Brasil - Rio de Janiero and the Costa Verde

I arrived in Rio de Janiero at about 430am and got the bus up to Copacabana Beach where I got a bit lost. It gave me plenty of time though to stare at the crazy old ladies with bad plastic surgery, walking their fluffy little dogs at the beach.  Also, there were also some crazy types jogging along the beach at this time.  Rio fashion currently seems to include white lacy school style knee socks pulled up high over whatever else you may be wearing.  All very strange for a poor bleary eyed Scot directly off a long overnight flight!

That evening, Sarah (Deloitte friend) pitched up with her ENORMOUS backpack (thankfully as I had lots to send home with her in due course!) and we headed straight out to the Copacabana Palace Hotel for a cheeky couple of Caipirinhas, the Brazilian national cocktail and theoretically made with Cachaca (ka-cha-sa), lime and sugar.  In reality, they're clearly made with either paint stripper, nail varnish remover or pure ethanol and are completely deadly!

View from Sugarloaf

The following few days were pretty action packed, entirely out of character for me and my laid back (read lazy) travelling, but Sarah was on holiday, so she did all sorts of handy organising and bullying me out of bed which is just what I needed.  Firstly we went up Sugarloaf mountain in two separate and very scary cable cars.  We were really lucky to have a lovely clear, hot, sunny day and had some great views out over the city, the sea, long long stretches of sandy beaches, and a real close-up of planes flying low over the city to the domestic airport.  That afternoon we spent a blissful day sunbathing on Copacabana Beach.

Graffiti in Santa Theresa

Cathedral

The next day we braved the metro and got ourselves into the city centre from where we caught a rickety old tram up the hill into the Santa Theresa area which is all old and arty and slightly bohemian.  After a coffee and pannini we walked all the way down the hill to visit the world's worst architecture in the form of the Cathedral.  It's an enourmous 60's cone of concrete and someone bright decided that, rather than some greenery or similar to break up the hard edges, the cathedral grounds should be given over to car parking.  Totally hideous.

Christ the Redeemer

And after that (told you it was hectic!) we got the bus up to another tram which took us all the way up the Corcovado hill to the massive deco(ish) sculpture of Christ the Redeemer.  It's a truly huge chunk of concrete, but so much better than the Cathedral lump of concrete, and we were lucky again with the weather so got some nice (if a little hazy) views out over the city.  That evening was spent out on the town, drinking in the streets of the Lapa district where we had some of the ethanol-based Caipirinhas in the streets before making it to bed (without even being mugged!) at a reasonable hour.

Rocinha favela with posh skyscrapers near the beach

Day three in Rio and Sarah booked us on a favela tour.  Favelas are illegal neighbourhoods that have grown up on the hillsides and can be really grim, but the more developed ones can have proper running water, electricity etc.  Again, the favelas tend to be run by gangsters, but lived in my ordinary, hard working, but poorly paid people.  I was a bit worried that going on a tour was a little rude, akin to staring at zoo animals, but the tour we booked on runs lots of different projects in the favela we visited and we were assured that we were more than welcome, and that we would be safe (I suspect a large part of our tour fee went to ensuring that nothing bad would happen!).

Baker in the favela

We visited the Rocinha favela, one of the largest and most developed in the city.  We started off getting on these crazy motorbike taxis at the bottom of the hill and we were whisked off up to the top which was a little terrifying - the road was steep and windy and there was a ton of traffic to swerve around.  Having survived that (no photos - not allowed at that part - gang rules) we spent a couple of hours walking downhill through various parts of the favela.  It was actually a really interesting tour, and the only real way that an outsider could possibly visit one of the neighbourhoods and I was really glad that we did it.

Samba school

Rio is famous for Sugarloaf, Christ, the beaches (mainly Copacabana & Ipanema), favelas etc, but also for its Carnival, a few days of extreme partying leading up to the start of Lent.  Part of this includes parades and Samba Schools.  So, we decided we really wanted to see a Samba School in action.  Avoiding a tour this time, Sarah, me and an Aussie, Rachel got ourselves in a taxi and went to the base of the Salguerio school knowing only that there was an event on and the doors opened at 10pm.  We arrived at about 10 past 10 and were pretty much the first in the door, partying starting quite late in Latin America.  However, a few Caipirinhas later and the place filled up and then became absolutely mobbed.  The schools prepare all year for carnival, and we happened to arrive on a night where our school was choosing its main singers for next year.  We were adopted by the supporters of one of the singers (luckily the first one up as it didn't all start till after midnight) and were given crazy bird and fruit hats and big flags to wave.  We were dragged up to the area in front of the stage while our guy was on and had to dance around like maniacs being showered the whole time with glitter bombs!

Self portrait with Carmen Miranda style hat!

Paraty

The weather turned at this point and Rio was hidden in a fug of drizzle and haze so we got ourselves on a bus headed to Paraty, a small colonial town on the Costa Verde (green coast) south of Rio.  It was a really cute little town but had decided to really go for it with the upcoming independence day celebrations, so the centre of town was filled with a huge stage and food stalls etc and was absolutely packed at times.  But it was cold and wet which dampened the party atmosphere a little.

Drizzle in Ilha Grande

From there we bussed and sail-boated it out to the island of Ilha Grande where we spent another couple of days in chilly drizzle.  It was a nice wee island though.  Sarah made me go for a long walk up a steep hill in the rain (reminded me of my childhood) and we tried out some acai (ah-sigh-ee) which is a deep purple, semi frozen berry pulp, served topped with granola and honey.  The best part was the granola and honey, the acai being very very bland.  Interesting to give it a go though.

We gave up on the weather and decided to move on, catching a ferry and bus up to the world's second largest bus terminal in Sao Paulo. The bus terminal being the biggest attraction we could find in our guide books, we took ourself off on a night bus to the town of Puerto Iguazu on the Argentinian side of the Iguazu falls.  At this point I have to say that the bus was the most amazing bus I have so far travelled on.  It was a two storied affair with only three seats per row and the seats nearly fully reclined.  We were provided with pillows and blankets too.  It was proper bliss!