Blogs from Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America - page 136

Here are some more pictures of Rio, having incredible time although Max, Rory and Ben left on the 3rd and am missing them loads. Hope the move to the country went well and that you have commenced jam making sen!!! And Wiggles hope the training is going well, miss you! Spent my 23rd birthday sailing around Rio drinking Caipirinhas, was such an amazing day with big group of people from the hostel and some of them organized a cake for me at which point I apparently became quite emotional and kept talking about how much this display of kindness from strangers meant to me!!! oh dear! Anyway after several more nights out in Rio (the 2 big J´s will be pleased to know only takes me 3 Caipirinhas to get hammered!! so my drinking has not ... read more

What we´ve all been waiting for. On friday my host family took me to Rio. We left in the morning around 9 o´clock to make the 5 hour journey from Belo Horizonte. I brought my CD´s along, so we listened to the Barenaked Ladies, Jorane and Leonard Cohen on the way up (they wanted to hear some good Canadian music). Belo is about 1 km above sea level and the car ride was downhill the whole way to Rio. When we were nearly there, the elevation drops dramatically as you drive past what is left of the Atlantic Rain Forest. Silvestre said that less than 5% remains of the forest due to heavy logging by the portuguese when they colonized Brasil. In fact, Brasil gets its name from a tree that used to be common here, ... read more

Although Alison at STA travel booked our seats so we would be on the best side of the plane to fly into Rio we ended up on the wrong side of the plane! That said, the view into first, Sao Paulo possibly the largest city I think we´ll ever set eyes on then the inland side of Rio was still pretty spectacular. After touching down and getting through the passport stamping we headed for the Bus lane outside the terminal to catch a Real Autobus through the city to Ipanema. Having read the lonely planet about this bus we knew it would cost about $3 USD but when we tried to board the coach the driver asked for 60 Brazilian Real which is about $30!! Shocked at this and realising we now didn´t have enough cash ... read more

yipeeeeeeeeeeeeee we are in rio de janeiro!!!! we are staying in an apartment with two students on copacabana beach in rio!!! We got this deal for two weeks in this apartment!!! Its great, I can hear the waves from my bedroom window and the beach is across the road!!!!! First day we went to a mini stadium 2 watch the football game brazil via ghana. Our mates from brazil had told us this was the place to be, but u did need tickets. So we grab a taxi here and realise that we dont even know how to say in portuguese, do u have any spare tickets. So we try to find people who speak english and 2 ask them how we can say this in portuguese. However everyone is like, u have no chance, u ... read more

Cariocas Arrived in Rio after a rather long flight, i think it was 14 hours including the stop off in Sao Paulo, which luckily we didnt have to leave the plane for. We also had the good fortune to be upgraded on the flight to ´world traveller plus´ which afforded us an extra 7 inches of leg room, which doesnt sound much, but when you are attempting to sleep for as much of it as possible its very much a welcome addition. After leaving the plane experienced our first ripping off of the trip in the shape of an over charged taxi, which we paid outright at the airport to the tune of 72 Reals which is about 18 pounds. To be fair we didnt actually consider it a rip off until about a week later ... read more