Rio Hostel Rio de Janeiro

I'm finally here, after years of wanting to do something like this, and a couple months planning. Well, no planning really (more on that later), but purchasing the ticket and visa. The trip went pretty smoothly for the first two legs to Lima and Sao Paolo, due in part to the fact that I'd taken a triple dose of sleeping pills and slept through most of it, waking up on occasion, either thinking, "what the hell am I doing" or being really excited. Then I got to Sao Paolo, with no itinerary, onl...

Righty then. We had just landed and all was mental around us. It was a Wednesday. The sun was out, stray dogs littered the pavements, docile in the spring sunshine. Our taxi man took us through the winding streets of Rio to our hostel in Santa Teresa... which I am still trying to find on a map. It was on a hill I can tell you that because it was the gauntlet you had to run from the bank, laden with cash, up and around past where the loooooocals hung out, fixed cars beyond repair and shouted a...

Back again, still way behind on the log but... here goes. I think I was waffling on about the Fevala´s the last time I was on... We were picked up by yer man, the big lad I was talking about before... it was actually a woman... and she was small with attitude. She dropped us all across town to this organised tour of the fevala whcih started off with a 10min spin up about 20 hairpin bends through the slums on the back of a 125cc bike. The owner was probably a pizza delivery lad by night but by...

We spent 1 week soaking up the sun and pounding the hot pavement in our havianas. We had a really nice time in Rio, we stayed for the most part in an area called Santa Teresa which is about 20 minutes drive to the beach, its also about 5 minutes walk from Lapa which is where the best nightlife is in Rio.

We managed to hit the town for a few nights - the streets are crazy, the weather relentlessly hot and samba beats spill out of the clubs. The clubs kick off late, like most of the cit...

I caught the bus to Santa Cruz on Saturday night - only 18 hours for a change (!) - where I arrived at about noon on Sunday. I found a great hostel, called... Jodanga I think, run by a Bolivian guy and his Australian girlfriend, and stayed there for 2 nights. We had a braai / barbeque on Sunday night which was divine and I spent Monday finding out how to get myself to Brazil. Cheap airtickets were very very not available - and I braced myself for the inevitable: $200 more by plane or 40 hours...

So rewind to January .... I arrived in bahia, happily spent my first few nights with marcela and then found my cute little apartment, upstairs from my bahian mama Celia and family. I spent a fabulous week or so adjusting to life in Bahia, started capoeira classes at the renowned Filos de Bimba school with a honey of an instructor, Anum, caught up with Will and Elizabeth who I'd met at the Rio hostel and went to see a show performed by the Bahian Folkloric Dance Company - which was incredible ...

so im here... slept the whole way... including through the part where they hand out the little immigration forms you fill out and have ready prior to landing, needless to say, i was NOT ready and was the very last American to go through and arrive through the brazian doors as my usual mess. nobody speaks english and somehow i wound up on the right bus sitting next to a girl my age who DID speak english, she was a lawyer, and was getting off at my stop. she was lovely... and pointed me in the ...

First Impressions - Green & absolutely the most stunning city background I have ever seen Last Impressions - Both highs and Lows but all in all, I loved it. Really loved it. Highs! Hang-gliding - bloody pertifying for someone who hates jumping off heights to hear "the most important thing to do is run, even when we´ve reached the end of the platform, just keep on running..." It was so worth it though - exhilirating and so calm when in the air looking out over the ocean and islands - I thi...

So we stayed in Pipa for nearly a week. It was bliss.. beautiful weather, beautiful beaches and plenty of brazilian vibe.

It
was much more developed than Genipabu but it was still a really nice
village. When we arrived it was the end of the public holiday weekend
and it was SO busy.. but it soon quietened down. Plenty of restaurants
and shops.. its pretty expensive in Brazil. Everything seems out of
proportion.. some things are cheap (you can buy a burger for about 55p)<...