Rio Rio Rio RIo

25/06/13

Right now I am sitting on my icky bunk bed in Cabanacopa hostel in Rio. Just finished theeeeee biggest meal of my life… (well not quite… fogo de chao takes that cake –may or may not be the time to mention Jess and I have booked the rio one for Friday night.) Anyway Jess and I have a sever problem with portion control (I blame her soley for my weight gain) but it is hard not to when this big mumma only cost us $3.25 AUD each!!

Oh yeahhh we get so excited when we work out how cheap we can eat for. He he he. But then again that wassss compensated by our meal the next night… Fogo is never forgiving on ones wallet.

The first few nights in Rio were mehschmeh… we decided to go out the very first night to Lapa with some Brazilian/ Mexican boys and a French couple. But yet again… the latin boys were way too touchy feely and too indecisive on where to go so in the end we decided to be party poopers and caught the bus back. After that ramshackled night we decided not to party again until the end of the trip (too broke anyway). 

Our next adventure was out to Ilha Grande, a smallish island about 1hr from the mainland. Sadly the weather wasn’t that crash hot so we didn’t really bother with too many pictures. We hiked to around 8 different beaches and coves on the one and two half days that we were there and sat in the sun reading like grandmas having a wonderful time. We also made a sand llama named Karl, but sadly the only wave of the day swept up just as we finished and Jess went to get her camera. So instead we made Karl the swimming llama!

I do have to mention though, our brave explorer buddies Cookie (after Captian Cook) and Ralph, two stray island dogs we befriended (after initially being bit by cookie) and kept company for the 7km trek to Lopez Mendez. It was a sad occasion when we had to abandon them due to the tempting yet very lazy boat ride home.

After returning from Ilha Grande, Jess and I moved hostels from Lisetonga (in leme) to CabanaCopa (in Copacabana). We are now closer to the action but Lisetonga staff were so nice… and well yeah I kinda regret the move. NO MATTER!!! The last night. Thankfully to our beautiful mothers will be spent in style at one of the beach front hotels in a delux twin suite. We are planning a night of a grande dinner, and movies in our hopefully plush beds like old school sleepovers. I will let you know how that all turns out.

Today, however, we spent lounging alllll day on the beach. We had frozen Açai bowels (actually pronounced a-sah-ee)

and got to watch multitudes of young (and old…) Brazilian women in what you can only describe as THE MOST Brazilian bikinis (aka full blown g-bangers). I mean I can appreciate the bums on some of the youngins but 60-70yr olds in thongs??? ummm sorry but there is such a thing as disturbing the peace. We sadly got to distracted by fro-yo and sun that we missed out on heading up Christo redonto (or however you spell it). So we will have to try and squeeze him and Sugarloaf mountain in tomorrow :D.

Ok so I have now finished Rio and can fill you in on the rest of the story! The next day we did indeed go up to sugar loaf. It was really hazy though and there seemed to be one cloud that was constantly shrouding sugar loaf (lucky us!!).

Even so we managed to get a few goodish shots through the clouds.

The rest of the day we spent walking through the little tourist markets around Ipanema and decided to locate our hotel for our last night together. Now the markets are good the first time you go, but every single market stall in every single location along the beach sells exactly the same thing…. football jerseys, incense burners, Christ Redeemer figurines, and sarongs all in the same print. Funny how I actually bought none of the aforementioned items. I almost forgot the Favela tour that we did on one of the days. Got to see the slums of Rio, all equipped with satellite tv's.... nahh thats cause we were only allowed in the police controlled ones for our own safety.

Next big attraction was the Corcovado or Cristo Redonto or for the culturally ignorant, the Christ Redeemer (big statue on the hill). We again left it a tadddd too late. Our original plan was to catch sunset and then stay for the lighting of him before heading down to dinner at Fogo. But in the end we got up when it was dark and only had about 15min there before we had to rush to dinner. I honestly could have stayed up there for hours just looking. The statue is amazing. Its so big, so close and just leaves your chin hanging open.

The view is another thing not to be missed. It was probably a good thing that we went at night due to the haziness that we had experienced. It was so pretty to see the little boats floating like lanterns on the harbor, the favela lights climbing up the hillsides and the slow (actually almost standstill) peak hour traffic winding through the streets.

Well Jess left the next day, but not before we went for a little shop. Along with some dirt cheap havaianas, I snagged a pair of my very own Brazilian bikinis. In saying this they are not true Brazilians. I did get the most conservative old lady ones that cover about a ¼ of my bum at least. After Jess left I decided to be a stubborn broke tourist and walked my suitcase 3kms along the boulevade. It seemed like a better idea before it took me 1.5hrs to complete on the rocky paving but I suppose I had nothing better to do. In saying that I may have also stopped at one of the exercise stations that occur every 100m on the beach front. It was there that I decided to see how many chins I could still pump out. My estimate was that I could struggle but surely do atleast 5. Oh how wrong I was… could only get ¾’s of the way up. Yup! I couldn’t even do one! I was so embarrassed because I felt and probably looked so cocksure about myself.

That night I met some lovely (but very noisy) brisith girls that overtook my room with pre-drinking bawdiness. Wasn’t too bad though left me with enough sleep to conquer my walk the next day J with nothing to do but wander with no money I walked all along Copacobana and around the corner to Ipanema in total it was probably about 12km but it took me close to all day due to the little stops to observe protests and farmers markets where a couple of chocolate filled churros may or may not have entered my hands (its winter at home right, I can still hide my travel weight under a couple of jumpers for a while yet).

