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Published: June 15th 2008
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The beginning
The first journey of many. Worsthorne - Burnley. Aimee´s side of the story can be found at www.mytb.org/amazing-aimee. You can subscribe to hers too if you want.
This is my side so far, and despite the grumbles we are having a great time!
Monday 02nd June Heathrow airport is big. And rubbish! Nowhere to eat unless you want sushi that has been prepared by a cockney geezer called Brian! Not even a Burger King. Where do all the staff go when there is a delay? Free vouchers for Burger King are the only thing that makes delays worthwhile!
And get this! They have a "Boots" but they don´t do meal deals cos they want to try and flog a stale cheese butty for £4.00. Thankfully we were not delayed!
Tuesday 03rd June Arrived at Sao Paulo airport at 0500ish. We had been pre-warned about using buses/transport in the early hours, and our hostel wouldn´t let us check-in till after 1300 so we sat at Guarulhos Airport for a while. Tried out my Portugese at the bus ticket office. Was told the buses to Sao Paulo are frequent and cost R$28.00 each. The spent the next 25 minutes trying to figure out what R$28 meant in REAL
Our Lass
Worsthorne Bus Stop money. Works out at £9.33.
We then returned to the ticket office to purchase the aforementioned tickets (in Portugese)!
After 11 hours on a plane and a few hours of hanging around at the airport we were shattered. Aimee slept on the bus, but I´m too nosey! The first thing that I noticed is that people sleep in the street. And I don´t mean they discreetly tuck themselves away in a doorway or under a tree, they literally sleep where they fall. You see commuters and tourists just steppping over them! One ingenious fellow had the clever idea of putting a cardboard box over his head. This kept the sun out of his eyes and created a kind of Urban Streetwear eye-mask. I wanted to take a photo of one, but thought "If I get caught, they might eat me!" So I didn´t.
Checked in at Hostel. R$68 for double room with en-suite and breakfast. It was a nice breakfast too!
Immediately after checking in, the first thing I had to do was flush the toilet to check if the rumours are true. I can now proudly confirm that it IS true. In the southern hemisphere you can
Edificio Italia
46 storeys high with a viewing platform at the top. wave goodbye to your lunch in an anti-clockwise direction!
As it was still early-ish we had a short walk around "the atmospheric old centre of Sao Paulo." Thanks to Lonely Planet we went up "Edificio Italia," a 46 storey office block with a viewing platform at the top. Fab city views to behold. And it was FREE!
Wednesday 04th June Went for a walk. Saw the Municipal Market (huge fish and lumps of nameless meat) Cathederal and Japanese Quarter. Apart from a few slinty eyes and a Japanese book shop it was about as Japanese as Brian´s Sushi Bar at Heathrow! We got hopelessly lost trying to leave "Japan." Aimee says it was because I wont ask for directions but it´s not that. The map was wong (get it? wong?)
Thursday 05th June Travelled to Rio de Janeiro. Six hours on a bus. A very comfy bus though, with lean-back seats and footrests. R$67.00 each. Was a bit concerened when two tooled-up policemen got on board. Concern turned to panic when they sat seperately and fell asleep
with their guns on show!! If you´re going to rob a bus you don´t even have to provide your own
Me and her
You have to take one yourselves. It´s the law! weapon. Just sit next to the sleepy copper and help yourself to his!
Arrived in Rio and checked in to Hostel. R$90.00 per room which was very basic with shared bathroom.
Friday 06th June HOORAH! Breakfast is included. Walked to Copacabana Beach (only 5 mins. from Hostel) and Ipanema Beach. Gorgeous white sands and BIG waves. In between the two beaches is a little fresh fish market where the locals drag their nets up the beach and sell their fish straight away, before heading back out in their little boats to catch some more. You can´t get fresher than that!
On the beach EVERYONE plays football/kick-ups. It´s not just the young lads. Pensioners and even - wait for it -
women. And the thing is, they´re all good at it!
