Rio de Janeiro

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Stop 1 - Rio de Janeiro

Well my journey has just begun. After an interesting jounrey to South America with a slightly delayed flight and the sort of turbulance that you could pay for at a fun fair ride I arrived at the Alpha hostel in Botofogo in Rio.

The hostel was nice. There were 9 people in each dorm and 3 sets of 3 tiered bunk beds which apparently is quite unusual. In the evening I met Lisa and Dave from the UK who were actually on the same flight as me.

The following day I decided to go with Dave and Lisa to visit Sugar Loaf. Sugar loaf could be accessed via 2 cable cars which we decided to walk to as it looked quite close on the map. The walk ended up being slightly longer than expected and also in about 40C heat, but at least we got to see the local surroundings!!

The scenary was amazing from the top as you got a birds eye view of the whole city. This helped to identify where everything was located in Rio which turned out to be quite useful later on in RIo.

In the afternoon we wanted to go to Copacabana beach however it started to rain therefore we decided to take a walking tour around the central which we got to using the metro.

The next day we all headed to Santa Teresa which involved going on a very cheap yellow tram up the hill. On the way up the hill there were various locals who jumped onto the tram when it stopped and were hanging off the side. According to the guide book this was quite a common thing and it did mean that they got a free trip up the hill to their home.

Once we got to the top we realised we had gone past the stop that we wanted and so we got off at the next stop and started to walk down, following the tram line down the road trying to find Escadaria Selaron (mosaic steps). We eventually found the steps which were quite impressive and were decorated with tiles from accross the world which anyone can cintribute to.

In the afternoon we went to Cocacobana beach. Amazingly the water was freezing, but that didn´t stop us from going in!!

The next day we went to see Cristo Redentor which is accessed using the red forest train. On the way up the train goes through the forest up a winding road. Once you get to the top you have an amazing view of the whole of Rio.

In the afternoon we decided to go to Ipanema beach which is the next beach along from Copacabana. Unfortunately it started to rain. Well I say rain but it was more of a torrental downpour! On the way back to the hostel we were caught on the bus in quite deep water which we had to cross once we had got off the bus.

In the evening (11pm) there was a tour to the Sanguralia samba school which I signed up for immediately! The school was about 30min drive away. The Samba school was like a huge school hall with a stage and lots and lots of people!!

We were left up to our own devises until 3am in which time we had managed to be given a copy of the words from someone, have some of the words translated, attempt to Samba, watch the king and queen dance on stage. It was a very interesting night and it gave us an insight into what the carnival would be like.

The following day I got ready for my next stop......Peru.

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Comments

[Narcis]

Wow! That sounds fun.
Hey! I see your trip has started REALLY well! Looking forward to hear the next chapter. When you coming back you will have to teach us Samba de Janeiro! C U in... PERU!