Advertisement
Published: June 29th 2008
I left my hotel in Manila at 6am on the 17th of June. 47.5 hours later I arrived at my hostel in Rio de Janeiro! Or was is 36.5 hours later?
From Manila I flew to Tokyo, from there to New York and then on to Sao Paulo from where I caught a bus to Rio and finally a taxi to the hostel. When i boarded my plane in Tokyo it was 8.20pm on the 17th. When i touched down in New York it was 8.15pm on the 17th! 5 mins before i was due to leave Tokyo! I wondered if I could get a refund on the flight I seemingly hadn't been on?!
New York to Sao Paulo was another 12hours followed by a further 9 of waiting and busing! All in all the 2 days of travelling wasn't as bad as i had expected. The 2 migraines I suffered meant that I spent half of it tanked up on drugs so I seemed to drift through the whole thing.
Rio is a fantastic city. It is visually stunning. Enormous rocks the size of mountains loom up out of nowhere. Between them along the coast line are
white sand beaches. In the middle is a natural lagoon. It looks like someone has very carefully landscaped the whole place to resemble their idea of a fantasy island. Thinking this reminded me of an episode of Blue Peter that i saw as a child, where they made Tracy Island out of paper mache. Great care was taken over shaping every part of the island and making sure that the colours were perfect. Rio appears to have been built in much the same way, perhaps by some giant Blue Peter God!?
Having trouble adjusting my body clock i got up at an unearthly hour on my first day in Rio and then found that i felt exhausted for the rest of the day. I took a walk down the Copacabana beach and the rounded the headland onto Ipanema beach, both of which have been made famous by pop songs. It was about 25 degrees Celsius and I felt cold. I wasn't sure what the temperature was in the Philippines but i guessed it must have been at least 10 degrees hotter. I sat in my cardigan surrounded by bikini clad beach goers. The thing i noticed about the bikinis
on the beaches of Rio was that most of them were mismatched! Hardly anyone seemed to have a matching top and bottom?? Strange. The other that i found was that the older generation, particularly the men liked to go shopping in their swimwear! I saw numerous guys walking down the streets wearing only a skimpy speedo with shopping bags in each hand! Where they kept money God only knows!
That night i went out for dinner with my Irish dorm mate Clare. Now Clare´s actually famous which is quite cool. Well I say famous, shes a journalist and shes on TV every couple of weeks, so in my opinion that makes her a celebrity! So anyway me and famous Clare went out for dinner and she showed me the pics she had taken on the tour she went on that day. Owww i was jealous and wished i hadn't passed on it! It looked great! So I booked myself on to it for the next day, which was actually my birthday! Now I had already had a few birthday treats in advance, a bracelet off mum and dad in Hong Kong, a night at the Peninsular in Manila from
Danny before he left to go back to Oz, and a video message from my uni friends via email! So i was thinking that id had a pretty good bday already! But the tour really was a great way to spend the day!
My tour group consisted of me, two air hostesses from Singapore and Malaysia and a gang of middle aged Argentinians! When i got on the bus our guide Andre said something in Spanish and then everyone started singing Happy Birthday! It was so nice i almost cried! Famous Clare had tipped him off!
First stop was the Corcovado, the massive 710metre high rock with the monument of Christ the Redeemer on. Andre told me that the monument was actually a gift from the French in the same way that they gave the Statue of Liberty to New York!
The views from the top are amazing. I really thought that i could have spent the whole day just taking in the view!
Next stop was Maracanã Stadium which i believe is one of if not the most famous in the world! Now i don't know anything about football, it doesn't interest me in the slightest
but i did have some appreciation of the greatness of this stadium so i thought id better pay the entrance fee and have a look around. If only so i could show off to Jack with my pics! It was quite cool, in a football stadium kind of way! Smaller than i thought it would be!
After Maracanã stadium we headed to the world famous Carnival street aka Sambodromo! That too was much smaller than i imagined! To be honest i actually thought that the carnival went through the city but it doesn't, not officially anyway, the festivities just spill out everywhere. The Sambodromo itself is only 600 metres long! For about a pound you can dress up in a carnival costume and dance up and down the street, imagining that there are 3000 people cheering you on. I picked out the most OTT costume I could find - I thought that it was my best birthday outfit to date!
Next it was time for a very late buffet lunch, aka my birthday banquette! I was so impressed with the food in Rio that i talked about it at length to several people! I even sent emails home
to friends about it! Most places operated on an eat all you like buffet or a weigh and pay system where you pay about 2 or 3 Real per 100g (about 60 - 90p). The quality is astounding! The salmon in passion fruit sauce and the sushi were my personal favourites! Famous Clare was more into the meat carvery!
After lunch we headed for Sugar Loaf mountain, a 396 metre high chunk of granite. We took the cable car up to the summit and watched the sun set over Rio.
I was exhausted by the time we got back to the hostel so i went to bed for 4 hours before getting up to put my glad rags on and indulge in a couple of Caipirinha cocktails which famous Clare very kindly bought me. We went to weird club in Lapa. I say weird because you pay your entrance fee and for your drinks, which are tallied up, when you leave! Showing your receipt on exiting to prove you have paid! Of course this closes a huge que at the end of the night! Ridiculous! On a side note, if you are in Rio don't go to Lapa
40 degrees club, apart from the weird system the staff are very rude and unhelpful and the place is full of posers!
