A week in Rio

Its been a week since my last post and quite a lot has happened and I have done quite a bit of exploring. I made a trip into the Centro by metro with Nectarous to have a look around and check out the highlights of the CBD and Santa Teresa. The central area is really nicely done, with many nice old buildings, a mixture of interesting European architecture and nice parks. I had a walk through some busy street markets and had a terrific fresh orange juice. After taking some great photos of Lapa and the arched aqueduct (which the camera subsequently deleted....trying to recover them now!!) we found the little tram to go up Santa Teresa, the station for which was tucked in behind the large Petrobas building. It only goes on the hour and it was totally packed! I had to stand on the side rail and just hang off it. Along the way, many little kids ran after the tram and piled on - it looked like great fun for them. The street of Santa Teresa are narrow and the tram shares the road with all other vehicles as it winds its way up. There is a very European feel to the place as we got off the top and walked our way back down looking into shops, fine restaurants and some pretty amazing houses. We ended back at Lapa from where we made our way to the metro, a full day out!

I went on the Favela tour organised by the hostel. The tour was through the largest Favela in Brazil, Rochina, which accommodates around 300,000 people! We took a shuttle to the bottom of the Favela, from where we got motor bikes to the top to start the walk down. It was a bit scary, as we were under strict instructions not to photograph any people caring walkie-talkies or machine guns as they are the people controlling the narrow streets for the drug lords! Pretty odd seeing 15 year old boys walking around with fully automatic rifles etc. It was a decent experience, walking around taking in how all these people live in the 'slums'. It's pretty classic to see how they get their services, simply by wiring their own house for cable etc to the house next door or the main line at the bottom of the Favela. Apparently they do the same for the water. I was a bit surprised by how many things they did have, such as cable tv, electricity and so on, but it is all pretty modest that's for sure. A great trip and well worth doing!

I also took a few buses to beaches I had not been to, such as Botafogo, Flamingo, Ipanema and also the Botanical Gardens in Leblon. Ipanema is really nice! A group of us had a good night at a bar there during the week, playing a few drinking games and cracking up at the bar man/proprietor open throat skull 3 beers in the space of about 5 minutes. It's all pretty reasonably priced, although not Asia cheap. The whole night including taxis and enough booze came to about 45 Reals so not bad.

I decided to stay for Lapa street party again before heading off to Campo Grande for the Pantanal. The hostel gives a night free if you stay 7 so I decided to do that. Booking my ticket to the Pantanal was a bit of a mission! I couldn't get a ticket from an agency in town so I had to make a 1.5 hour round trip to the central bus station to get it. It cost 245 Reals which is pretty darn expensive for a 22 hour bus ride but has to be done I spose! I looking forward to having a tour of the largest wetland on earth!

Lapa last night was pretty interesting. It was pissing down with rain which put a bit of a dampener on things compared to last week but still pretty awesome dancing in the rain before deciding to head into a samba club. Its great at Lapa, with people walking around with bottles of Tequila and everything else to do shots, and the dirty cheap street meat is just awesome! We had this American guy with us who was pretty classic. A nice guy, full of energy and keen to take charge like most full on Americans seem to be. He peaked a little early and didn't make a good lasting impression with a cool young English couple we were with when he shared a taxi back to the hostel, basically comered in the back, couldn't find any money to pay for it and spend about an hour trying to find his room at the hostel at 3 in the morning! We got in around 5 in the end I think.

Now just killing to until my bus tomorrow. I hope to get all my photos backed up and start a fresh when I leave Rio. It's a real pain having to deal with photos all the time! I hope for better sailing from here on!

More Rio Exploring

Today I got up around 8am, not bad given only about 3 hours sleep. I finally started reading the Catcher in the Rye again, before getting stuck into an amazing breakfast that the hostel puts on every morning.

The weather promised to be absolutely superb all day so I hastily got ready to head up the statue of Christ Redeemer. I opted to just do it myself rather than through the hostel, to save a few buck and give more freedom. I am glad I did because when I got up there I was just blown away. It has to be on of the, if not the most, amazing thing I have ever seen!! It is such a well known landmark and symbol and has the most amazing location right in the heat for the great city area affording 360 degree views. With not a cloud in the sky, I just sat up there for hours just taking in the view and taking a heap of photos! Just superb!!
I headed back down with a kiwi couple I had met in the hostel the night I arrived and jumped on the local bus back to Copacabana, opting to get off at the far end of the beach and walk back. I don’t think I had realized just how long the beach really is!! It must have taken a good 45 minutes to walk most of the length of it, stopping to take photos of course! A beautiful evening to end a superb day in Rio de Janeiro.

Rio Exploring

What an action packed day today was. The weather the past few days had been a bit cloudy so when we awoke to fine skies I decided a trip up sugar loaf mountain would be a good way to spend the morning while it was clear. I jumped a local bus to the gondola areas to kick off the two stage ride up the two distinctive bumps on the northern end of Copacabana Beach. I met a cool aussie woman who was also travelling solo and headed up. The gondola is amazing, holding up to 75 people at a time. We hung around the first knob for a bit taking in the view before getting on the second gondola to head up to the top. The cloud had started to come in a bit with views of the top of the Christ Redeemer statute covered but it was still very dramatic. I shot a few photos and waited around for the view to clear (which it didn’t immediately but did so several hours after leaving).

