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Published: October 4th 2010
After 3 planes and 36 hours we finally arrived in the world famous city, Rio de Janeiro! We left La Paz on the 28th and had an early morning flight to nearby city Santa Cruz, where we spent a few hours in the centre (very hot, humid and not much to do) before a flight to the capital of Paraguay, Asuncion. We then spent the night there (Tam airways put us up in a 5 star hotel with dinner as they changed the flight schedule- was a pain but good to have a few hours of luxury!) before our early morning flight on the 29th to Rio. When we arrived we jumped in a taxi to the hostel we were due to stay in to find they were full, but as it was based in a complex of around 8 other hostels we soon found another one nearby which was cheaper and better so we were happy. We stayed in the lovely beach area of Ipanema (famous for the song 'Girl from Ipanema'), close to Copacabana, but actually nicer, with really cool bars and loads of restuarants, plus its safer at night. After settling in we went for a stroll round
the area and had some lunch in a Nandos type place, and immediately realised that, even though everyone told us, Brazil is MUCH more expensive than Peru and Bolivia by a long way! In those countries we were eating lunch for less than £3 each for 2 or even 3 courses plus a drink, but in Rio you will be lucky to find a meal for lunch for less than £8 unless you hunt out the specials, whcih of course we did 😊 Even though it is expensive we both knew straight away that we would love Rio.
So for our first night in Rio we decided to go to a Mexican restaurant and bar which we had seen nearby, and this is where we had our first taste of the traditional Brazillian drink, the Caipirinha, made with Cachaca, sugar, loads of limes and crushed ice, its a bit like a mojito but more sour. Scott is now addicted to these! After dinner and a few drinks in there we hopped around a few bars and tried different versions of this drink, including a strawberry one and a passionfruit one, delicious, before coming back to our hostel for an
earlyish night. However in the hostel complex everyone sits outside together socialising before going out so when we got back there was a big group going out to a club/bar and we thought it would be rude not to join them so went along and had a really fun night, which ended at 2am when we went to get a taxi and saw a random woman dancing naked in the street- thats Copacabana for you!
The next day it wasn't as sunny as we had hoped so no beach for us, insted we decided to go to the Quinto Boa Vista Zoo! In the hostel, there is a notice board which gives directions to various locations around the city and it seemed straight forward enough to get a bus there so to save some money thats what we did, only the instructions were wrong and we got on the wrong bus. The bus driver tried to tell us (in very loud Portugese, which is completely different to Spanish so we don't undertsand a word) that he would take us to the bus stop we should get the right bus from, luckily there was a woman who spoke English so
she translated this for us, so we sat on the bus going the wrong way for a good 15 minutes before getting off and getting on the right bus the other way. However the driver didn't speak English either so we didn't know where to get off or if this was even the correct way to the zoo, but we thought it couldn't be that far and we would be able to see it so thought we could just stay on the bus and we would know where to jump off....not the case! After 45 minutes driving through some pretty bad areas of Rio, with us being the only 'gringos' (foreigners) on the whole bus, and 2 tantrums later from Vic who was pretty worried about where we would end up, we were signalled by the driver that we had reached the zoo. However when we got off the bus we were in the middle of a hectic town god knows where, again the only gringos in sight, and there were no signs to the zoo or any clue as to where it was (cue another tantrum from Vic). After unsuccessfully asking strangers in broken spanish (which no one understood
anyway) where the zoo was, a guy overheard us who spoke a bit of english and pointed us towards the zoo, which was a 20 minute walk away. When we finally got there it was brilliant, less than £3 to get in (cheapest thing in Rio) and it put London zoo to shame - there were so many animals, including lions, tigers, a bear, crocodiles, snakes, penguins, a jaguar and much to Scott's delight, over 25 different types of monkeys, which were really cool. The sun came out while we were there too and after a stressful journey getting there we were really glad we made it as it was a great day out. We even got the bus back with no problems! That evening we were pretty tired so went for a nice Italian meal (and a couple of caipirinhas) and had the first proper spaghetti bolognaise we have had since we left home on Sept 6th, it was really good and just what we needed.
