PARATY, SANTOS & PORTA ALEGRE, BRAZIL AND MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY - FEB 27 - MAR 5

It is pouring rain for most of the 2 hour drive to Paraty but it stops a few minutes before getting to town. It's about 3PM and I find a room in a nice pousada for $30US per night. Although the rain has stopped, many of the streets in town are flooded. Nevertheless, I decide to go for a walk in the old town core. Paraty is supposed to be the nicest colonial town in all of Brazil. The oldest part of the town is about 6 square blocks right along the coast to the east and a river to the north and south. The streets are cobblestone and very narrow, they are pedestrian only. All the building in this area are hundreds of years old and there are many restaurants, bars, shops and artist studios. Most of the restaurants have small interiors with tables setup in front of the restaurant right on the street.

Within 20 minutes, it is starting to rain again so I cut my walk short and go back to the pousada. The rain lasts the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening. Around 8PM it finally stops. I head to the main street west of the old town and find a busy pizza restaurant for dinner, the pizza is excellent. I'm looking forward to meeting Louisa and Jason here tomorrow. I met them in Nicaragua about 10 months ago and our paths are crossing again. Since I last saw them, they got engages on Valentine's Day.

The next morning I wake up to the sound of more rain, so I decide to work on my blog and do some reading. Just after noon, it stops raining and I head out for a walk. Some of the flooding caused by the rain seems to have receded, but in the old part of town there is flooding caused by a real high tide. This happens quite frequently and the road fills up with water but the sidewalks and building remain dry although there are parts of the old town that I can't get to without getting my feet wet. When I get to the main plaza, I find that there is a stage being setup with a nice looking sound system. It is the town's birthday today and there going to be a big concert in the plaza tonight.

It starts raining lightly once again and within a few minutes it is pouring so I take refuge in the pousada again. When I get back to my room, I have a message on my tablet from Louisa; Jason and her have just arrived into town so we set a place to meet at 6PM and we plan on going out for drinks then dinner. It rains all afternoon and is still raining when I go meet Louisa and Jason. The rain has chased almost everyone in doors so the streets are almost deserted. We head into the old town looking for a nice bar but most of them only have outside sitting areas that are not covered so it takes a while to find a indoor place. We spend a couple of hours conversing about what we have been doing since we last saw each other. I especially enjoyed hearing about the volunteer work they have done; first at a turtle hatchery in Costa Rica and more recently at a monkey and bird rehab center in Bolivia.

After a couple hours, the rain stops and we decide to go check out one of the outside bars but after one drink it is raining again. We duck into a small cafe for dinner. We enjoy the live music and dinner is ok but nothing special. Finally around 10PM it stops raining for good. We decide to head to the plaza and within 15 minutes a Brazilian rock band starts to play. I think the rain keeps a lot of people away as there are not many people in the plaza and those there are very subdued. After listening to the band play for about 40 minutes we decide to get another drink somewhere; the band is not bad but all the songs are in Portuguese. All the bars are completely deserted and after 1 more drink, we call it a night.

The next day it is not raining but it is still very overcast. After breakfast, I go for a 4 hour walk, at first I try to walk to what I thought was a nearby peninsula with some beaches. But after an hour, I realize it is many kilometres away so I end up walking round the perimeter of the whole town where I find a different beach called Praia da Pontal across the river to the north of town. On my way back to town to get some lunch, I run into Louisa and Jason and we decide to meet up at 7PM for dinner.

We go to another restaurant in the old town and I order fish. It tastes strange and I'm unable to eat it, I think it may have been in the fridge too long so I hope I don't get sick from it. I really have not had a good meal in Brazil yet, I miss the Argentinian beef. It has been raining lightly on and off all evening and the town is very quiet for a weekend. We have a couple drinks after dinner but there is no one else around so we say goodbye and call it a night. I'm heading south to Uruguay and they are heading north to Rio to fly to Australia in a few weeks so I won't be seeing them again on this trip.