Went to "Lapa" this evening. Basically its a lot of Samba Clubs that are too busy so everyone drinks on the streets. It was fab. Until you needed a wee! We went with about 20 people from our Hostel, and the previous week one of them had been mugged whilst taking part in a "who can pee the highest" competition on Lapa´s famous arches. We therefore went to
Sao Paulo
The horizon - somewhere! find a toilet. Aimee and I found the dirtiest, dingiest dive imaginable and decided that it would do. It was
that bad that I expected to get mugged and so wasn´t afraid of losing the money. I was actually afraid of being butt-raped, so I left the door open so everyone playing pool could see, hoping that this wold deter any would-be back door invaders. It worked, and I escaped with my hole remaining an exit from a one-way street!
Saturday 07th June Oh my God! I´ve turned into my parents! Bought some breakfast cereal so that we can rob the provided cheese/ham breakfast roll for our lunch. That should save a bob or two!!
Lazy day today. We took a walk around "Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas," described by Lonely Planet as,
"a picturesque saltwater lagoon ringed with a walking/biking trail." That wasn´t far wrong. They forgot to mention the six lane freeway and the unattended kids on tricycles though! It has a circumference of 7500m and goes beneath Christ the Redeemer.
On our return to ther Hostel it appeared that the toilet had been broken all day - nice! So I rolled up my sleeves and fixed
it! It was only the cistern that was leaking - therefore not filling with water - therefore not flushing. I felt like a REAL man after doing some plumbing!
Sunday 08th June Spent the day on Copacabana Beach.
Monday 09th June Beach again. HUGE waves. At least 7 footers!
Tuesday 10th June Planned a lazy morning followed by the train up Corcovado to see Christ the Redeemer. Typically, after a week of clear blue skies and good weather, today was cloudy, so we didn´t bother going to see Christo and took a stroll round Rio instead. My God it stinks! We found 1 litre of Vodka for R$4.00 - that´s £1.30! Wish us luck..................
Wednesday 11th June Cloudy again. Went up Corcovado to see Christ anyway. We were still beneath the clouds and so got good views. Also, it was quiet up there so we could take reasonably "empty" photos. I gave Aimee a wet-whale (stuck my tongue right down her ear-hole) while we waited for the train back down. Got off the bus at the wrong stop and so had to walk through a tunnel back to our Hostel. Have I mentioned that Rio stinks?
Vodka
The cheapest in town! Aimee nearly
died in that tunnel. She held her breath so much that she nearly had a killer asthma attack! Thankfully though - she survived!
Thursday 12th June Last day in Rio. Went to the beach - well, it could be a while before we see beaches again!
It was windy today and so was the roughest see I´ve EVER seen. The waves were so big, they must have been at least 12ft! I thought it was too dangerous to body surf, so I immediately stripped to my shorts and went to do it anyway. It was worth it a couple of times but at others, the waves kicked my ass! On more than one occasion I was dragged and dumped, scratched and battered. It was all I could do to just hold my breath and wait till I was washed ashore! Luckily I can hold my breath for about 3 minutes (the result of wanting to be in the "big pool" with my older brothers as a toddler) and there were times when I had to! It was madness!!
Aimee came in to play as well. Nothing to do with the fact she wanted to pee! I kept
Beer!
Foreign muck! my distance for a while for that strange, yellow, warm water to disperse and then nearly drowned making sure she didn´t get her hair wet!
Friday 13th June Up at 0645 to catch an 0830 bus. 22 hours later arrived at Foz do Iguaçu! Home of the waterfalls!
To be continued..............................
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Jane Fowler de Carmona
non-member comment
Beer
As you will be out of Brazil, I recall Quilmes Argentinian beer being rather to my liking, especially when consumed in a swimming pool. We conducted research of many SAm beers. Otherwise Polar from Venezuela but it might not be available there. anyway, you are now in red wine country until you hit the Atacama desert, and it will warm you through the chilly southern evenings. Other than that, great you enjoyed Lapa... have fun, and bloody hell, the prices have gone up! Jane x