One getting down from the sugar loaf I decided it would be a good idea to back up my photos before going to the football match at Maracana stadium. However, the computer at the hostel corrupted my card and I now have to try and recover the images (which I am doing). Worse still, my backup was on my pen drive, which was also corrupted as I have a combined pen drive/card reader. Dramas which put me in a terrible mood!! So may more things to think about with digital camera gear!

Oh well, off to the football with a new card and battery. It was really pretty exciting going to one of the largest stadiums in the world which is renowned for violent clashes between rival team fans. While waiting outside the vans entered the main gates with police horses surrounding them as a few scuffles broke out!! Inside the stadium we sat with the Botafogo fans who have huge flags, flares, drums and all the works! It was absolutely amazing to be a part of such an awesome atmosphere. The team drew one all but when the goal was scored there was absolute chaos, it was just amazing! Apparently the night before there was a larger match which a few guys went to and they said they saw snipers on the light towers!

After getting back to the hostel, we had a few hours to get read for a Fovela Funk party out with the local riff raff some 45 minutes from Copacabana. It was a massive warehouse with an upstairs vip and a dance floor that can fit several thousand, just huge! We had a great night ending up around 430. A great event not to be missed by anyone visiting Rio!

Arrival at Rio De Janeiro

After a pretty long wait at Santiago airport and a few spanish lessons from a nice brit lady I met in the shuttle, we were off bound for Rio over the Andies! I had been trying to figure out whether it was better to get a taxi to the Stone of the Beach Hostel or the Real bus to the block nearby and walk. I discussed this with Katie, the lady I met on the shuttle and we decided to get one between us. Once I got to the aiport I random bumped into Pete Hudson from Waiheke when we were both collecting out bags. Totally random, especially as I only speaking to someonea few days before leaving about Pete being over there. He said the bus was sweet so I decided to get it. However, when they didn't accept us dollars, I had to go up about 4 flights of stairs to the ATM to get money out, where I met Katie and another guy from my hostel in Santigago at Bellavista. When the ATM would not let me get money out (only just been able to a few hours ago!) I swapped some USD and the three of us jumped in the taxi with all our gear. We negotiated a price and set off, even before the other chap was in the taxi, running over his foot!! I figured 60 split betwen the three of us was a lot better than the 65 quoted by the hostel and better than the bus at 8 Real. At speeds of around 140kmh heading to copacabana beach we took several detours and at times headed the wrong direction completely but he seemed to have it under control. We made it to my stop first, which was good given i didn~t want the guy firing up and disputing the price etc. All good arrived safely!

The door room is tiny, with 8 beds in it (bunks) and no room for gear storage it is a bit of a joke, but good fun given the company. There were 5 Irish gals and a tosser old American guy so it was all good. We all went upstairs to the roof top bar for a few drinks, even though I had to borrow some money of two of my room mates given I still couldn't get the ATM to work (I love the easy going nature of travellers!) . We ended up heading to Mellow Yellow hostel and joining in on their Lapa night out tour, an area which has a HUGE street party every Friday night. It was simply awesome, with cheap food, drinks and Brazillian beats all all night dancing on the stre below a huge towering aquaduct! Best time I've had so far. We got in around 4pm and hit the hay. Rio is awesome!!! I'm just waiting now for a few clear days to go up the Sugar Loaf and Christ the Redeamer Statue to take in the vantage points and awesome views. It's hellishly expensive here so looking forward to getting into Argentina.

I have arrived!

First day in Santiago has been great. The flight over was pretty entertaining. I struck out with no seat-back tvs but got a window seat next to a classic aussie guy over to see his Argentinian girl friend some 20 years his junior. He provided some really interesting insights into the culture of South American woman that's for sure!!!!!! We yarned for ages and drunk just a little too much so breakfast before landing in Santiago was a pretty subdued affair.

Getting to the hostel was no problem at all, just jumped in my pre ordered shared taxi to Hostel Bellavista at the north-eastern end of town. Many of the hostels are marked simply by a street number so when the driver dropped me off and said 'here you are' I just stood on the street and looked around wondering if he had just left me in some random neighbourhood but when I asked again he pointed to the street number and it matched so no problem there.

My first adventure was getting money out of the ATM for food. I found the ATM no worries but couldn't understand the options. To get to the english language foreign exchange screen (which eventuall a security guard helped me to after I had returned from the Hostel with my phrase book!) one had to navigate through several spanish options that were totally foreign to me. I got there in the end and headed towards a nice restaurant with road side seating amongst the colourfull painted streets where I met a few English lads from my hostel who are all over for a snow boarding trip. We took a super walk up the hill behind the hostel where there is a miserable little zoo and a standing only cable car in the Parque Metropolitano located on Cerro San Cristobal at 485m. Amazing views of the city on sunset with the Madre de Santiago statue at the top.

We found a nice restaurant where the lads had a massive steak dinner. I actually just had a tortillia given my pork sandwhich from lunch was repeating on me a bit! Very entertaining as none of us spoke much spanish so simple requests like medium rare meat was difficult but we got there in the end.

T - 24 hours

Not long to go now!!! This time tomorrow I'll be boarding a Lan Chile A340-300 en route to Santiago. Fingers crossed that my plane has on board entertainment in the seats for the 13 hour flight. It's been several weeks since I booked my tickets so am well keen to kick things off and start travelling. I probably should have taken the time to learn more Spanish but hey, oh well.

I've had a few great days on Waiheke with Mark Blyth, brother Mike and their girlfriends hanging out and having a good send off true Waiheke style at Mollie Malone's...rugged!