At noon the next day, I catch a bus to the city of Santos which is located on the coast just east of Sao Paulo.  The bus takes the coastal road and there are beautiful beaches every few kilometers and the bus stops at everyone of them. It is only a little over 200kms to Santos but it takes about 5 hours to get there. Santos is the largest port in Brazil and has a population of just over 400,000. It is also a good alternative transportation hub to Sao Paulo for buses heading south, it has a beautiful beach that stretches for several kilometers right in front of the main city and it was made famous by it's futbol (soccer) team in the 1950s and the team's star player, Pele. Santos was the only team Pele played for other than the national team until he was coaxed out of retirement to come play for the New York Cosmos in the old NASL. He scored over 1000 goals during his career for Santos and I really want to see the stadium he played in and the Santos Futbol Club Museum. Tomorrow is Sunday so maybe there is even a game I can go to.

My guide book has a full page write-up on Santos but does not list any places to stay. Instead it just says there are many hotels and pousadas in the center of the city 2 or 3 blocks west of the beach. The bus terminal is quite a ways from the beach so I catch a taxi to the beach and start walking to find a place to stay. I walk for about an hour and I don't see any hotels or pousadas other than a couple of really high end hotels right across the street from the beach. Finally as it gets dark, I find a pousada and it is only $25US per night so I take a room and then grab some dinner at a nearby restaurant.

The next morning I walk to the Santos Futbol Stadium and visit the museum in the stadium.  Of course Pele is the main attraction and there is one whole corner just on his soccer exploits. all the various trophies they won are on display including a couple of world club championship trophies. Most are from Pele's era in the late 1950s and the 1960s but the are a few from every decade. I buy a Santos jersey as I leave the museum and I see a sign about a game today at 4PM against Corinthians. It's only 11:30AM and there is already lots of fans around wearing Santos shirts but then I see dozens of buses and the fans are getting on these buses to go to Sao Paulo to watch the game. I decide I don't want to be the only English speaking person on the bus so I don't go with them.

It's a beautiful day so I decide to walk down to the many beaches that fronts the city. I walk north along the whole length of the waterfront including along Praias Jose Minino, Gonzaga, Boqueirao, Embare, Aparecida, and Ponta until the beaches end and the city curls west along the Santos Channel. There is a large pier located here called Fisherman's Wharf and true to its name, it is full of people fishing. I've been seeing lots of people fishing along rivers and along the ocean ever since I got to Chile but I am yet to see someone actually catch something. That evening after dinner, I walk to a nearby mall that has movie cinemas and watch the new "Die Hard 5." They should have stopped after the 4th movie because this movie was terrible and the story was ridiculous.

The next morning I catch a bus south to Curitiba. Curitiba is a fairly large city a couple hours away from the coast. I need to decide if I want to spend more beach time at a coast destination like Florianopolis or whether I want to continue south B-lining my way to Uruguay. I've been on the Brazilian coast for more than 3 weeks, so I decide to keep heading south. I arrive in Curitiba around 6PM and immediately buy another bus ticket for the night bus to Porto Alegre leaving around 9PM. So I check my bags in at the bus station and go find a restaurant for dinner. I come back to the bus station around 8:30PM and grab my bags and my bus leaves right on time.

I arrive into Porto Alegre around 9AM and I get a room in the Hotel Erechim for $25US per night. Porto Alegre is located on a large estuary just inland from the coast. It used to be a large shipping port but the port was closed more than 20 years ago. It is now the cultural centre of the southern part of Brazil which has a huge German and Italian influence because of the high number of immigrants from these countries in the first half of the 1900s. It is also the largest city in the south at over 1.4 million people. The city is quite modern, very clean and has the feel of a European city. I spend the afternoon walking the main downtown core and shopping districts. That evening I have dinner at a traditional Brazilian restaurant where waiters bring meat on a large skewer to your table and cut off pieces until you do not want more. It was the best meal I have had in Brazil so far and cost only $15US.

