Oi All,
Just sitting here at the hostel internet terminal and overheard another person complaining of being pickpocketed/robbed....
Went up to the christ statue yesterday morning. Caught the bus out there and would have liked to walk up a path to enjoy the jungle and view. Unfortunately this is not sensible at the path is dangerous BUT there is a train to catch, which in it´s own right is interesting due to the steep inclination, all for $45 reals return each. Does the train company have a vested interest in keeping the path unsafe? The trip is nice with a couple of monkeys spotted and brazilian busker band in one carriage ahead of us belting out tribal rhythm to destroy the serenity.
Great views from the christ status. Didn´t realise that it was mosaiced with little tiles. Took 10 years to build. Lots of people. We stayed for 1hr and the train went every 20min. Each train seemed to hold 100 people and there were also people on tours and in taxis so you can imagine, of course without us with a camera you will have to imagine, or the internet, how many people were up there.
Got back down and caught the bus to the botanic gardens. 200 years old. Have great rows of 30m palm trees. Heaps of space. Very tropical. Lunch by a creek with big fish which we didn´t feed due to rules, actually we did feed them. Nice pond with the biggest carp looking fish I have ever seen. We didn´t feed them either....yes we did.
Waited for the bus back to hostel. Bus kept on passing us before we could read the number. Drivers think they are driving racing cars. We tried other side of road without success. One stopped that said copacabana so we got on. It headed deep into a favela (slum) and then promptly terminated. What the? bus driver shrugged and said catch a 951 out. From where? we weren´t leaving the termination point. Heart in mouth. Vanessa had no money. I checked my pockets. A few coins. Do we have enough to catch another bus? just enough. Later I found a $20 real note in my pocket. Caught the next bus out. Didn´t care where it went as long as it was out of the favela. Favelas are dangerous places. We saw one person with a machine gun and hunting knives on a corner. The bus took us out of the favela and out to botafogo where we caught the subway out to copacabana.Relief.
Went looking for another hostel at impanema beach. The one we are at is cold. That is the staff are cold and the hostel has no personality. Waited for ages. Australian girl on the desk was overworked and kept us waiting for ages. Had time management problems so we gave up as the sun was getting low. She thanked us for our patience. We weren´t patient. People should stop using that american management crap.
Nice sunset on impanema beach. We had to get going. Like the ocean where night is the time to head for cover for the small fish so too is for us in the beach area. Back safely after running the begger and dark side street gauntlet.
Think we will stay at the same hostel....too much hassle to move.
Adeus,
David & Vanessa
