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Published: June 21st 2012
Rio
We arrived in Rio early afternoon after catching an earlier bus from Paraty and headed for Che Largarto, the hostel in Impanema where the Irish boys where staying.. Somehow it was cheaper to book online than it was to rock up and book a bed, however the boys had warned us so we booked the night before. The hostel was ok, but quite small. The first night was fairly quiet and we went out for a couple of beers with the boys and ended up in a bar not too far from the hostel, the beers were quite expensive (for Rio's standards) and Trace managed to get a good deal from a street seller - forever the bargain hunter!! However, that was to be her demise as she ended up asking Tash to take her back to the hostel at about
2am as she was feeling a bit wobbly, so we left the boys chatting to some gay blokes - they seem to pick them up wherever they go, even though they are both straight and have girlfriends!
The next day we decided to stay on at the hostel, however we were abruptly informed
at 11am that there was no
space and we had to find another hostel, no drama you might think, but Rio gets rammed on the weekend and it was a Friday, so we all spent most of the day looking for other hostels.... Until we found that Che Largato in Copacobana had space, the boys had stayed in cocacobana before and weren't particularly fond of the place but we were quickly running out of options, so we decided to cut our loses and go.
The taxi ride was comical as the four of us were crammed into a taxi with our large ruck sacks on our knees, everyone we passed stopped, stared and laughed.. Nice! We got to our new hostel only to find that they couldn't find our booking and said it might take awhile to show up on their system (even though we had booked it from the same company) we waited for an hour, only to be told that they didn't actually have any beds, great! Since it was their mix up they said that they would put us up in an apartment for the rest of our stay without any additional charge, which we were quite excited about, 2 hours later
and we were still in the hostel, then they finally decided that they did have beds.... We were getting severely p$ssed off by this point.
Anyway we settled in to our rooms and then went out to the famous lapa street party, it didn't start until about
11pm, but was great fun and a couple that we met from the hostel called Jenny and Sean (who were also Irish, but from the republic of Ireland) came with us. The food was lovely and the beer was cheap, the only let down was the rain and horrible portaloo's which almost made Trace sick, Tash didnt event bother trying them out! We partied hard and had a fab time but knew it was time to go at about
4am when there was a fight on the street and the police came out with their truncheon's! So we headed back in a minibus to the hostel, only we got a little lost and half of us got off, the other half thought we should stay on, so trace and the boys had to run back to meet Tash and the Irish couple in order to find our hostel... We finally made
it back and safely into bed at about
5am!
The next morning we were rudely awoken by a bloke snoring in our room, I heard Tasha give him a thump and shout 'dude, shut the f?uck up, probably not very wise in Rio, but hey it worked.... For 10 mins anyway. During the day we decided to head to the famous Cocacopana beach and chilled out catching some rays, we had a fairly quiet evening and had a lovely all you can eat buffet which comprised of freshly cooked steak, sushi, seafood and salad, it was amazing. We both left feeling sick from eating way too much. We finished the night off by playing some cards with the Irish folk back at the hostel, with Tash managing to lose nearly every game of El President, a game we have come to know and love!
The following day brought the Favela tour which we had been offered as part of our green toad tour, it was basically a tour around one of the slums in rio, they are all called Favela's because originally they were usually based in area's where a plant called Favela grew and it became the
name of the shanti towns in Brazil. They have been quite dangerous places in the past, run by drug barons, but the police are slowly taking them over and the government is ploughing more money in to make them more livable and safe of the residents. The tour was really interesting and certainly eye opening to see how these people live, many make a good wage and choose to live in the favela's because of family or convenience for work. Some of the places seemed ok, but the further you got into the favela the less developed it became. The majority of people do not pay for electricity or water and have tapped into the main services illegally, there are wires running everywhere. The people were ultra friendly as the tourism obviously brings money into the favela to help support the families, however our tour guide told us that it is not a place for tourists at night and we did not chance it! Overall it was a great experience but not one that we will repeat, it was pretty run down and far from developed, we even saw a couple of rats! However we are so glad that we
Football volleyball
Preston and Keasty this one is for you, hope the game is still thriving!took the opportunity to see how a large proportion of people in Rio live.
The next day was our final full day in city of sun and beach bodies and we decided to go and see Christ the Redeemer, the Irish couple came with us, by the time we got there
at 11am, it was already busy with people everywhere, however it was still impressive and the view of Rio was amazing. We managed to get some brilliant pictures of us and the statue, although there are people in nearly everyone. Trace decided that a dress was appropriate for the occasion but quickly changed her mind at the top when she flashed her pants to everyone as the wind was so strong in a Marilyn Monroe stylie, fortunately for her Tash was not quick enough with the camera! We then headed to the beach for a couple hours to chill out then headed to the famous mountain called sugar loaf by cable car. We had been told by the boys that the best time to go was for sunset, unfortunately everyone else had the same idea, we queued for ages and just caught the last of the sunset, the view
of Rio and the harbour (one of the seven natural wonders of the world) was gorgeous however the camera did not do it justice at all. After many attempts to take a decent photo we decided to head back to the hostel.
We went out with the boys in search of a money exchange place and food, on our way we were walking down the street when a gang of youths walked directly towards us, they managed to split us up in expert fashion, one of them stole my necklace that Cameron from work had given me, they just ripped it off my neck, as I shouted out to the others, they stopped to look and another gang came up behind them and stole Tasha's sunglasses off her head. We had been warned about Rio and cocacobana in particular so had been very careful not to carry too much money or valuables, the incident was very upsetting and shocked us both but we weren't hurt and didn't lose anything of any value, just sentimental which is sometimes worse. Trace was shaken up and upset so we went for a beer and something to eat to help us forget about
it. That night we just chilled out at the hostel and had a beer.
The following day was our final day before heading back to England. We decided to go to the steps in Lapa which are famous as they have been tiled by a man mourning the loss of his wife and son, they are tiled in all different styles and have obviously taken a long time to do, it took forever to find them as no one seemed to know where they were, however it was worth it in the end, we also had a look at the cathedral which was an odd shape - don't know what else to say about it really, but it was much more impressive from the inside! Later we headed to the airport with the boys as they were on the same flight as us, and managed to get some seats fairly close. We said our goodbyes at heathrow, it was lovely to meet them and we have had some amazing adventures with them, hopefully we will get chance to see them again, maybe a game of El President and a beer in Belfast!
Bye bye south America -
it was amazing
Trace and Tasha's favourite 5
Iguazzu falls
Inca Trail
Argentinian steak
Salt flats
San Pedro De Atamaca
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MICK KEELING
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HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOUR BLOG BRILLIANT I DONT BELIEVE THAT IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO LEAVE ALREADY