The next morning I check out of the hotel and go buy a bus ticket to Montevideo. The bus does not leave until 8:30PM so I check in my backpack at the luggage storage place in the terminal and then go for a real long walk. I first head to a large park in the centre of the city called Parque Farroupilha, and then I walk along the waterfront back to the main downtown centre. I go back to the same restaurant for another great dinner before heading back to the bus station to grab my stuff and catch the bus.

Travel in Brazil has been long and expensive, in fact, it is more expensive here than anywhere else that I have been. A 2 to 3 hour bus trip cost around $20US,  5 to 7 hour bus ride costs around $40 US and a 12 to 14 hour overnight bus costs about $60US. With the size of Brazil, there is a lot of long bus rides coming up. After Uruguay, I'm travelling to Iguazu Falls and then the Pantanal area in the southwest part of Brazil. Then I want to head to Salvador on the coast north of Rio and it is over 48 hours by bus from the Pantanal. So, I think I may try to fly and it will probably be no more expensive than the bus.

I wake up on the bus around 7AM somewhere in Uruguay. They didn't even wake me up when we crossed the boarder which is surprising. The bus driver's assistant had everyone's passport so I guess he got the required exit stamp in Brazil and the Uruguay entry stamp. The bus arrives in Montevideo around 10AM and I go in search for a place to stay. The first couple of places I go to are expensive, around $50US. Then I stumble across a hostel 1 block from the main plaza in the old part of town and I get a private room for only $25US per night.

I need Uruguay pesos so I go in search of a bank. I walk down the main business street in the downtown core and there are very few banks and if they have an ATM, there is only one with a large lineup. There is only 2 types of banks that I can find with ATMs and my bank card and credit cards do not work in either of them. I'm just about to give up and go call my bank when I finally get my bank card to work. When I first put it in the ATM, I have to select "Foreign Mastercard;" not really very intuitive. I notice there is an option to take out US currency, I'll have to take advantage of that later because I will be back in Argentina when I go to Iguazu so I need more US dollars to take advantage of the grey market exchange. I also need to start stockpiling some US money for when I go to Venezuela. Venezuela has a grey market exchange similar to Argentina, but instead of getting 50% more when you exchange US dollars instead of using an ATM, you get 400% more. I'm going to want to have around $2000US in cash when I go to Venezuela.

It is nice to be back in a Spanish speaking country again. In Brazil, I really struggled communicating because Portuguese is so different from Spanish. Even the small amount of Spanish that I have learned makes a huge difference. It also makes me feel much more comfortable doing all the day to day stuff like ordering a meal in a restaurant or buying a bus ticket. But within 10 days or so, I will be back in Brazil and I expect even less people to speak English in the Pantanal compared to the Brazilian coast.

By the time I find an ATM that works, it is almost 4PM. I grab some lunch and decide to find out if there are any futbol games being played in town this weekend, it is Thursday tonight. There are 2 big teams in Montevideo, the first is Nacional and the second is Atlectico Penarol. When I ask about futbol games in the hostel, they tell me that both teams are playing at home this weekend, Atlectico Penarol is playing Saturday evening and Nacional is playing Sunday evening. So I decide to go to the Saturday night game and I'm told that good tickets are $10 to $15US.

The old historic part of Montevideo is on a small peninsula at the southeast tip of the city. And the next morning I decide to go for a walk along the peninsula's waterfront. Just before I get to the tip of the peninsula, I come across a large market called El Mercado del Puerto, it is a market that is full of Parrilla type restaurants and is supposed to be where the best grilled beef is served in all of Uruguay. There are dozens of Parrillas to choose from within the market. It's 12:30PM and I did not have breakfast, so I decide to pick a Parrilla for lunch. In every Parrilla, there is a huge grill prominently setup and there are steaks, chicken, sausages and seafood grilling everywhere I look. I finally choose a place and order a rib eye steak and I get a huge, thick 500 gram steak and it is awesome. It is as good as any of the steaks I had in Argentina and it costs less than $20US.

