Advertisement
Published: March 12th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Rio
View from Sugar Loaf Mountian, Rio RIO city is home to one of the most impressive landscapes I have ever seen. The beaches are surrounded by huge mountains with Christo, arms outstretched, sitting atop the highest. A real 'jungle meets the sea' complete with lots of tiny monkies and orchards growing off the trees. The Flavelas (slums) sit right next to modern 5 start hotels which provide for an interesting contrast. I stayed in Ipanema which is ment to be the nicer of the beachside towns. My first 5 days in Brazil were spent wandering the streets eating acai (so delicious I had one just about everyday I was in Brazil), laying on the beach and meeting new friends.
Salvador was quite a change from beautiful Rio and my first impressions werent all that positive. The men here were very persistant and I didnt feel safe walking around on my own. Luckily for me Alana & Paul, Ian, Jaquie and Libby soon arrived and we moved into our apartment where we would spend the next 8 nights. The beaches were gorgeous if you ignore the rubbish littering the sand and floating in the crystal blue water. A big Africian influence here and the biggest bottoms i
Salvador
perfect spot to watch the blocos had seen so far. The women are in no way body concious with even big ladies (and men) wearing tiny swimwear. I heard someone say that Brazilian women wear the same pair of bikins from childhood to adulthood. The rolls on the women often covered the straps of their togs and from far it looked like they were naked.
Carnival was crazy. The parade started at the lighthouse at sunset, about 7pm, and would finish at 6am. We never made it to the end. We attempted to follow a bloco (huge truck with musicians, dancers and a bar that is roped off - you can pay for a shirt to be in the roped of area) walking beside the rope but it was impossible to stay together. us girls were grabbed at and at times lifted up off the ground by the amount of people. After that we skipped the busy part of the parade and walked the back streets to a little hill where we could see the parade going past and had room to dance. It was an alcohol fuled week and by day 8 I was ready for a detox. We seperated from the girls, Jacquie
and Libby, and the four of us found a little hostel 30 minutes drive north with nice bars, delicious acai and clean beaches. We were happy.
Back in
Rio we met up with a couple I had spent time with previously, Tamsin and Mike, and did our tourist activities. Christo; tick. Lapa steps; tick. Sugar Loaf Mountian; tick. Shopping for tiny togs; tick.
Tamsin and Mike decided to join us and we ventured off to
Ilha Grande (small island south of Rio) in a priate ship. Bus was 2 hours late, the ship broke down half way and Tamsin suffered some sea sickness but we made it. The most relaxing part of the trip so far. We caught a boats and hiked to different beaches, saw dolphins, hiked to a waterfall where I even went down the natural waterslide (it took some convincing and I screamed the whole way down) and ate delicious cakes from street vendors. Amazing!
I was ment to head off on my own to
Paraty but the others decided to join me. Paraty was gorgeous. The coblestones were so huge and uneven it made it hard to walk on especially when trying to
take in the quaint whitewashed buildings while eating street vendor cake (so delicious!) I only had one full day here but wished I had longer. The boys managed to find a waterfal so on our only day we ventured out to have a look. Of corse there was a HUGE natural slide there and even after I vowed not to go down I somehow found myself sitting ontop mentally preparing myself. I screamed the whole way down and managed to get a big round of applause once at the bottom.
From Paraty we caught a bus to Sao Paulo then I said a quick goodbye and jumpped on another 13 hour bus to
Florinopolis.
Floripa was lovely. My hostel had an amazing view of the lake and was only a short walk to the beach. I ran into people I had met previously on the trip and spent the last of my beach days exploring the many beaches and hanging out at the hostel.
After four days of sunning and drinking I packed my bags and headed off for another mammoth bus trip to meet up with Alana, Tamsin etc in Argentina.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0506s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Chris and Nikki
Chris
Such a cool picture.