After hearing numerous stories about people getting mugged, shot or kidnapped in Rio de Janeiro, to say we were a little apprehensive upon arrival is a bit of an understatement. But just to get it out of the way up front, we were absolutely fine, had no trouble walking around at all times of the day and night, and the only bad thing that happened was getting more than a little ripped off on Copacabana beach. The city itself is a sprawling urban jungle of half decrepit buildings right next to sparkling new ones, which are themselves just over the road from the omnipresent slums. There are people everywhere, from a dozen different ethnic backgrounds, making it diffibult to describe the typical Brazilian look. The only constant stereotype we could see were the micro bikinis on all the beaches but that´s another story. The jungle covered hills surounding the city and the beaches at their feet are beautiful, and the water (at Ipanema at least) warm and reasonably clean.
We stayed in an LP recommended hotel just off Copacabana beach, but apparently "updated in 1998" means just a notch above dump to some authors... But the staff were great and Tan made friends with all the breakfast waiters she spent so much time there, se we were happy. Next time and for those thinking of coming, Ipanema is a much better option and we ended up spending most of our time there. The weather couldn't have been better with a sunny 25 degrees each day making it perfect for those shorts and thongs and plenty of beach time.
The first day was a rough one however as i caught the same mysterious "Peru" bug that Tan had and spent the day in bed. Thank god they have about 100 channels on TV over here.(FYI - American Chopper in Portugese is hilarious). Tan wandered around the local area by herself (again proving the saftey i guess) shopping her heart out with everything pretty much half price compared to Aus.
The next few days we spent on the beautiful Ipanema beach. This was everything and more that we´d heard about. Girls wearing dental floss bikinis and guys wearing almost shameful budgie smuggler shorts, all surrounded by hawkers of every kind selling food, drinks, clothes, jewelry, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. It'd be funny if you didn´t get hassled so much, but you get used to saying "piss off" in a nice way. Unless you're Tan of course and buy everything you see... We spent hours there resting from our busy schedule to buy food and drinks or go shopping in the streets for a while. We lucked out on the timing a bit as it was the World Cup semi finals on the Sat afternoon when Brazil played France. The whole city came to an absolute standstill. We almost couldn't believe that even busses stopped and stood in the sidewalk cafes looking at a TV. There was literally no one around. We found a seat in an overcrowded but traditional cafe which had some big screens. The scene was set for a big night of partying and dancing in the streets, but then something unexpected happened and bloody Brazil lost. The only way to describe mood afterwards was depressed. Everybody went home, there was no dancing and so Tan and I went to a bar and got pissed.
We went into the town centre on one day which was ok, if a little dirty. We were still in our freak out mode a bit and the centre of town was where we'd heard about some not so good stories so we didn´t hang around long. On the way to back however i managed to trip over the dodgy sidewalk and badly sprain my foot. There goes the excercise routine... It still hurts a bit now, and slowed me down quite a lot for Rio unfortunately. We did all the touristy stuff like the tram up Santa Teresa, Corcovado (the big Christ) and Sugarloaf mountain. All were great, especially sugarloaf as we went at dusk and the view was spectacular. We also went on a tour up to the north of Rio to a quite seaside town that i´ve completely forgotten the name of, where we caught a boat and sailed around the islands. It was a beautiful day and we had a bit of a swin in the open (and clean) ocean. We also heard many other pretty scary stories from a Brazilian on the tour (like traffic being stopped both ways on the freeway to the airport by armed gunmen who then robed everyone in cars, or the story about the two tourists who got accidently shot the day before by bullets that ricocheted off a car in which a robber who´d just shot two cops was sitting. Lovely, but again we didn´t see any of this.) Anyway the day trip was great regardless.
We also spent plenty of time shopping and bought far too much probably. The food here was a bit of a mixed bag. We weren´t too adveturous after both of us having just recovered from spending a day with gut wrenching pain, but there were a few highlights. We had sushi one night in the ritzyer part of town which was great. We also tried a couple of traditional Brazilian BBQ places that were good (i had ostrich.... yum). Tan found her favourite custard donut place, and all up we´ve managed to beef up quite nicely.
On the last weekend we went to an old Samba dancehall, which sold $2 longnecks and had a live band. We were way over-dressed as it turned out, and the building looked like it was about to fall over, but the band was fantastic and the people danced like it was 1999. There were more moving hips than th eye could easily follow, and Tan even managed to get me up for a dance - bung foot and all.... It was great fun.
So a fantastic and safe trip as it turned out and the place comes highly recommended. We´re off to Argentina next. Look out for the tango!
