Mellow Yellow Backpackers Rio de Janeiro

Our first night in Rio was unfortunately not impressive. A few girls we met in Floripa convinced us to meet them at their hostel in Copacabana and head to a party in the streets of Lapa. Party you say? Of course we´ll go. So we headed over to the Mellow Yellow hostel to start off the night. The Mellow Yellow has to be one of the biggest hostels I´ve ever been in and definitely one of the craziest. There´s five floors with huge dorm rooms of like 25 beds, four bunks up. The second floor has a ...

Ben back in Rio was cool. Even arriving on the bus via Niteroi was great (had neve done that). As said the frirst night we had to part with the people from the hostel. A kiwi had been talking about anoter hostel called Mellow Yellow for a while (so weo check heard) so we had to check it out. The problem was that he went there when he was a bit drunk and did not exactely know where it was. He knew how to get there from a certain street. So went in two taxis and ofcourse arrived in one. Walked ...

Okay, the story so far! We arrived in Rio on the 15th of Feb. Stayed at the Mellow Yellow Backpackers hostel in the Copacabana. This place is a real party hostel,something on every night and its pretty hard to say no, especially when the bevies are so cheap. Rio is an absolutely amazing city, beautiful beaches, surrounded by mountains with the most amazing views. Its buzzing 24/7 although at this time of year with the carnival about to start its packed with tourists. WE started straight away ...

Spent a few days in Foz-enough to see the falls from the National Park on the Argentinian side, which really are as stunning in real life as in the pictures. Also felt obliged to see the world´s biggest hydroelectric plant as it was quite close...don´t know hwat I was expecting as I´ve never seen a hyroelectric plant up close but I expected it to be even bigger than it was. Impressive nonetheless, but probably more interesting for those more scientifically minded than myself. Felt very virtuo...

Sincere apologies to all who have been waiting for an update to my blog. It has been quite a hectic week and a half since landing in Brazil. In fact the drama started as I was leaving Santiago where, due to a heavy session of drinking the night before, I slept through two alarms and just made it onto my flight in time. It was only then of course did the physical effects of the previous night hit me which made for a terrible flight to Sao Paulo. Fortunately I was all better later on that day a...

So, I arived back in Rio at around 9pm on 14th - the bus ride was really chilled, just around 4 hours with air conditioning and luxury seats! I got a cab from the bus station and had my first brush with the Rio evil that everyone keeps going on about!! The stories everyone tells about being mugged or ripped off in Rio are just amazing - you wouldn´t believe the number of people from the hostel who claim to have been mugged!! Anyway, this cabbie was the closest I came to being robbed - the far...

We are now boarding a plane to go on a 10 hour journey to arrive in the one and only Rio where we will be able to show them a thing or two about football. (How the Gary Breens of our side of the world play). So Cairns is now a true member of the traveling team and our Journey is now truly on its way. We are all a little pensive on arrival to the airport as we have been told that this country is no more than a pick pocketers dream and a stabbers paradise. When we collect our bags, the first th...

Hoi! I actually dont know where to start with Rio...5 days rapidly turned into a week which turned into 10 days... We hooked up with 2 Irish girls and an English lad too who were all great craic. So we became the Famous Five, saw the sites and ticked the boxes together. We started off in a hostel called Mellow Yellow which was anything but mellow. Suited me fine of course, especially it being a Friday when we arrived. The nightlife in Rio is amazing...we went to a street party both Fridays we...

Rio was disappointingly grey and raining on our arrival. We stayed at Mellow Yellow, a huge 200 bed hostel. Copacabana was dirty with water polluted, edged by huge commercial buildings and hotels however Ipanema, the next beach along, was a lot more scenic. We visited Jesus Christ, 27m tall and perched 710m above the city, his arms outstretched palms facing skyward for which there are two explainations; the first is that it is a symbol of how welcoming the people of the region are; the second...

My first two days were rather uneventful and were basically wandering around near the hostel to figure out the lie of the land. We went on a rickety streetcar over a high bidge but that was it. Friday was our first proper day. Friday morning we went to the beach after breakfast and bought beach wraps. I haggled for mine and got the price from 20BRL down to 11BRL. I was very proud of that until I realised that´s roughly E8 to E4.40. Not too much of a bargain there and the guy probably could ha...