After a 20 something bus ride I was a bit brain dead when I arrived in Rio. I went with the first Taxi guy I saw at the bus station. 50 real later I arrived at the wrong hostel because I called out the wrong address from the Lonely planet to the driver. It turned out to be a better hostel than the one I was heading to. The Ipanema Beach house ha...

De laatste dagen slijten in Rio De Janeiro: het zit erop! Het weer maakt ook al duidelijk dat dit afscheid is: grauw en motregen, tijd om naar huis te gaan.

Iīve been in Rio for a week now and have one night left...I canīt believe I am flying home tomorrow!! I have been going out practically every night here, so physically speaking I am very much looking forward to getting out of dorms (triple bunks here at Ipanema Beach house!) and actually getting some sleep in my own bed at home. I am of course r...

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 7:07 PM, Sandra Dolan <dolansan@gmail.com> wrote: Our first stop off in Brazil was Rio, and what a first destination! We decided to stay in the rich side of town and headed to Ipanema. The hostel Ipanema Beach house came well recommended in the guide book so we stayed there for 8 days. Located just 10 min from the be...

Rio de Janeiro - May 20th to 30th Day 5 After a little over 4 hours of flying, the plane touched down in Rio de Janeiro. Hooray! Instantly getting off the plane I felt the wonderful warmth of Rioīs more tropical climate, bye bye jumper. Now it was nice to touch down, but I must say the process to get out of the airport was one of the most horrib...

Well, the famous Rio de Janeiro!! Absolutley Amazing!! This is the most beautiful city in the world, as far as I know so far. We stayed with Roxy and Jay at the Ipanema beach house. While there we found Jesus, literally, there is a statue atop a mountain of a 42 story tall Jesus, extraordinary views. We smoked on the steps at Lapa where Snoop Do...

And so we were back... Rio, Ipanema, Ipanema Beach House. We took Aaron to the beach, some parks, shopping, a churrasca, it was fun, but after the Amazon, we were WORN OUT. Unfortunatley, he didnt get to go to sugarloaf or Jesus because the weather, but we enjoyed our last night together with the company of some Germans on skateboards, a crazy g...

We arrived in Rio Monday evening just in time to get in a cab and hit a crazy rush hour with a bunch of crazy drivers. We whizzed in and out of lanes past more high rise apartments, favela filled hillsides, and through tunnels until we reached our sweet little abode of a hostel, the Ipanema Beach House. Just blocks from Ipanema Beach, our hostel...

So here I am in Rio de Janeiro. Managed to sleep ok on the plane - night flights are good. We took a bus to Ipanema which is where our hostel is. Whilst Jim was reading his Econonomist I was gazing out of the window people watching. The colours were bright - mainly yellow. We passed a favela - shanty town. Jim wanted us to stay at a guesthouse i...

Well, the long awaited trip to Rio had finally arrived...!! That meant that Elio (my friend from Uni) also headed out to Brazil catch up and sample the travelling lifestyle for a couple of weeks. We felt like we'd entered a slightly alternate reality when we arrived at the Ipanema beach house (backpacker hostel) to find a Louis Vitton store abou...

Rio, where to start. Beautiful, busy, fashionable and at times pretty scary!! I had booked a bus from Puerto Iguasu to Sao Paulo so I could get a bus straight to Paraty and head along the coast to Rio, however not liking the idea of waiting in Sao Paulo bus station from 4.30am till light then moving across the city with all my stuff (since Sao P...

April 19 - Welcome to Rio! We were excited to return to South America even it is was only for four nights, but we must admit that we were also a bit nervous. Compared to all of the cities we've visited so far, everything we've read about Rio suggests that it is possibly the least safe. With only a few hours of sleep, we gathered our wits about u...