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!