The festive period now over we can update you on our most recent activities – not many adventures as the more developed a country gets the easier it is to navigate and the better the general infrastructure is to cope with travelers/tourists. What has been happening is that we have been traveling along similar lines as the locals – going to their holiday spots, their hotels/hostels and their restaurants.
This festive holidaying started when we left Sao Paolo on the bus to Parati (pronounced para-chi) – 6 hours (barely even noticed we were on the bus). Parati is a UNESCO site as it was an early trading port for the Portuguese when they landed here in the 17th century. Unfortunately or fortunately due to many pirate attacks (a number of them English) and improving hinterland transport, Parati was soon replaced by Rio as the major port. The town slowly went quiet – to the point of being almost forgotten until tourism started up and they realized the colonial town had been left almost untouched since the since its 17th century hey-day. There is not a huge amount to do in Parati – it is lovely to walk the old streets, walk to the various white sand beaches and swim in the warm Atlantic ocean (sounds strange doesn’t it, but it really is warm) and then go for dinner. There are a couple of pictures on the blog tagged as Parati which show the cobbled streets and the colonial Portuguese style houses.
The locals celebrate Christmas Day on Christmas Eve and so did we with a pork roast at the hostel. We went out for drinks in the town with some people from the hostel afterwards, which included a lovely Irish couple who were on their honeymoon.
On Christmas Day, suprisingly Father Christmas managed to find me, and all of my presents being very useful - toenail clippers, sun cream, mosquito repellent, deodorant. After all of that excitement a little hung over, we jumped on a local bus, 45 minutes down the coast to Trinidade (pronounced Trinidadgie) – which is a old hippy type village where the rainforest meets the ocean – amazing unspoilt beaches and a favourite for the young Rio people to camp. We stayed here for Christmas day. Nicola cooked a Christmas lunch with all of the trimmings, including sausages wrapped in bacon and a yorkshire pudding, we think it was a chicken rather than a turkey but it was as close as we could get. – the skies opened for pretty much all 3 days – we still managed to get out and about but were unable to really make the most of how beautiful the place is. The attached pictures show the majesty of the place, but with sunshine it would be idyllic.
Next stop – Rio, not Rio proper, but 1 hour south of Rio in a place called Recreio – (not sure how is pronounced). We took the cheap option of the bus up to Rio and then a bus back out again – unfortunately no one recognized the name of the place we were going, so we had a few nervous minutes, until a local woman kindly offered to help, she did her best, calling the hostel, but was still struggling to understand the instructions, she stopped people on the streets and asked, but again to no avail, then she called her husband to see if he could help and he drove around to find us. By the time he did and he spoke to the hostel owners, we were just 2 minutes away. Really should print off those maps from hostel-bookers. We were staying out of Rio, firstly to save money, but secondly because this hostel was called Surf and Stay – a chilled out hostel run by a New Zealand woman and her Brazilian husband – she ran the hostel and he taught surfing. We learnt to surf – pictures attached – but please note its pretty difficult and tiring and its very difficult to take pictures of things that happen so briefly – like us being up on the boards. Our friend who we lived with in London, Steve Dyson and his friend James Savage had at this point rejoined us and so some of the beach pictures include these guys too.
Now Rio proper – we moved in to our posh hotel on the 30th December, 4 stars, two blocks back from Copacabana beach and importantly booked and paid for 6 months ago. We had four days over New Year (minimum stays required) and we set earnestly doing everything Rio had to offer. Right from day one – we hung out on the beaches – they are huge and are 5 minutes walk from the main city streets. We also tried out the local food – well local – more what the people of Rio eat – which are nice European style restaurants and then the Churrascuria – which I presume means ´place in which to gorge on meat`. The best one we went to was called Porcao (pronounced, ironically, poor cow) – when you go in you are given two plates and a card board disk. The first plate is to hold your garnish (sometimes called salad) which is to be ignored at all times, the second plate is for meat. The card board disk is green on one side and red on the other. If the green side is up every 5 minutes a waiter will come around and offer you straight from the grill chunks of meat – sausages, lamb, beef (perfectly cooked, succulent), chicken, chicken hearts. If the red side is up it means you need a break because all the good stuff in the meat is over-powering your body. Needless to say we all went home very happy that night.
The next couple of days we went up the (funicular – For Nicola) railway to Christ the Redeemer, toured around the various Rio districts, went up to Santa Teresa (cool bohemian district) and danced in Lapa (the samba area). One place to recommend in Lapa is a place called Rio Scenarium – a samba club, but huge – you go in at around 11, have dinner and a few drinks all the time live samba bands are playing and then the whole place turns in to a huge samba disco – lots of different rooms with all ages of people dancing the night away. We have pictures, but they don’t really capture the cavernous size of the place, the diversity of ages or the atmosphere. When we left, around 2 in the morning, there were still, as a rough guestimate, 200 people trying to get in!!
Then New Year Eve– most businesses were closed so we struggled to find a restaurant to eat, but finally managed to find one right on the street facing Copacabana beach. Filled ourselves on steak (again – just building up to Argentina) and then hit the beach – along with 2 million other people and I suspect 35k people of 7 cruise ships anchored just off the beach. With the high rise hotels and condo blocks on the land and the cruise ships out at sea it created almost a bowl affect around us – intensifying everything. The people of Rio – tend to go to the beach early in the evening and set up an area, have a picnic dinner and then start the drinking. This continues as the massive stage show gets under-way, lots of Brazilian music and dancing (carnival style) and then the fireworks start. The fireworks last 20-30 minutes, all launched off floating platforms in the bay – all very impressive. Then everyone returns back to the drinking and samba–ing – until it gets light – we didn’t quite make it, but put in a decent effort until about 3. Pictures and video are on the blog.