After lunch I continue on my walk around the peninsula and then I walk along a large beach until a get to another point a couple kilometers away. Then I decide to take a road that cuts through what looks to be a park on my map and this road will take me back to the main square near my hostel. This park ends up being a golf course called the Club de Golf del Uruguay. I stop at the clubhouse on my way bye and I ask how much it is to play. I'm told that weekends is members only but on Monday it is free for anyone. I can't believe there is free golf on a private course 1 block off the ocean with nice views of the ocean. I confirm that they have clubs to rent and they have top of the line Ping irons and woods for $40US. So, I guess I am going to stay through Monday and play golf.

On my way back to the hostel, I withdraw $300 in US currency which is the maximum the ATM allows and I will do the same tomorrow. It is almost 5PM when I do get back to the hostel. I spend the next couple of hours reading and working on a new blog post. The next morning I sleep in a bit and then work for a while on my blog but all I can think of is El Mercado del Puerto and a nice steak. So, at noon I walk to the mercado and have a incredible, huge sirlon steak at a different Parrilla than yesterday. I think I'm getting addicted to the beef here. I then spend a couple of hours looking for a pair of cheap runners or canvas shoes with decent treads for use during a trek in a flooded jungle or marsh area of the Pantanal. I've been warned that a couple days trekking in shallow water will make most shoes a throw away when you finish so I don't want to use my good hiking boots when I get to the Pantanal and/or the Amazon. But, I am not able to find anything suitable in a size 12 that is cheap.

The next day I once again have lunch at El Mercado del Puerto. I have a New York steak at another Parrilla and it is delicious. I then spend a couple hours walking throughout a market area of town before heading back to the hostel. At 5PM, I walk to the Centenario Stadium in the Parque Batlle which can seat over 75,000 people. I buy a ticket to the game for $15US and sit centre of the stadium about 10 rows up from the field. The stadium seating areas are designed so that you cannot go from 1 part of the stadium to another. This way, they can seat fans in sections according to which team they support and then these fans are separated from each other by the stadium design to help avoid possible violence between rival fans. There is even a moat around the playing field to keep spectators of the field and the players get to the pitch via a stairwell under the field along one sideline.

The stadium is about half full tonight but one end zone area is just packed with supporters of the Penarol team. Everyone in this section is wearing the home team's yellow jersey and they have drums playing non-stop like Brazilian fans do. They also sing non stop and most of the fans throughout the stadium join them for many of these songs. I never did figure out the name of the team that Penarol played but the visitor's were never really in the game and Penarol won 2 - 0 but the game was never in doubt but I really enjoyed it, especially all the singing and the drums

The next morning I get up late and read for a while before once again going to El Mercado del Puerto for some grilled steak. It's a good thing I'm leaving tomorrow after golf because I could eat here every day. After lunch I walk just over an hour to the bus terminal and buy a ticket for the 3:30PM bus to Punta del Este. I figure this should allow me lots of time to play golf in the morning before catching the bus. The est of the day I spend relaxing in the hostel reading and watching some video on my tablet.

The next morning I'm up early and catch a taxi to the bus terminal around 8AM. I then check my large backpack in at the luggage storage place in the terminal and then walk 40 minutes to the golf course. I get the rental clubs and some balls then head to the practise green to work on some putting and within about 20 minutes, I tee off with an American Marine who works at the US Embassy. The course is  over 50 years old and is a private club but the do most of their major maintenance on Monday's so that is why it is free. The only impact the maintenance made to my round was that a couple of tee boxes were closed for repairs. Otherwise, the course was a really nice tree lined layout with lots of bunkers that I seemed to be in all day long. I was hitting the ball great off the tee but my long irons, fairway woods and chipping were terrible and I end up shooting a 98.

