Day 1 --> Rio de Janiero

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Rio Rio Rio

So......It starts!

samba samba samba...chah chah chah...samba samba samba...chah chah chah...

Nope, I havn´t seen any of that yet! Rob and I arrived into Rio late late on Tuesday night. Eventually picked up my backpack on the worlds slowest and rickiest baggage carousel and made our way out of the airport to try and work out where we were...! Luckily, met up with a guy from the plane who was over visiting his mum. Handy that he spoke portugeeeeeese and even handier that his mum´s house was like 5 mins walk from our hosel. So he threw us on a bus, at a cost of $5 real (Reais - they be the currency over here) and off we stormed.

The bus travelled through some really slumpy grotty areas with graffitii everywhere and unfinished buildings just kinda thrown on top of each other with one lightbulb each - but these weren´t even the famous favela´s (gonna do a tour round them in the next few days), they were in the distance being lit up by massive floodlights!....Most of the areas looked pretty pretty grim and run down, graffitti everywhere - this is quite a dirty

city. Although it was pitch black at night and Rob and I were just thinking - ´We´re gonna get mugged!´´...lol

Eventually jumped off the bus right outside the cococabana beach hotel - cheers Michael! (Can´t say enough how much of a saviour he was because some taxi driver would have surely ripped us off and taken us on a wild goose chase.) So Rob and I, backpack in hand start walking down through some backstreet looking for a ´mellow yellow´hostel...don´t really have a clue - total tourist award has already been won, by the 2 ejits gazing at the sky! Eventually got some guy in a smart suit to walk us round from an internet cafe, and it was literally round the corner - so we´d done alright! Things looked good!

Hostel is dead on, loadsa of friendly people about, most of them have already dne what Rob and I are planning and this is the last stage of their trip. A guy in our dorm has been on the road since April and is going home at the weekend - he looks knackered!!! But I think it´ll be the way of picking up tips of where to go and what to see, etc. Just gotta get moving...! Ended up in a bar / club on the first night that half the hostel turned up to. Seemed most people here were travellers, and it had ther worst ticketing system I´ve ever seen. plus, the organised hostel taxi over was twica as expensive as the taxi back....hmmmmm....bu yeah, good to get out. Then a big lie in yesterday!!

Awaking to torrential rain yesterday morning wasn´t the ideal first day in Rio. Eventually walked to the beach, but that was empty and windy, so we trailed the streets for a good couple of hours trying to find our bearings. Cococabana busy area with loads of little random shopping complexes that have the weirdest wee shops and even weirder people! Bought a little penguin freind, though havn´t named him yet but you´ll all be seeing a lot more of him!!!! Then we watched a man abandon his bike in the middle of the street and cause a massive tail back, horns blasting and buses and trucks flying past him on all directions, he´s just casually having an arguement - mental! It´s pretty cool....

Last night was spent in the hostel bar, well bed for me...I passed out for 3 hours and missed most the night´s craic - letting the side down already!! I´ll make amends from now - sure its the weekend, and the rumours are that this place is going to come alive...!

I´ll be in touch with more stories and updates soon....and hopfully will have done a bit more sightseeing..

Good luck ya´ll

marco

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Photos

Ipanema beach
First day, it would be rude not to hit the beach!

sunset on Ipanema
Guess whoI´m trying to be...And no, its not a bit of string!!!

Comments

[onecup]

good to hear
Mark good to here you arrived - falling asleep after a few pints nothing changes - red "Pink" car blew up last week so have to get a new one - Keep the flag flying liam