Gloria Hotel Rio de Janeiro

... poor conditions and the streets are very narrow, the apartments rise 3 or 4 stories high with a sentry-like viewing position from the top terraces. Many people were up top when we drove by, viewing the day´s activities below or perhaps on watch. The week I was there there were riots with police here and a helicopter was shot down so its not so nice. Amusingly (for me), as we drove past the tour guide told us ´they have everything they need here, banks, shops ...

... when at a wonderful performance, with a silly ear-to-ear grin on my face, so it brings great joy to me when someone else can share in the appreciation of good live music. <br><br>Wandering Santa Teresa and the Steps of Lapa<br>Friday, June 26, we finally abandoned any hopes of leaving Rio for Teresopolis. There was so much for us to see and do in Rio in our last few days in Brasil and we knew we would return to explore the rest of this vast country ...

... and peeked in at the favelas from a distance. The most interesting place was Lapa, a formally run down, drug ridden place that no one would set foot in but it was revolutionized when an artist from Chile took over a big flight of stairs and started to cover them with tiles he had collected from all over the world. This made it a tourist hotspot and completely changed the way the area was thought of. What was bizarre about visiting here was that there ...

Hola! Well we left Itacare on the 19th February (happy birthday ma ma!) and were making our journey to Rio. This meant a bus to Ilheus and then a 24hr bus from Ilheus to Rio. Ash and I haven´t been too fazed by buses and when we hear 18 year old boys whining about 18 hour bus journeys we don´t have much sympathy for them or we pull out this true story... 3 hours into our journey to Rio (emily already asleep) (thanks ash!) and we come to a halt on a bridge. Ash spots black ...

... got to talking.. in Portuguese of course. I've gotten pretty good at pretending to know the language. She would talk for a while; I'd throw in any collection of the six or so words that I know; then she'd start back up again. This went on for about 5 minutes. I'm not sure exactly what we talked about, but it must have been something worth while because she followed by giving me half of her ...

... trying madly to think of other words they may go by Sara: ´condoms..condoms? y´know CONDOMS´.. (something I notice about people. if you are speaking a foreign language and people arent understanding you, try SHOUTING IT COS THEY MAY JUST GET IT THEN!???) They are now looking from me to each other and still looking blank. I get that faint stirring in my belly which tells me this is going to be bloody embarassing and to just walk ...

... back to Rio! <br><br>We knew that the busese to Rio left every hour on the hour and unfortunately we hit dry land at 9:02 with no sign of any buses whatsoever. We must have missed it.<br><br>We looked around for 10 minutes, getting progressively more annoyed about the lack of signs or information before finally spotting a ...

... stadium. <br><br> <br><br>Here's Katie looking very glamorous while drinking a can of Skol!<br><br> <br><br>When we got there the place was buzzing, depite us being there two full hours before kick-off (4pm). <br><br> <br><br>There was a statue of some bloke just ...

... informed and willing to assist us wherever possible. I highly recommend this hotel, although there are hundreds more to choose from in Copacabana, as well as Ipanema and even into the inner city. And with this time of year being considered the "off season", we have been privy to several small perks - early check-in (10 AM), ocean view room, late check-out (6 PM) and more. Of course, we had to ask for these perks, but our boldness has paid off. <br><br ...