The last time I left to travel to South America, I was 15, but looked about 12. Now I´m 26, and still look about 12. The rucksack, babyface and short haircut's the same, but thankfully I got rid of those awful combats (and swapped them for a tacky two quid vest from h&m instead. Bargain.)I also remember the first thing on landing in Quito ten years ago was how thin the air was due to the altitude (about 3000m). This time around in Rio, it was the heat. Nearly 30 degrees and it wasn't even half 9 in the morning. We probably got ripped off paying for our cab to the hostel, but it was stillway cheaper than one home from the centre of London at 3am, and we needed this one just as badly.
Arriving in Copacabana we waited down on the beach before we could check in. It became pretty clear that in Rio, people try to sell you things. a LOT of things. On the beach, at street corners, sometimes before you've even stepped off a bus. Stuff like sarongs, water, weird meats, sunglasses ("sunglass?", "no thanks, I've already got a pair on my head", "s'ok, you have two"). But to be fair, they do move on if you've said no. There's also a lot off big-butt-and-not-a-lot-of-bikini combos on show.
The hostel we stayed at with Div and Greg in Copacabana was called Bamboo Rio, and on one website it said that at the hostel 'luckily you will see monkeys and other small animals'. Well, we were that luckily, as when we having breakfast one morning a whole school/swarm/whatever of monkeys came down to feast on the banana left out for them. But the rooms in the hostel were tiny (the smallest in South America according to one American that was in the room with us, but you know what Americans are like). And aside from the long beach (and it is a long beach) Copacabana hasn't really got much going for it, so we left.
We're now in Leblon, supposedly the 'posh' bit of town. Well, it's no Mayfair, but it does have actual places you can find yourself a half decent meal in, which is more than could be said for Copacabana. We've spent our time since then doing Rio. Pão de Açúcar, Maracanã and Cristo Redentor, or Sugar Loaf, the football stadium and Christ the Redeemer to those of you less well versed in Portugese. A camera can't really capture the view from Pão de Açúcar, it's awesome. The game at the Maracanã was awful, but the commitment from the drummers and the hardcore fans was immense - they never stopped singing and dancing for two hours, even while their team played like Spurs on a bad day. And the big JC was, well, big. As you'd expect really. We've also found a far superior beach then Copacabana or Ipanema (it's called Praia Vermelha, and it's right beside the sugar loaf), been to some fairly decent clubs (like zerozero and club six - in Rio they charge you when you leave to go home, when you're drunk, so you have no idea how much your night has cost - it's dangerous), and been to the Botanical Gardens, which cost the equivalent of one pound thirty (i have no pound sign).
Greg keeps bottling the hang gliding, so we haven't done that yet. With any luck though we'll sort that tomorrow. We're also planning to go down the coast to Ilha Grande for a few days, to relax a bit (because it's been quite stressful so far, as I'm sure you can well imagine...) and tour one of the favelas (robably Roçinha, because it's the biggest, and Mr Bee taught us all about it in Year 11 Geography).
The slow internet connection and weird image uploader thingy on this blog is doing my head in, so instead of including any pictures with the text as i've gone along, i've decided to just paste them all at the bottom (they're all pretty self explanatory).
No idea when you'll hear from one of us next, so I hope you're all enjoying the summer back home (Indian or not). If it makes it any better, it's just started raining here.
Stuart x
London to Rio De Janiero via São Paulo - 6107 miles
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