I´m back

Trip Start Apr 09, 2008

115

Trip End Apr 19, 2009

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Brazil Rio de Janeiro, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Monday, July 14, 2008

The bus journey included a stop at a roadside cafe where I ate a sandwich pronounced as "kayshikaysh" by the cook and the lady at the till for the receipt and the separate till where you pay, the spelling is in fact 'queijo i queijo' (cheese and cheese). Later arriving at a rather dodgy looking bus station, interestingly not the one I remember leaving from I made contact and headed to my home for the coming days. It was a great feeling to know that I would not be moving on for some time. After settling in I went to Ipanema in the early evening to see the places I knew best. The job for the next day was organizing my ticket as far as Mexico. I was somehow still tired after sleeping for most of a 37-hour journey from Montevideo and spent a lazy day achieving nothing but this one goal. It also occurred to me that I had some other flights overlapping that would need to be changed. Mostly with American Airlines therefore a trip to the American Airlines office was needed. More on that story later...

The next day I took a ride on the scariest tram (the bondi) in the world from center to Santa Teresa, one of the places I had wanted to visit last time I was in Rio but didn't get round too. It is described in the handbook (I don't have a handbook, I mention it for blog purposes only, actually what I have are scraps of paper that I scribbled notes on in English libraries) as "bohemian, shabby-chic feel, characterised by run-down art nouveau and colonial mansions, small arty stores" which is similar but more eloquent to how I would describe it.

Castle! in Santa Teresa

Really pretty place, looks like it is falling apart but with great views of the rest of the city.

After this I walked around to look at some of the views of the city and some of the big mansion houses round about. I must have strayed to close to one of the nearby favelas because I was stopped by the police. The must have assumed that I was there to buy drugs, they took everything out of my pockets and checked everywhere drugs might be, including inside my shoes! I was scared, obviously but more scared that they might try to take my stuff than anything else. I knew I hadn´t done anything wrong and explained (in spanish (brazil is portugese speaking)!) that I was just taking a walk to see the sights. I played it cool like there was nothing wrong and it was just a routine stop and I didn't understand anything. Eventually they let me go. I think they were just bored really. Since then I have heard some horror stories about the police, they quite often (at least twice while I was here) shoot people who turn out to be innocent, luckily (for me not them) it is almost always locals not gringos. I walked back down the hill towards lapa and the center. I took photos of things I had seen last time, including the Cathedral, the viaduct (along which the scariest tram runs) and the tower blocks of the CBD. And took the metro home.

The next day, Thursday, I was back in Lapa but in the evening this time to sample the night life. We went to the same outdoor bar I had visited last time but this time instead of the Samba club we went to a place where two bands where playing Forró music from Northeast Brazil to me, it like a cha cha cha so just a quick salsa. We drunk more Cuba Libres, now the drink of choice for South America which here is more rum than coke. We danced for a while in the middle of all the Brazilians, by far the worst dancers there but I don't think I embarresed myself too much.