Blogs from Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America

Saturday January 23rd, 2016. Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro Province, Brazil. After a posh breakfast we decided to venture out into Rio again. Rio was founded in 1565 by the Portuguese as a fortification against French privateers who traficked wood and goods from Brazil. The Portuguese fought the French for almost 10 years with both sides having rival native tribes as allies. During the early 18th century the city took off. It had been a minor outpost in the Portuguese Empire until gold, diamonds and ore were found in Minas Gerais in 1720. Rio then became an important port for exporting these minerals and replaced Salvador as the main city in the colony in 1763. Brazil became independent in 1822. It adopted a Monarchy as its form of government. The capital is now Brazilia. Surprisingly ... read more

Reflections on Rio I’ve spent my last week in Brazil lunching, beaching and generally pottering around. I’ve been shopping, drunk juices, whiled away long afternoons in pubs eating pastries, lay on the beach doing nothing, drunk juice, negotiated the postal system and generally spent a bit of time observing the cariocas at play. I’ve also drunk a fair bit of juice. I’m now on my way to Argentina and I’m really, really, really excited. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve had a wonderful time in Brazil. It is a beautiful city, full of very patient and generous people but after a month here, I’m ready to move to the next stop. I’ll be staying in an area of Buenos Aires called Palermo. It’s a very safe (yes Dad, safe)area with a lot of restaurants, cafes and shopping. ... read more

Luggage suprisingly arrived!In the mean time we bought some basic stuff. Hardest thing was to find a 'normal' bikini as they all wear strings over here (also the people above 90 years old). We bought an Ipanema Bum Bum (and bum bum stands for ass). Hereby some first impressions of Rio. Culture They say that to know a country you should experience the culture. So we decided to taste beers, Itaipava - Skoll - Antartica - Brahma - Caiperinha (ow yes that's not a beer of course).... you can also find Stella everywhere, Leuven is not far away.... Brazilians are drinking all day long, and they drink lot's... Beside drinking we also checked out the local food. Rice, beans and great 'Picanha' meat. We had dinner together with friends of Lidia (the mother of Roger - ... read more

Rio De Janiero is not the safest city in the world to travel solo, of the six million people in this city, much of them are thieves. Graffiti is the art of choice and unlimited amounts of crime are evident everywhere you go so I thought I'd just stay in today, but when I woke up at 6:30am and looked outside, I thought what the hell, you only live once, just go for it! I called the front desk and booked one of their tours even though I knew it was overpriced. It was scheduled to leave at 9am so I had time for breakfast. I strolled down at 8am, stopped at the front desk to pay for the tour only to find out that since I was using a credit card a 10% surcharge applied ... read more