Rio de Janerio
Due to the fact that STA Travel are officially evil, we had to spend 24 hours in London before heading to Brazil. Yes, yes, it’s nice to have a few home comforts and see one of your best friends for the afternoon BUT THIS JUST REMINDS YOU OF HOW HOME SICK YOU ARE!!!!! Needless to say, I cried for most of the day. I was a little shocked at how much it affected me, you should have seen us when we changed our Malaysian Ringgit for pounds – we were so excited just to feel a 20 pound note and feel the weight of pound coins again! We spent the morning rushing around London buying stuff and then hung out in the pub with Lucy all afternoon. Cider + bangers and mash never tasted so good!
The next day (a little hungover) we left London bound for Rio! I started to get excited all over again (thank god) and we headed to our digs with no fuss. The days of living on £10 a day are gone. In Rio, it costs you £10 to stay in an ultra basic dorm!
That night we were really tired but couldn’t sleep due to jet lag. Ahmad worked out that we had had about 14 hours sleep in 3 days but we were wide awake at 6am. At around 10am the clouds started to disperse so we decided to head to see the Christ statue and hope for good weather – there’s no point going there if it’s cloudy.
We took a bus and a cute little train up the hill and trampled up the remaining stairs with everybody else. I dread to think what it’s like on weekends – it was absolutely packed. The statue was pretty impressive but for me, it was all about the view. There were no clouds by the time we got there and it was fricking stunning!! I think I was more excited because I watched ‘Rio’ on the flight to Brazil (awesome film btw)!
Just to digress, the Brazilian people are really great. Rio can be a pretty dangerous city and this can give you some misconceptions about a place before you even get there. If we were stuck with directions, people helped us and were ultra friendly. One lady even started singing to us Carnival style but I embarrassed myself by saying arigato (thankyou in Japanese) rather that obrigado (portugese). She laughed it off anyway – at least I tried! Rodrigo warned us not to speak Spanish because it’s insulting in Brazil, better to speak English and look like a stupid foreigner.
By 3pm we were shattered so we headed back to the hostel. After not cooking our own food for 7 months, we were pretty excited that the hostels in SA have kitchens so Ahmad started making his signature dish – eggy thing.
Due to the fact that Brazil is so very expensive we decided to head to Sao Paulo the next day where we would get to see Rodrigo again (from Xian, China)!
Sao Paulo
Let me start by saying that the buses in Brazil are awesome, expensive but awesome. Even the shit ones are super comfy! We got to Sao Paulo in 6 hours and headed straight to the hostel where Rodrigo works. Sao Paulo is a huge city with loads of tall buildings and apparently, a cracking night life (we can’t afford to drink here so I wouldn’t know)!
The hostel was pretty great and very friendly. It was called Limetime so everything was bright green. We headed straight out with Rodrigo for a few beers, had a free cocktail back at the hostel and then collapsed due to jet lag! Our first night in the dorm was interesting, there was a hobo man on the bunk above me who had a guitar and a recorder (?), a really loud snorer, a Spanish guy who kept throwing things at the snoring guy and a girl who was smoking in the room at 3am (much to my annoyance)! The next day Rodrigo said that hobo and Spanish guy were getting kicked out for annoying other guests and stealing! The hostel came with a terrier called Gringo who was a loveable pest and it was equipped with apple macs everywhere! They look nice but they’re pieces of crap, the owner is obsessed with them.
We headed to the biggest park in SP the first day and visited a few museums, it was really nice. The weather was about 35 degrees but no humidity and a nice breeze so it was perfect. The next day we went to get bus tickets to Argentina and spent the day hanging out at the hostel playing wi and smoking (I must cut back on this). That night we went out for all you can eat Brazilian barbeque! South America is the land of meat and we were desperate to get involved. In Brazil these places give you a beer mat style thing with a red side and a green side. When you’re had enough you flip to red. The waiters kept coming round with huge pieces of beef cooked to perfection and they would trim bits off for you until you say stop! Quality.
The next day we saw another free museum and went for an acai (a traditional Brazilian ice drink/ice cream concoction made from special berrys). Some nice people from Hungary and South Africa checked into the hostel that night and said they were starting round the world trips. I can’t believe the beginning of ours was 8 months ago, it feels like 8 years!!
Our safety guard is back up again now we’re in South America. We didn’t have any problems in Rio but we have already heard that people got mugged at knife point. Just to put everyone’s mind at rest, we really can’t afford to go out at night so we’ll be fine. Most robberies happen at night when people leave bars and clubs. Just to be sensible we have an invisible money belt and only take out what we absolutely have to. Argentina is a lot safer than Brazil so I won’t be worrying as much. It’s quite funny that my nana was most worried about us going to Vietnam because ‘there was a war there once’ rather than Rio, with one of the highest crime rates in the world. I miss her just writing this!
Anyway, we left Sao Paulo the next afternoon and headed to Argentina!