There was almost no one on the course so we finish the round in just over 3 hours and I walk back to the bus station arriving at around 1PM and I'm able to change my ticket to an earlier bus that leaves at 2PM. The weather has been mostly sunny the whole time I've been in Montevideo but it is clouding up a lot this afternoon so I hope that does not mean that I'm in for some bad weather. Punta del Este is a beach resort town about 100kms east of Montevideo and I really want a couple nice days on the beach before heading inland to Iguazu and the Pantanal.

I was looking at my travel map on my blog the other day and I'm starting to fill up all of my destinations. I only have more of Brazil and Venezuela to go so I'm starting to think of when I will come home. I think I will likely fly home at the end of May from Trinidad and Tobago. It is less than half the price to fly from there than it is from anywhere in Venezuela. So, I will be seeing everyone from home in a couple of months and I must say that I'm starting to think a lot about home.

Adios for now amigos.

CABO FRIO, BUZIOS, ANGRA DOS REIS & ILHA GRANDE, BRAZIL - FEBRUARY 16 - 27

Praia do Forte

I'm up early the morning of Saturday the 16th to go to Cabo Frio. I don't have a bus ticket but I think there are hourly buses so I leave the hostel around 9AM and catch a cab to the Rodoviaria Nova Rio which is the main bus terminal just north of Centro. I buy a ticket for a 10:30AM bus and then grab some breakfast in the terminal. Cabo Frio is a beach side town about 150 kms north east of Rio. It has a population of a little over 140,000 people and is supposed to have some beautiful beaches that aren't quite as crowded as the Rio beaches. My bus leaves right on time but it takes longer than I expected to get there as we have 4 or 5 stops along the way.

The bus arrives around 1:30PM and I find a room in the Pousada Velas ao Vento for $35US per night. I really want to go to the beach and have a swim because I have not swam in the Atlantic Ocean on this trip yet. So, I quickly get settled into my room and put on swim shorts and head to the nearby beach. It's a 4 or 5 block walk to the beach and the beach is a white sand crescent beach that stretches for about 7 or 8 kms. The east side of the beach near town is called Praia do Forte because of the ruins of an old Fort on the nearby point and the western part of the beach is called the Praia das

Dundas. The Praia do Forte is packed full of people and it is the most protected from the wind and the waves. The Praia das Dundas is far less crowded but more exposed to wind and waves and has quite a few surfers and kite surfers enjoying themselves. I find a nice section of the beach a little west of town, it's not too crowded and not to rough for swimming. The water is nice and warm, I would guess around 26 or 27C and the weather is hot and sunny; I spend a couple hours just relaxing on the beach and spending time in the water. I then walk along the beach to Forte Soa Matheus on the eastern point of the bay.

By the time I get there it is almost 5PM so I decide to walk back to the pousada. I guess I was not paying that much attention to exactly where the pousada was and the map that the tourist office gave me is the worst map I've seen on this whole trip. It only shows the main roads in the downtown core and the way it is drawn does not reflect the shape of the town centre. It shows the town as being in a standard grid but the town is not; many of the streets are curved or at funny angles and I seem to be going around in circles. It does not take me long to get within 3 blocks of the pousada but it then take me almost an hour to find it. Complicating matters is the fact I can't remember the name of the pousada so it's hard to ask for directions but I finally find it.

I'm surprised that the pousada does not have Wi-Fi. This is the first time in months that I have not had Wi-Fi and I'm surprised that a place in the modern part of Brazil doesn't have it. In fact, I've only stayed in places without Wi-Fi 5 or 6 times this whole trip. I'm supposed to be getting a message from Hannah from England confirming her travel plans on a trip to Brazil as we had discussed meeting up in a few days to go to Ilah Grande; I travelled with Hannah months ago to the Corn Islands in Nicaragua so it will be nice to meet up again. I've also finished my most recent book on my Kindle App so I would like to

download a new book. Hopefully I can find a restaurant or a cafe with free Wi-Fi. With that in mind, I go to 5 or 6 restaurants but none of them have Wi-Fi and I finally give up and have dinner at a pizza place. On my way back to the pousada, I see a McDonald's restaurant, they always have free Wi-Fi so I'll stop by there sometime tomorrow.

