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Published: March 14th 2011
So finally we got to South America! I won´t be doing a blog each day like India, simply because we´re staying in places much longer and there won´t be as much to report plus it´s a completely different trip to India, with more focus on the night life than sightseeing and day-time activities and to be honest I´d much rather be outside sunbathing than sat inside on a computer! The pictures might have to do the talking instead!
Before I go on about Rio, I need to give Air France a mention- that flight was great! There was as much wine and champagne as you wanted, your own TV so you could select films/ TV you wanted to watch...finally managed to watch the King´s Speech on there. Really nice food too and complimentary ear plugs and eye masks- definitely useful now we´ve switched accommodation styles and moved into shared dorms rather than private en-suites for 3 pound a night a la India. It´s also on this flight that we got chatting to Jo, a girl from Bristol who we met up with in Rio for a few nights. She also left Rio with us and is travelling along the coast
Boarding the plane
Where we met the lovely Jo. Well she was travelling on her own and having a panic attack so forced herself on us! :)with us for the next few weeks- a new addition for Jen&Moz!
So we arrived in Rio all excited and raring to go- and was greeted with 5 days of rain. Luckily, the main sights in Rio can be done in one day- Christ the Redeemer, Sugar Loaf etc. so we decided to do this in one day with an organised tour group to take away the hassle of jumping tonnes of buses across the city.
With Carnival being on we had to wait until our last full day for this- Wednesday- so until then we were dodging the rain and trying to ´make the most of it´. We ventured out to Copacabana beach one day, but I brought my umbrella and Laura brought her rain coat. On our second to last day, the sun came out so we went for an hours walk to Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, had some lunch at a Kilo Restaurant (where there´s a buffet and you pay by the weight of your food- we´re always nearing the kilo mark I´m ashamed to say).
We´d heard so much about Rio´s notorious pickpocketers and potential muggers that we decided to not bring the
camera out with us- it wasn´t worth it. Therefore we have no pictures to put up of the Carnival. We also realised that from India we have 600 photos and only 10 of us with us in so we decided to take a few pics of us posing BEFORE the night we went out for Carnival so you get the idea... Then on the day of the sightseeing we brought it out and went into real tourist mode.
The main parade was in the Sambadrome and tickets were 60 pounds in advance and triple that if you wanted them on the day. We therefore stuck to the street blockos- where smaller parades take place in the streets. Everyone in Rio got in the spirit and dressed up, we went to a market and it was jam-packed with feathers and costumes and everyone was buying their bits and bobs.
Overall I really liked Rio, there´s the potential to have an amazing time when the sun is out- but you also need a lot of money. It was far more expensive than we´d banked on and as we´re at the start of the trip we were a bit more dubious
to spend loads of money- drinks were expensive (unless you drink beer of course, which is much cheaper!). Food and accommodation tripled in price because of Carnival so all in all you needed a lot of spare cash- and we´re doing this trip on a shoestring remember! Should get bit easier as we move out of Rio. 10 pound a night in a hostel dorm, shared with 6 people, shared bathroom and breakfast included- not bad at all really. Let´s hope we can stick to that.
Yesterday we got a 5 hour bus from Rio to Paraty- a small cobbled stone beach town. Fingers crossed the rain will hold off and we get some sunbathing in (as you can tell, that´s a massive priority for this trip!).
I´m not sure if this blog will be as eventful as India- mostly because it´s not as much as a culture shock- the way of living is very similar to ours- but I´ll keep my eye out of anything unusual and no doubt put it in here. The plan now is to slowly make our way down the Brazilian coast so that by the end of the month we´ll be in
Uruguay. From there we´ll get a boat over to Buenos Aires and spend the majority of April in Argentina. That´s the plan anyway, but with me and Laura- who knows!
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