Blogs from Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America - page 142

Today is officially as far as I know based on all the religious stuff, the last day of Carnival, and also the last stat holiday here so Mukuda will finally stop complaining about his laundry woes. First off I want to apologize for the lack of Carnival pictures, Blair was our photographer because his camera is much smaller than mine and we actually have several CD's full of the various Carnival activities we have engaged in over the last several days. I have a few pics I will post but the good ones will have to wait until later. We did much partying on the streets of Lapa, beaches and streets of Ipanema, and of course in downtown where the spectacular Samba parade took place. Now the samba parade is really quite something, they erected this ... read more

I took a flight from Salvador to Rio, as I was planning to see the winners parade there. I booked a hostel called King George, which is run by Israelies, and there were recomendations for it in the Lametayel site. I have no pictures of this hostel, but let me tell ya' that the conditions I had in 'Tironut' were better. There was no free room in other hostels for the next day, so I treated myself with a hotel, spent the next day searching for a hostel, and found a great one! It's called Che Lagarto, located in an Ipanema region, and costed a little more than King George. Before that, when I first landed in Rio from Israel, and now after comming from Salvador I spent my time in the Copacabana region, which is ... read more

Carnaval Friday: After living out of a bag for ten weeks we were as much looking forward to hanging up our clothes for 5 whole days as we were Carnaval. We were over the moon with our hotel with roof-top pool and bar one block from Ipanema beach. This was to be expected however as we had booked the hotel when we were both working and money had less value. What we spent on the hotel for 5 days accommodation alone is our current budget for 2 whole weeks total spend - but it turned out to be worth it. We hung up our clothes, showered and dried with big soft towels, shaved/dryed hair then put our rucksacks in the back of the wardrobe and cooled in our air-conditioned room while watching ´Malcom in the Middle´. ... read more

OMG! They did it again!!!! Why us why us?!?! We were ready to board a bus (yes bus again) when 3 locals directed us to take the bus behind instead to get to the subway station. Thinking they were good samaritans, we took their advice and boarded the bus behind. OSM and I boarded first and CJ was sandwiched between those 3 fellows. We didn´t know why one of them took so long to buy the tix. It was actually one of them blocking the way, while the other one tried to use a pen to pry open the zip and the last person put his hand in. CJ screamed after she realised her bag was opened, though she had locked her bag. She shouted at the man whose hand was found coming out from the ... read more

Sob sob... My sunglasses was snatched! We were getting ready to board the bus when a teenage boy just snatched my sunglasses and ran off! I was stunned for a moment. Sob sob... my reliable Oakley! What am I going to do without it for the rest of the trip? The only consolation was that we were not hurt in the process. It´s only the 2nd day to my SA trip and something was stolen oredi. By the end of 4mths, will my 20kg bag be reduced to 10kg when I come back? Hmph.... ... read more