The Girl From Ipanema Wears a Thong on the Beach

Posted by Brian

Posted on July 18, 2008

I´m back again. Posting myself this time. We are in Rio de Janeiro at the moment. Arrived here from Buenos Aires on Monday evening after our flight was delayed a couple of hours. We headed straight to Ipanema by bus looking for the Mango Tree Hostel. Not knowing the address, that was a little awkward to find so we just ended up staying in a place called Karisma. We booked into a 6 man dorm for 3 nights and for 2 of them had the room to ourselves. It was a nice hostel in a really chilled out area. The hostel was converted to a house and all the people working there are really sound, even brought us out one of the nights.

Anyway, the first day in Rio we went to the beach in the morning, followed by a tour in the evening. The tour brought us to the Christ the Redeemer statue on top of Corcovado. Its the famous one that everyone knows. The view from there was really good and the statue itself was impressive. Our guide told us that it was given to the city by the French. Makes you think that they should stop giving away all the really famous statues... After that, I found the rest of the tour a bit pointless. We went to Maracana, the football stadium but never went inside. We saw where the Carnival goes along but it was just an empty stand when we were there and then quite possibly the ugliest Cathedral I have ever seen. Looks like it was designed by the guys who did the Arts Block in Trinity. In saying that though, I did have a good time and did enjoy seeing the city a little more.

That night then we headed out so the next day was written off due to a hangover. We just lazed about mostly. Yesterday then we changed hostels to Copacobana, just to see what it was like. Its a nice enough hostel but the rooms are terrible. There are 4 sets of bunk beds stacked 3 high in a room with no floor space to speak of. They have a pool here though and it is near to the beach but I dont think any nearer than where we were in Ipanema. Yesterday evening we went to the top of the Sugar Loaf Mountain to watch the sun set. That was really cool, even if I was a bit more terrified in the cable cars than I let on!

Today it was back to the beach, where we bought a ball and played some football on the beach. We obviously are not very good so the Brazilians would have been laughing at us. Tonight then we are off to Lapa to the street parties which we are looking forward to and then we head back to Ipanema for our last 2 nights in Rio. We´ll take in a soccer match on Sunday before going to Ilha Grande and on to Iguazu from Monday.

Pics are on the way so until next time...

Brian

Mrs Meecham will be happy to see more photos of Matt. As for Mrs Corrigan, I´ll get some up of me soon incase you forget what I look like

Inside the horrible Cathedral was nice but very dark

Matt on Sugar Loaf. He has some photos of me... honestly

Monkeys hang around Rio and our Hostel

Really, it is my blog, not Matts :)

When the sun went down, everyone clapped. Not sure why, it was inevitable really!

As night falls the statue of Christ watches over the city and faces Portugal

Look its me... really!!