Living on the Copacabana

Trip Start Oct 30, 2008
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Trip End Apr 26, 2009

Flag of Brazil  , State of Rio de Janeiro,
Saturday, November 1, 2008

We arrived on Thursday night after an 11 hour flight from Heathrow that was delayed about an hour. We breezed though passport and visa control, which wasn`t nearly as crazy as we´d imagined. We had arranged for our hostel to pick us up and a man with a sign was waiting for us as we stepped into the arrivals hall. It was geting on for midnight and our journey passed through most of the bright city, which seemed unusually quiet. A pungeant smell was in the air as we passed through the docks and ahead of us we could see the unmistakable shape of Sugar Loaf. We arrived at Copacabana on the opposite side of town at our hostel to check in. The hostel is quite dingy and small, with few windows and on entering our poky double room I was thinking this is one of the worser hostels I had ever stayed in. There was no bed linen and the place hadnçt been cleaned. We went back to reception who apologised and provided us with some sheets etc. I couldn´t help feeling a bit disappointed. so I decided there was only one thing for it, hit the hostel bar. A beer and a cocktail later things were looking up and we managed to get a reasonable night sleep.

We were up at 8am and sorted our gear out before heading for breakfast. The day was overcast and the streets we were on looked a bit grubby, the cliff faces of the surrounding hills, a feature of Rio looked imposing and gave the place a surrealness. On the first day we decided to visit Santa Teresa and Centro, seeing as it wasn´t clear enough to go up to visit Jesus or Mr Sugar Loaf. Santa Teresa is a cobbled stone area, set high up on one of the hills overlooking the cente of the city. It is quite bohemian and the place is where the artisit crowd live. A few restaurants and bars welcome visitors that arrive on a yellow tram / trolley from the base of the hill, just behind the Petrobras office building, which looks like a giant game of Jenga. (We will upload pictures when I can find a PC with a USB port that is accessible.) The place could certainly do with a bit of paint and a clean, but it had a charm and there is some fantastic graffitti art on the walls, seemingly all done by the ´Santa Crew´. Back in Centro during the afternoon we went for a walk around the various sights, the smell of sewers regularly wakes you up from any hyponotic trance we might have been in while still recovering from the long day of travelling before.

There is some great architecture, but they are few and the place is very busy. Rio isn´t quite what I had in mind, though I always say that everywhere looks twice as good when the sun shines and in the miserable warmth of the cloudy skies only highlights the many run down buildings and the poverty on the street. Yet it isn´t nearly as dangerous as I had read, seemed liek any big and bustling city. Most people ignore you, a bit like Beijing or Delhi, sure there are chancer thieves about but you dont really feel threatened. Three days in and I still feel the same.

We wandered along the Copacabana later in the afternoon and I went for a run along the full length and back of it later and the day had brightened up. It was fantastic, lots of people playing all types of sports on the beach from handball to racquet ball, kiting to football, volleyball to frisbee. The 4.5km long stretch is the most famous beach in the world, lined with hotels and kiosks that sell ice-cream, it has a modern day 1950s feel. The Copacabana Palace Hotel still has all the grandeur I had seen in the old films.

In the evening we had dinner at the hostel and a few drinks in the bar, the place was busy, it was Halloween and a party was taking place. There must have been 60 people in the bar and most were dressed up in fancy dress, no idea where they had got them from, ready to hit a street party at Lapa later, which is an area where giant street parties take place. We decided to give it a miss as it didn´t start until 1am and we were still tired. Next day we learnt that it went on until 9am, some party! These street parties happen three times a week, so we might go to the next one.
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