The following day was spent recovering from a hangover - dam those Caipirinha´s - and the day after that i boarded a bus for Foz do Iguazu. Foz do Iguazu is in the south of Brazil, where Brazil boarders Paraguay and Argentina. It took 23.5 hours to get there! Again i slept through most of it. We arrived at 1pm the following day and along with Donna, a girl from London who i met on the bus, I headed straight for Iguazu Falls. Iguazu Falls must be the mightiest waterfalls in the world. I don't know that for sure but i just cant imagine how any could be bigger. I read that Eleanor Roosevelt remarked "poor Niagara" on witnessing them! Other have likened Niagara to a leaky tap in comparison!
When i got my first glimpse of the falls i was so excited i did a little dance on the spot. Then i half skipped, half ran and half jiggled my way over to the viewing platform! They are AWESOME! there is no other word you
can use to describe them! Just AWESOME! The water from 30 rivers joins and forms 275 waterfalls which plunge down over the 2470 metre width. The fiercest is the Devils Throat, which i imagine is called so because its semi circular shape could almost look like a very (very, very, very, very, very) salivary throat!
From Foz do Iguazu me and Donna caught a taxi to Puerto Iguazu which is in Argentina! it took about 15mins which included the visit to immigration on both sides.
The next day we visited the waterfalls from the Argentinian side. Whilst the Brazilian side gives great panoramic views, the Argentinian side lets you get up close. They´ve done a great job with the walkways and the platforms, some along the tops of the falls and others along the bottom where you can get covered in spray. They even have a platform hanging over the mouth of the Devils Throat! The water is so powerful that the spray comes up in a 30 meter high cloud, the slightest breeze means you get drenched! It was truly amazing!
Donna was more of a flashpacker than a backpacker, hair straighteners, make up, attachable
wheels so she didn't have to pick up her bag, spends most of her time in hotels etc! Damp and cold she decided it was time to go, i decided it was time to go on the speedboat into the waterfalls! Woo Hoo!
When i got there i was the only one in the que ( a full boat had just left) and no one joined me! The guy says "oow your lucky you go the whole boat to yourself". I personally thought it was quite unlucky and that it would be more fun with a boat full of screaming people. But when the boat arrived, it had my name on the side! The only boat called Laura, just for Laura! I thought it must have been fate, or at least a VERY weird coincidence.
The boat takes you right into the spray of the falls. It is so powerful that the water comes at you in every direction! I tried to open my eyes but there was so much water that my eyeballs were flooded! Despite rolling my trousers all the way up and wrapping up in a huge waterproof i came off drenched.
Having spent
the day cold and wet i thought the best remedy would be an Argentinian steak and a glass of red wine. Ohhhh it was amazing! The best steak i have ever had! Even better than the one we had on graduation night that i went on about for weeks! Delicious!
I had such a good time at the falls that i went back again the next day! This time I spent the day with Emma, a lady i met on the bus, who is having one of those holidays in which everything that can go wrong does go wrong! I found much amusement in this and came away considering myself quite lucky so far.
That night my new dorm mate Joanna cooked me dinner in the hostel kitchen! It was the first time i haven't eaten out in over 2 months and was a nice change. Joanna is from Columbia but fled with her family to America, to live ´the American dream´, about 7 years ago when the treat of kidnap was particularly bad. Of course the American dream doesn't exist and her parents have not only been forced to take jobs for which they are overqualified but
they have been the target of racism and bullying. Her mum has even been beaten up. Now they are trying to go back to Columbia. Hearing her stories i once again considered myself to be a very fortunate person.
The next day i had to catch an 18hour bus back to Sao Paulo where i was flying out from. I had booked onto the 2.30pm bus, which i was quite annoyed about because i later realised that i could have gotten onto the 7,30pm bus which would have given me an extra day. But never mind. I gave myself plenty of time to get back into Brazil and to the main bus station, which was a good job because missed my stop and ended up in some little outback village! Language has been a big problem in Brazil. Hardly anyone speaks English and I can only say ´thank you´in Portuguese, which really doesn't get you very far when you want to find out how the hell your going to get back to the bus station in time for your bus! After 10mins of smiling and shrugging and repeating ´Sao Paulo´ and looking like an idiot i figured out that
i had to stay on the bus until it turned around and went back. I just made it in time! Or at least i would have just made it if i was actually booked onto the 2.30pm bus! I was 5 hours early! I was on the 7.30pm bus after all! And here i learnt the importance of checking your tickets before you set off!
Luckily i managed to change my ticket and get onto the 2.30pm bus, which got me into Sao Paulo at 7am the next day. And now comes the really annoying part. My flight out of Sao Paulo was 25 hours later. If i spent the night in Sao Paulo city i would have to get up at 4am to get the airport. It would also cost a fortune for taxi´s and accommodation. Even going for a day trip would be expensive and awkward with my big bag. So i resigned to the fact that i was going to be spending 24 hours in the airport!
I had no money so i put a MacDonald's on credit card! At about 7pm i found myself a ´nice´ looking corner, set my thermo mat up and
crawled inside my sleeping bag! it wasn't exactly the best nights sleep I've ever had, it wasn't ´too´ bad either. I seem to be getting used to roughing it! Whats also quite interesting is that i have lost all of my cravings for chocolate, cakes and ice creams etc! if anything the only thing that i have occasionally craved is rice!
Next stop Peru!
p.s. my flight was delayed 5 hours!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0367s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
I've always wanted to stand next to the Christ Red! > Not that I'm religious. Massive amounts of water traveling through the waterfalls on the border. Must have been noisey. 5 hrs at the airport and frezzing in a hostel with no heating.... AHHHH - I love being in my home with empty suitcases :) But I'm sure there are moments where it's allll worth it - So on the flipside - I'm ENVIOUS