Tuesday 26 June 2012

Day 97 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (23 June 2012)

Day 97 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (23 June 2012)

We awake at 5am, we have reached Sau Paulo.  I am very glad I am not getting off here, I am tired and it is dark outside and I did not feel like getting off the bus.  I felt sorry for the Australian couple behind us who had to get off.  We then continued up the highway towards Rio de Janeiro.  I tried to go back to sleep but it was pretty hard with the poor suspension on the bus, just as it had been hard to sleep during the night being bumped around all over the place!
We arrived in Rio de Janeiro at about 10.30am, 2 hours ahead of schedule! Finally we have made it! As we get off the bus we are reminded that we have left a Spanish speaking country, now we were in a Portuguese speaking country!!! At least we knew how to speak a wee bit of Spanish, now we are in a country where we have no idea of the language! At least the English is better here.  We get a taxi to our hostel, called Hostel Cafofo.  Ann booked this hostel and apparently it only opened a week or so ago.  It was hard to find a hostel in Rio as they were very expensive and also there were bad reviews on pretty much all of them.  Since this hostel was brand new there were no reviews but Ann decided to take a risk.  First impressions were good, nice and tidy as you would expect and the staff are going that extra mile because they have the enthusiasm because they have just opened.  When we were settled and had showers we went for a walk to the beach which was only a block or two from our hostel.  This beach is fantastic, white sand, stunning water and an amazing backdrop with sugar loaf mountain lingering in the background.  One downside to this beach is that you cannot swim in the water as it is contaminated.  That is such a shame as it is a fantastic beach.  The sand also had football goal posts all along the beach, but no one was playing at that time which was a shame.  We had a walk around the area, including the local shopping centre which is 7 or 8 stories high, and then went to the supermarket and got something to cook for dinner and went back to the hostel.  We then cooked dinner, watched a movie and went to sleep as we were quite tired from the overnight bus.

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