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Published: September 8th 2011
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We arrived in Sao Palo and passed through immigration quite easily. They have a very organised taxi system to get into town so you give the hotel name to the lady at the desk, then pre-pay for the taxi by credit card, hand the receipt to the driver and then you are on your way.
The hotel did get good reviews, unfortunately when we looked at it the day before it did not get such good reviews. They were doing some work and although this did not affect us the area was pretty interesting in the streets around the hotel. We got them to order us pizza on the first night as it was late, we were a bit nervous about wandering around the first time in the dark and also we were tired having spent the whole day travelling following a 5am start.
Our room looked like a crime scene with a hideous carpet that had goodness only knows what living in it and it was fairly dated. I am pleased that they are upgrading the hotel because it could be really nice with a couple of tweaks.
The next day the area seemed a lot different,
it is like a lot of places that we have been, you can be in 1 street where it is really nice and then go to the adjacent street where there are all sorts of vagrants and random weirdos about. We walked to see the old part of the city and had lunch in a lovely café where the guy spoke excellent English. I have to say that we did not realise how much Spanish we knew or had picked up until we arrived in Brazil. People had told us that Portuguese was just like Spanish so we did not need to learn anything else that we would pick it up. All of a sudden we were stumped and unable to say anything. It was like being back in Beijing where the game of charades comes into play every time you want to do something or when you want to go somewhere.
We got by but it was not easy at all. We went to a fancy restaurant on the Friday night and decided that we would head to Rio on the Saturday, we had seen Sao Palo and enjoyed our stay there but we were keen to get
to Rio. In hindsight it was the best decision and we liked the hotel a lot more! The bus journey was really good and we were in Rio by 4pm. We took a taxi to the hotel and despite being slightly 70s it had everything that we needed so we were really pleased.
We were situated a couple of blocks from the beach in the Flamengo area of the city. The first evening we went for a couple of Caparinas at a local bar and grabbed some dinner just a couple of blocks from the hotel.
We were pleasantly surprised by Rio, we both thought it would be more in your face and loud with lots of people trying to sell you stuff, mug or murder you! It is in actual fact a very chilled city where the people are friendly, there are some lovely old buildings and the beach front is stunning.
We spent a couple of days on the beach just close to the hotel and went to the Centro part of the city to look at the sights, some of it is a bit old and could really do with a bit of a
refresh but other than that there are some lovely places to visit. It was also Sunday when we did this so it was quiet.
We also visited Christ de Rendnto which was truely spectacular. The monument is in the middle of a national park which overlooks the southern half of the city. On reaching the top we were amazed at just how big the statue was and how far you could see.
We had a night out in Leblon and went to a local bar and a club called Melt which seemed to be full of the young, rich and beautiful crowd! It was at this point that we had a realisation, rich.....no, young....no... We bumped into a couple of guys from the UK who´s Portuguese was even worse than ours and they couldn´t order a beer so had to ask us what to say which amused us greatly! We had looked at staying in Leblon but it was way too expensive and in fairness Flamengo gave us a far better taste of what Rio is actually like!!
Rio was a great place to finish our trip. The city is beautiful, diverse and warm which is reflected in the people. It has given us the opportunity to relax and party and take stock before returning to reality! Next stop London.
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