After a good nights sleep we were up early in the hope it would be sunny and we could hit the beach for some much needed sunbathing, but it was cloudy again
(although hot) so we booked to do a Favela tour that afternoon and went for a walk through Ipanema. The sun started to come out so as we were next to a big hotel we walked in and headed for the lifts to go up to the rooftop pool for a little chil out! We stayed by the pool for a good couple of hours, the staff thinking we were staying at the hotel, until it was time for the tour. For those who don't know, the Favelas are like huge estates in Rio which are very poor and built up in the hills. The one we visited was called Rochina and housed over 300,000 people and was 'run' by a 24 year old drug lord who basically owned it (by default after shooting the previous king pin) and made the rules and organised the crime. Through this he had a lot of money but couldn't even leave his house at the top of the favela for fear of being murdered by rival gangs from other favelas. People in the favelas build their own 'houses'. The 'houses' are usually one story high each and no bigger than our lounge at
home (housing 8-10 people in them), with maybe just holes for windows (with no glass) if at all. There are no building regulations and building materials are cheap as they are often illegal so people just sell their roof's to a willing buyer and new house will be added on top, people continue to build and build and build on roofs so that some buildings are 6 storys tall with 6 'houses' to them (Favelas expand at a rapid rate due to the high pregnancy rates among teens - by the time a lot of girls reach 21 they will normally have 4 - 5 children, which is seen as advantageous as the children go out to work and bring more money in for the family) but this, along with the tropical rains, can cause mudslides and due to the poor building materials used we saw a few that had completely collapsed, leaving families with nothing and having to start again.
A lot of people that live in them are happy though as its all they have ever known and there is a big community spirit, they go about their daily lives and a lot work honest jobs, but many
are involved with drugs and gangs and crime is a massive problem in the favelas. Kids grow up thinking the only way to make money and be respected is to be involved in this kind of thing so it spirals out of control, as many families have on average 7 children, which makes for a lot of young people turning into drug dealers, drug watchers and gun handlers. We weren't going to do this tour as we are as we had heard a few bad reports and we were a bit concerned that it would be dangerous due to the above but we went with an organised group and a guide who had been doing these tours daily for years so we felt completeley safe.
At the start of the tour the guide said we were going to get on the back of mopeds to get to the top of the favela and then all walk down, we thought she was joking but when she pointed to the mopeds (the favela method of transport) we knew she wasn't! We clung on to our riders for dear life as they whizzed in and out of oncoming traffic and bikes, over
taking on blind corners and almost crashing into other riders, but it was actually pretty fun although not in a rush to do that again! Once we reached the top we started the descent down, passing through various narrow 'streets', a graffitti centre which was set up to give kids something to do other than get involved with crime (some of the art was amazing here), and a small day school for children whose parents work. The little kids we saw were so cute, its a shame to think they may grow up to be part of the crime bracket one day, but thats just how it is, although we met a group of young boys who were using large tin cans and buckets as drums, as one day they hope to be good enough to play in the Rio carnival. It was really nice to see kids with some ambition to do something with their lives insted of turning to crime which seems to be the easy option in a favela. Apparantly if you are born into a favela it is almost impossible to get out of it, and some teenage girls as young as 13 see having children
of their own as an 'investment' and those children can earn them money so they don't have to work, although most seem happy as it is all they know and thats how they grew up. Obviously the people and kids we met and saw were just normal people living in the community, as we weren't going to be introduced to criminals or drug lords! But a couple of parts of the tour were hairy; once when we passed a brick wall with bullet holes in that were very recent, another when the guide said 'if you see anyone with a gun or bomb please do not take a photo of them'...! The tour was extremeley eye opening and really made us appreciate what we have back at home, it was also good to know that 70% of what we paid to do this tour goes back into the favela community, to the art centres and schools and children.
