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Published: January 1st 2013
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Day 96 We arrived from llhe Grande yesterday pain free, and after a few hours chilling out at our hostel Mellow Yellow and a decent steak dinner we got an early night.
We had a broken nights sleep from some guy who was snoring ridiculously noisily but after breakfast of cheese, ham and bread (again) we headed out for a tour of the main tourist features in the city.
Our first stop was at Corcovado Mountain, which is in the Tijuca Forest National Park, to see Cristo Redentor--the famous statue of Jesus (which is the fifth largest statue of Jesus in the world!). The statue itself was impressive but the mountain offered a fantastic view over the city and as it was a perfect clear day we enjoyed the view and took lots of photos!
We then passed through some of the small winding roads of Santa Teresa before our next stop at Catedral de Sao Sebastiao--a cone-shaped concrete cathedral that from the outside is quite ugly but inside has 60 meters high stained-glass windows, which make the interior loook quite amazing. We were told that the Cathedral can hold up to 20,000 standing people.
The
final stop before our all-you-can-eat buffet lunch was at Escadaria SelarĂ³n otherwise known as the the 'Lapa Stairs'. They are the work of Chilean-born artist Jorge SelarĂ³n who began renovating dilapidated steps outside his house but ended up coving the entire set of steps in tiles from all over the world. We spent a while looking around and we even found an area dedicated to the UK, which had a picture of The Beatles and a couple of tributes to the Royal Family!
After filling our boots at lunch, we headed to our final stop of the day, Sugarloaf Mountain. After a short trek up a section of the mountain, we got in a cable car the rest of the way to the top. There were more really amazing birdseye views of the city, where we stayed until sunset before leaving.
Exhausted from a busy day, we had a few beers at the hostel with the guys from our room before heading to bed in our bunks!
Day 97 After a good nights sleep, we woke to glorious sunshine and clear skies so decided to head to the beaches for the day and work on our
tans. Our hostel was 2 minutes walk from Copacabana Beach so we started there and walked along the waters edge, stopping a couple of times to cool down in the sea and relax on the beautiful golden sand.
Once we reached the end of the beach we stopped for lunch and walked down a small avenue to begin another stroll on Ipanema Beach where we headed for Port 9--apparently the best spot for people watching! Relaxing here kept us entertained for most of the afternoon before we started to head back, via a washed-up dead whale on the beach, which was attracting lots of attention, including a few local TV crews!
In the evening we had a decent steak dinner in a local restaurant and had a couple of caipirinhas before bed.
Day 98 Today we took a tour to Rocinha, the largest favela in South America. It was interesting to see this side of Rio, and to hear about life there, particularly about the 'Pacification'--the on-going process of the police taking control of the favelas from the gangs.
In the afternoon we went to Copacabana for a few hours before making ourselves some dinner
at the hostel. In the evening we went with a few others from the hostel to watch a samba school rehearsing for the upcoming carnival. The drive there, around an hour out of town, was pretty shocking, passing through some incredibly run-down and dodgey looking areas, including a stretch of road known as crack town, that was lined with literally hundreds of homeless people smoking crack.
The were hundreds of people and it was a really lively atmosphere, with lots of cheap beer. It was a good taster of Carnival, and we both agreed we would have to come back for the real thing one day!
Day 99 We had a pretty chilled out day today, getting a Metro to Centro and having a wander around the city centre before, in the afternoon, we headed back to Ipanema Beach for a swim and a couple of hours in the sun. Around sunset we headed to a rock between Ipanema and Copacobana--a popular place to watch the sun go down. It was a bit cloudy but it was a great spot for watching the surfers and taking in the beach nonetheless.
Around 8ish, we cooked dinner in the
hostel before grabbing a quick power nap, in preparation for, what we were told would be a mad last night. We had a few caipirinhas and beers in the bar and, to our surprise, our South African friends from Paraty turned up and joined us! We headed out around half midnight, boarded a colectivo (public minibus) and headed to Lapa. The area was manic, with a huge street party! There were people stood around eating, drinking and dancing everywhere and for a large part of the night, we followed a brass band playing samba music throuigh the streets!
We left Lapa around 7am, deciding to take a trip to Copacabana beach to freshen up before bed. The sunrise was beautiful and the sea very refreshing. We made a friend at the beach, who had Mark running up and down the beach and doing press-ups, after this we decided it was probably time to call it a day, and headed to bed at gone 8am, glad that we had managed to see out Rio in style!
Day 100 We woke up around midday feeling pretty worse for wear, but after packing our bags, we headed to the beach
for our last dose of sunshine before heading back to the UK. After a few hours on the beach, we headed to Carretao, a all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ, in Copacobana. We over-indulged in ten different cuts of meat, including chicken hearts, in preparation for our flight, but due to last nights excesses, ended up toasting the end of our trip with a diet coke! Extremely satisfied, we headed to the hostel to meet up with the scousers (who were on our flight home) before getting a taxi to the airport.
Extremely sad, that this amazing trip was coming to an end, but excitied about getting home for xmas and catching up with family and friends, we headed to the airport and boarded our 10pm flight home.
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