treated ourselves to some beers and a bowl of chips in a nandos-esque bar with the south Korea vs Algeria match. I've never watched so much football! Later that evening, after frustratingly missing the shuttle bus ( as we waited we were accompanied by a Brazilian guy who was 'absolutely sloshed' according to Chris, who helped the bin men collect the bins, half undressed on the street, ripped his jacket and threw all the feathers out so it looked like a bird had been mauled and generally was harassing people, not us luckily) and having to get a taxi to the bus station, we had our first mishap of the trip. So, after some language issues, I collected our prebooked ticket for our 11.30pm bus from Rio to ouro preto. Chris took this ticket and noticed it was only for one person, back to the desk I go, and it turns out, even though the guy checked both our passports, he had only printed a ticket for me. It is at this point the guy behind the desk chooses to inform me I have actually booked 2 tickets from Rio to ouro preto at 11.30 on the 22nd July!!!!! Oopsy! My face drops as I inform chris, (and he later informs me he had already started preparing himself that he'd have to convince me not to book a flight home and that we'd be fine). I ask if we can change the tickets, and phew, we can! But.....the guy checks and there's only one seat on tonights bus. Oh no, oh no, oh no. This could lead to us spending the night in the bus station that lonely planet describes as seedy and full of crooks and prostitutes, not ideal. The other options would be to get a bus straight to Brasilia, a long journey, hence why we were breaking it up with a stop in ouro preto. Another option could be getting a bus to belo horizonte, but as another host city for the world cup, accommodation could be expensive and hard to find. The guy behind the desk disappears for a short time that felt like hours as our nights sleep depended on him! He returned with a helpful English speaking man, who again reiterated we had booked the tickets for next month and there was only one seat on the bus. I looked at the screen again and notice the guy has selected tomorrows date. I pass this on and he checks again, 6 seats available! We are saved!!! I asked if it would cost any more ( although at this point, I think I would have paid anything) it wasn't, just a simple swap. At this point it was 11.10 pm and time was ticking on, panic was starting to set in that we might end up missing the bus! We grabbed our tickets and headed down to departures. There were buses everywhere, there people everywhere, asking anyone where our bus was resulted in a lot of Portuguese we didn't understand and pointing in vague directions. We eventually got confirmation that our bus was late, as most of the others seemed to be. As we waited I asked Chris if he was ready to laugh about me booking the wrong date yet....he wasn't.


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1st July 2014

a good start and some very amusing moments
It sounds like the presence of Jesus Christ in, around and above you played its parts . Nice : ) God Bless - enjoy - keep safe and well Love and Hugs H J B S xxxx

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