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Published: January 7th 2008
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View from the top
Looking out over Rio harbour Rio!
For once we arrived in a new destination by air...and it was so worth it. Only a few hours from Buenos Aires by plane vs. 44 hours on the bus - one of the best decisions we have made so far. We landed in Rio about 5pm and ...shock horror...it was raining! Never in all the times we had imagined what Rio would be like, did we even consider it would be raining, but it was grey and drizzly and unfortunately that meant we didn't get to see much on the way in. But hey, at least it was warm.
We caught a taxi into our hostel in Ipanema, the most expensive place we have stayed so far. $75 US dollars for a tiny little room with shared bathroom (gasp!). On the plus side it was only three blocks from the beach and had a great shared kitchen and all you can eat free breakfast (and not just the usual stale bread roll and jam).
Ipanema was a pretty cool part of Rio, lots of good shops and restaurants and people walkin around in their undies (O.K so they were wearing swimwear, but if you're walking around
the streets and can't actually see the beach then they're undies in my book). Actually, we were down on the beach and Marika spotted a guy wearing his tighty whities. The South Americans love their budgie smugglers but you can tell they actually are swimwear; however, this guy was proudly wearing his Calvin’s which made it pretty obvious that he was parading his undies on the beach!
So the beach was one of the main reasons we chose to stay in Ipanema. We didn't have much else planned for Rio so spent most of our time hangin out on the beach. The LP reckons the beach has informal sections where like minded people meet; the family section, the beautiful people and the gay sections. We didn't think anything of it and just went for the spot with the least people. On the Saturday the beach just seemed to be a huge mix of all sorts which was really cool. On the Sunday we went down and found a whole lot of people (hundreds/thousands) all sitting close to each other with big spaces either side. Of course we went for the empty spaces to the side and didn't think much
of it. Then, after a bit of people watching, I started to notice the disproportionate amount of men, and then the guys havin a pash and figured hey, we'd found the outskirts of the gay area! Pretty funny!
Anyway, other stuff. We decided that the only real tourist thing we wanted to do was to go up the mountain and see Christo de Redentor (Christ the Redeemer). We caught the bus from Ipanema and after 45 min made it to the bottom of the cog-train to the top. We decided to catch a private transfer up though (same price, faster, extra views and no hour wait to leave) and so set off up the hill almost immediately. The first stop was pretty cool; the lookout over the central city and the helipad for the helicopter rides around the mountain. Spotted a cool coloured and huge Iguana in the bush here.
Then up to the top. I know it is one of the worlds biggest tour attractions, and it was a Sunday, but there were so many people in the small space around the statue and the viewing platforms. Not much fun. But got a good look and the
obligatory photos after some persistence. The view is pretty impressive to say the least. It was a bit hazy but luckily most of the cloud had cleared. The mountain is about 700m above sea level, so considering it’s almost straight up over the city you can see all the way from the airport, over the harbour and to the opposite side where Copacabana and Ipanema are. Very cool.
After the trip up we headed back to Ipanema and went to the Sunday Hippy fair. It was pretty cool and much more polished than we expected. Some pretty impressive jewellery and clothing etc, Marika was much more restrained than I expected and we only picked up a couple of things. The coolest thing I saw was the classic Brazilian football busker. This guy was doing tricks with a football and playing keepy-upy on one small spot between stalls. Pretty impressive, had to give him money.
So all in all Rio was pretty cool, it seems to be the best place to come if you want to party, and luckily after the initial disappointment the weather cleared up and we got some sunshine on the beach. But, due to a
bit of a funds shortage at the end of our trip we could only affort to stay here 3 nights before heading south to find somewhere cheaper and more relaxing!
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