After a shower back at the hostel a few of us from the tour met up for some drinks and dinner with an Irish couple, which took place in an Irish pub called Shenanigans! It was a lot of fun and
when the others decided to leave at around midnight, We decided to get a taxi to the Lapa street party (Under the famous white bridge) that we had heard of, a town about 20 minutes away. This street party was like nothing we had ever been to before, with thousands of people, food and drink stalls everywhere and lots of side bars playing music into the street, as well as locals playing drums and singing. It was an awesome atmosphere and there were all kinds of people there, although we were the only tourists again! Lapa is a bit of a dodgy area and we had been told to be careful if we went (Hence the reason that there are no photos of our night out here - as we left the camera at home) but it was fine and everyone was just up for a good time, we even joined in with some locals playing their instruments under the Lapa bridge drinking caipirinhas from plastic cups! It was a lot of fun and a definate highlight of our time in Rio and our trip so far.
Needless to say the next day we felt pretty rough but it
was finally sunny! So we headed to the beach while we could and finally got to feel the white sand between our toes that you see on the tv at home. The beaches here are stunning and have a really fun atmosphere - you can buy anything from the various stalls and while we were there we saw people selling clothes, jewellery, beer, iced tea, prawns on sticks, footballs, underwear, bikinis, juice and empanadas (pastries filled with meat), it was so funny to watch and we had a nice couple of hours chilling out drinking coconut water from huge coconuts listening to the waves.
We had signed up to go to a football match that afternoon with a group from the hostel, Botofogo were playing Flamengo which was a local derby and set to be a good game. A guide picked us up and we all drove in a van to the stadium, which was one of the new ones built for the Brazillian World Cup in 2014. We had a couple of beers on the street pre-game to soak up the atmosphere and then made our way to the stadium about 20 minutes before kick off.
As soon as
we entered we could tell the atmosphere was amazing, like nothing either of us has ever experienced before and we have been to quite a few football matches. The noise was mad, we were with the home fans behind the goal and they are crazy, there were huge flags, big drums, horns, toilet rolls and ballons being passed out and non stop signing and chants, not just before kick off but throughout the whole game, it was like a party! We really got into it and when Botofogo scored a free kick after 40 minutes we cheered with the rest of the fans, although maybe not quite so loud. The standard of football was really good and there were lots of chances for both teams although at half time it was 1-0 to the home side. The second half was just as entertaining and it looked like Botofogo would win when Flamengo got a penalty near the end of the match! We all held our breath and so wanted them to miss as the Botofogo fans were a crazy bunch, and although they missed the penalty someone scored on the rebound to make it 1-1 with 10 minutes to go.
After that a Flamengo player got sent off and Botofogo hit the post, but it ended 1-1 and the Botofogo fans were not happy as they thought they should have won. It was a great game for us neutrals though and the atmosphere was incredible which made it a great evening. When we got back it was 10pm and we grabbed a quick bite to eat before meeting up with the Irish coupel again from the hostel and a few others, there was about 12 of us, and heading out to Lapa again to the street party and a few bars with the intention of going to a club. It wasn't as busy as the night before as it was raining but we perservered and stayed out til 5am, although we didn't make it to a club but just stayed around the different bars on the street which was good.
The weather was cloudy again when we eventually woke up at lunchtime (we are getting used to being in one place and not have to get up ealry for flightd or buses!) so we just chilled at the hostel and sorted out some things for the Argentina part of
our trip coming up and watched a bit of tv. For our last night in Rio we treated ourselves and went to a Churrasco, which is popular in Brazil and is a meat restaurant where you help yourself to salad and vegetables and they keep bringing round freshly cooked meet and carve it on to your plate, it was amazing! We had several different cuts of steak, lamb, chicken and pork, there was so much meat it was unreal and it was so tasty, definately want to try a place like that in London which we have heard of, although it will have a lot to live up to! We wanted to see the famous Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugarloaf mountain whilst in Rio but the weather just hasn't been very good and as it is expensive to get up to see both we didn't want to do it and they not be able to see because of the weather (although we saw them from the ground), but Rio is definately a place we want to come back to one day as a holiday when it is summer, so we will see them then and go to the amazing
beaches and not be on such a budget! We have loved our time here in Rio so much, for the first time since being away we have felt like we are on holiday here, maybe because of the beach and nightlife, its been awesome and we will be sad to leave, but super excited for the next bits of our trip to come.
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susan
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Her name is Lola.............................
Wow. Yet another amazing installment. You have convinced me - I need to save for the 2014 World Cup! Can't wait to hear about Buenos Aires.......... Love you both!