Anyway again I will sign off (whilst enjoying my 1.2kg of duty free milka chocolate) and promise you a post from my next location. Not sure exactly where but will be in California with my toes in the sand :)

Laters,

Dee

The Paris of the South

12/06/2013

Dear Diary,

Yes this is yet another airport entry, at this current moment I am sitting at the Buenos Aires domestic airport ready to fly to Iguassu Falls for a few days. By the time I actually post this however, I will probably be sitting in the airport in Iguassu ready to head to Brazil!

So the low-down on Buenos Aires (BA)… To be honest it was a pretty slow week. BA is quite like a very dirty and slightly more colonial Brisbane. It was like there was this huge economic boom that produced all these old grand buildings however the economy clearly did not keep up because those beautiful building are now all in a state of disrepair and decay. Apart from Puerto Madero (the rich suburb where apartments sell for $2-4MIL), the city is pretty dilapidated. It is also apparently known as the Paris of Latin America due to the mass amounts of dog poo mines EVERYWHERE. Serious they are a major hazard. Now that the negatives are out of the way, BA seems like a lovely city. Its very safe and we didn’t stand out so much as foreigners, which was nice for once.

One the first day, we headed down to the main shopping mall/street to trade our measly amount of USD for some peso on the black market. Sounds a tad riskayy but its not the people are lovely and fully legit, and by trading on the black market you can get almost double the rate. BIG PLUS. In the end we got 8.3peso for every dollar compared to 5.3 which makes things very cheap J (otherwise prices are very similar to Brisbane which is depressing…I am going to struggle big time adjusting back to my old spending habits). The rest of the day we spent on a bike tour of the city. It was nice and it took us around the south of the city including the hilarious little town of La Boca where the settlers first came to BA. La Boca was BA’s birthplace of the tango (originated in Paris I believe) and it is full of dancers on the street, funny colourful buildings, cafes and Afajores! Afajores are kinda like wagon wheels I guess… they are two biscuits that are squished together with a layer of dulce de leche (condensed milk caramel) and covered in chocolate. That night we attended the hostel BBQ which for $8USD we ate a banquet of what was more than thought physically possible. It included fried corn, chorizo, steak, lemon chicken, potato salad and greens all done over a spit roast type thing. We went to bed that night feeling revoltingly fat, yet satisfied.

Day two we woke early and caught the train to Tigre, which is a town in the Delta region. We spent the day walking along the rivers and canals enjoying the sun and not doing anything particular. That afternoon we went to the markets (which were all closed by that time… planned that well… whoops) and had a late lunch on the water before heading back.

The next few days Jess and I came down with a cold so we spent the mornings sleeping in before heading to the Recoleta Markets and Cemetery. The markets were great and we may have accidentally spent all our money on leather bags, which are really cheap over here. I suppose they have to do something with all the cows they cull for their legendary steaks. The adjoining cemetery was amazing. It is save to say I was more than awestruck at the grandeur of the family tombs/crypts. They were full on gothic houses that also lead to underground rooms for the older family members. 

Only the most prestigious and affluent families were buried here. For example, the national figure Evita Peron (presidents wife who seems more famous that the president) was buried there in 1952, which sounds pretty important to me. The interesting thing, however, is there was a major uproar because her family bloodlines were not prestigious enough.

That night we went on a pub crawl with some of the hostel crew. All I can say about that is Latin men are well… very forward and well… I don’t really like them all that much… let me tell you though they love blondes :/ * cough cough quick someone grab a base ball bat *

Next were the San Telmo Antique markets. The markets themselves were not antiques, but were based on a street where a lot of second hand stores presided. Despite spending nothing (I spent it all the day before), I really enjoyed these markets and definitely recommend them if you ever are in the area. Jess bought some lovely leather bags and bound books that I am extremely jealous over!

The last thing of note in Buenos Aires was the tango lesson, dinner and show on our last night. Lesson was interesting to say the least. There were not enough guys in the group so I partnered Jess as her masculine savior he he he.. The show was fantastic however. Your eyes could not keep up with the pace and intricacy of their legs! It was insane. Sadly its also very hard to get photos of but this was the best I could do.

Oh and I almost forgot! Got the best leg wax ever!!! Got a full leg (so ankle to hip for those who don’t know…) and it barely hurt at all and only cost me $60p which at the bad exchange rate is like $11 and at the good rate is $7.25!!! SO cheap and so good!!!

Now for Iguassu, I might do both the Brazilian and Argentinian part of Iguassu together since it is kinda the same thing.

We arrived on the Argentinian side of the falls in the town called Iguazu around 1.45pm. By 4pm we had checked into our hostel and caught a bus back out to the waterfalls to try and catch the sunset on day one. It was a massive rush, having to run through the trails but it was worth it for these bad boy pictures.

Day two we reentered the Argentinian side for the rest of the park and a boat tour. The boat tour was really cool, but sorry there were no pictures from it as we actually got to go under a few of the water falls! I had a poncho which didn’t do too much but I was better off than jess who had nothing and had to catch the bus home soaking wet.

That afternoon we ran back to the hostel, darted crossed the boarder, checked into our new hostel in Foz do Iguću and ran back to the park for sunset on the other side.

Again it was worth it! nothing else to report really from the trip apart from meeting a lot more Aussies at the hostel. (Cant get away from them), oh and playing with Sophie the cutest kitten alive (the hostel also had two resident turtles).

Sorry for all the pictures of myself but hey... in most of them i look good right??? and if i dont want to spam fb tooo much with selfobsessive travel snaps... 

Next post from brazil!!!

Xoxo Dee