Advertisement
Published: February 17th 2007
Ola guys and girls, hope you are all well. Welcome to Neil and Lisas round the world adventures. Weve been here just over 2 weeks now so we thought wed better let you know what we have been up too.
Carnival starts today. We are going to a street party in about 2 hours to watch and follow a street band around ipanema, its going to be amazing. Also we just checked into our hotel for 5 nights over carnival. Its so nice to have a room to ourselves instead of sharing with a load of strangers.
Ok so we spent the first 5 days in Copacabana (couldnt find Lola now matter how hard i tried) The beach in Copa is beautiful. Alot of Brazilians take car of there bodies, running up and down the beach all day, so me and Lisa fit in nicely, haha. But also theres quite alot of cellulite on the beach, these ladies arent afraid of showing it off with g-strings you could floss your teeth with. Copa gets a little seedy after dark, theres alot of dodgy folk hanging around. Weve heard horror stories of other backpackers getting mugged. On our 3rd day we had a bit of a run in with some scallies. We went to the hsbc bank and as we did 2 kids spotted us and was waiting outside the door staring in at us. An old lady came in and told us to be carefull because she heard them say they was going to mug us. They was both about 15, so obviously i could of taken them if i had to, but you dont know if there carrying anything. We was both a bit worried so we didnt take any cash out, as we walked out they moved out the way and let us walk past. They did follow us down the street a bit but must have got bored and walked off. So luckily for them they never tried anything, haha.
While in copa we went to a footie game to watch local team Flamengo play Boa Vista. They match was actually pretty poor, but even though there was only 1 goal and the stadium was just a third full, the atmosphere was amazing. We was right in the middle of the home fans and they didnt stop singing and dancing from start to finish.
Also we went on a tour to a favela funk night. The favelas (urban slums) are where the poorest people live and they surround every city. Many dwellings consist of little more than a few boards pounded together. Crime is rampant on the streets, so naturally we went to a night club in the middle of brazils largest favela, rochina. Being a large group of gringos we stuck out like a sore thumb, but they took us all up to the vip area so it was quite safe. But within an hour we was all down on the dance floor with the locals. The place was absoloutely rockin, lisa loved the music, It was a mix of raga, funk, with a load of samba drums, really weird but it worked. The brazilians really know how to party.
After 5 days in copa we headed 4 hours south to a little island called ilha grande, it claims to jhave the best beach in brazil, lopes mendes. The island was beautiful, it was made up of little beach coves with tropical rainforest in the middle. There was no cars on the island just little streets of sand connecting all the bars and houses. Our hostel window looked out onto the sea. Every morning we had brekkie on the decking which looked out over the sea, hard life. We thought wed better try and find this lopes mendes to see if it was as good as they say. Unfort it was a 2 1/2 hour hike away through thick rainforest. There was a path to follow but it was up and down and over rocks, which was not easy in flip flops. But we made it and it was a good as they say, well worth the walk. Golden sand, crystal clear water backed by rainforest. It was so good we went back 2 days later, but this time we went by boat. After about an hour of being there the storm clouds came over, we thought it would be a quick shower, how wrong we was. Weve both never been in rain and wind so bad. We hid in the trees for abot 30 min, shivering, huddled over our non waterproof bag containing lisas camera and my mp3 player. The rain and wind wasnt ltting off so we made a dash for the boat. The only prob was the boat was a 20 min walk through a little dirt track. The walk was ok until we reached the top of the hill and had to come down the other side, it was like a mud slide, there was people falling and sliding all over, it was hilarious. Thats when i realised that wearing my white board shorts was not a good idea.
After 5 days there we headed back and spent the next 4 in Ipanema. We realloy liked it here, it felt alot safer walking around at night and there was better bars and restaurants.
We als visited Corcovado - Christ the Redeemer. The views from up by the statue was amazing, i cant begin to explain how good Rio looked from up there. We also took a cable car up to Suager loaf mountain for more spectacular views over Rio.
Sorry if ive waffled, other blogs probably wont be this long.
Anyway take care guys, we are going to get pissed and enjoy carnival.
Adious.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.093s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0558s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
sis
non-member comment
Hilarious not cheesy!!
Love the blog, mom sent me the link, you'd got the wrong -mail address!! - keep up the good work x