Blogs from Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America - page 4

We arrived in Rio at 6am and hailed a taxi to take us to our hostel in Santa Teresa. I had been warned about their driving skills, but oh my god! its scary. We arrived at our hostels road, but the driver couldnt find the hostel and was going mental he was even explaining that it did not even excist. Coincidently this is the only hostel we have pre-booked and we did it in England through STA. so it definately did exist! so eventually he finds it. We checked in and because we have a private room we are taken to a hotel down the road called teh Alicante. This is because the hostel does not have double rooms. Good, except the hotel we were taken to was like a sleezy 1980s american motel room. But ... read more

(Andy says) Well we landed on Brazilian soil after a 12 hour flight from London. We stayed in Rio hostel which is situated in the hillside of Santa Teresa over looking the city of Rio de Janeiro. The views were brilliant although the walk, to and from the centre (centro) were very tough in the sweltering heat (over 30 degrees Celsius)..i would consider harder than a good session in wheelo's gym with the hurlers. The first day we took things easy as Janette and i were both shattered after all the trekking the day before. So we decided to take a taxi to the famous Copacabana beach and walked the length of it The beach is about 4 km long and is packed with people from morning till night fall. i got a serious scalding for ... read more

Im still alive. Im in Rio. Having a great time. This city is incredible. I will make it short today and update with pics and more details soon. The bus, car and motorcycle drivers are freggin nuts. I really cant describe it. If you drove like this in the states you would go to jail. But somehow it works and no one crashes. People know how to drive here. I love it. My Portugese still is pathetic and not sure it will ever be good it seems. I dont have internet anymore so I will post when I can but got some great photos. Beaches and the girls are....wow. tchau scott... read more

Rio is crazy good and crazy bad! Its pissed down for three days and the city stinks! Two little punks with bare feet and a fake knife mugged us on the way back to our hostel! It was all bit of a joke as I had no idea what the hell was going on and Richard gave them 3 Rias, about 3 pounds and half a pack ciggies and then we legged it! I think they were more scared than us as the police patrol that area all the time. Anyway we were in stiches by the time we got back to the hostel. We were just saying how safe we felt in Rio! So dont worry Mas and Pas we are safe! Had a tour around the Favela , eyeopener indeed. 200,000 folk live in ... read more

OLA! We arrived in Rio on the 5th October, 9pm Rio time about 1am Uk time. We flew from Heathrow and things could not of went more swimmingly if we tried....free upgrade with BA massive seats, free booze and the food was pretty good too. Watched a couple of movies and played cards so the 10 hour flight flew in..haha. Anyway we got to Rio and eventually found the right bus to get on to the city airport then a taxi to Sata Teresa where we are staying...not so easy. Portugese is really difficult to understand and my Spanish is not great either so the whole thing is really alien to us. Taxi man dropped us off at wrong hostel and charged us far to much and you dont really want to be hanging about here ... read more