I sleep in a bit and spend a couple of hours writing my next blog post. By the time I'm ready to head out, it is almost noon. I haven't had breakfast and I'm starving so I decide to go to the McDonald's for

a burger and fries and the free Wi-Fi. There's a message from Hannah and she is going to be a couple days later leaving Rio than I expected but we agree to meet up on Ilha Grande on the 24th. I then find a new book to download to my tablet. I also can't figure out why my tablet is showing the time as 11AM and not noon. I finally do some searching on the internet and find that daylight savings ended last night at 2AM, who knew.

I walk back to my pousada and drop off my tablet and then walk down to the beach. I go back to the same not so crowded spot on the beach and spend a couple hours there. Then I decide to walk to the far west end of the beach. It's farther than I think and after almost 2 hours of walking and at least another kilometre to go, I turn back. But I do get to watch some great kite surfing and some of the kite surfers get unbelievable air jumping the waves.

It's almost 6PM when I get back to the pousada, it's a little too early for dinner so I spend a couple hours reading. I then go to a riverfront section of town that has lots of nice restaurants and bars hoping to have a nice dinner. I order some fish that the waiter recommended but it is badly overcooked and not very good. It's disappointing because it was an expensive dinner.

The next morning I check out of the pousada by 8:30AM and walk down to the bus station to buy a bus ticket to Buzios. Buzios used to be a small fishing village about 190kms from Rio that nobody knew about. Then in the 1950s, stories and pictures about Bridgette Bardot vacationing on the Buzios beaches started circulating around the world and almost overnight the Brazilian jetset turned the small town into a fashionable resort. Buzios is located on a small spider shaped peninsula and there are 25 beautiful beaches within a couple kilometres of town. Unfortunately, no buses from the terminal go to Buzios, I need to take a city bus that I can catch across the street. I hate taking city buses with my big backpack. Although these buses are cheap, they are crowded and there is usually nowhere to put my backpack. When the bus pulls up, it is standing room only but luckily there was a little space to put my backpack in front of the first row of seats.

Ilha de Cabocla

It takes almost an hour to get to Buzios and the bus drops me off at the edge of the main down centre. There is a tourist office right where I get off the bus and I grab a map there. I girl who speaks English at the office says she can help find a hotel or hostel. Everything she tells me about in town is way over my price point but then she says that I can get a private room with bathroom for $40US at the Pousada Vila Satiliana less than 10 minutes out of town. My guide booked warned that Buzios is very expensive for accommodations so $40US doesn't seem to bad. This girl offers to walk there with me so I can see it and it's nice. Then when she tells the pousada owner the price she quoted me and there has been a mistake; the rooms is supposed to be $80US per night but the owner agrees to honour the price I was given.

After checking in and getting settled in the room, I head for Praia Azeda for an afternoon at the beach. I grab a couple of empenadas for lunch as a pass through town and it's a beautiful town. Most of the roads are closed to cars and there are restaurants, cafes and bars everywhere. There are also lots of nightclubs, stores for shopping and small art galleries. It's very touristic but despite that, has a nice look and feel. The town follows the contour of Praia Canto and is only about 3 blocks deep. The is a scenic island called Ilha de Cabocla a few hundred metres offshore with a large cruise ship sitting just

off the island. Apparently this time of year there is a cruise ship here almost every day. I walk along the seawall for more than a kilometre and then cut through a residential area before cutting down to Praia Azeda. It's a small beautiful beach that is tucked into a small bay near the very tip of the peninsula. There is no houses or anything around so it has a nice remote feel. There is only a few small structures built to service patrons on the beach with food and drinks. The beach is very crowded and it's very hot so I pay $7US to rent a beach chair and a sun umbrella for the afternoon.

Praia Azeda

With all the little bays and beaches around Buzios, there is always a few that are protected from the wind and waves no matter what direction the wind is going. And today, Praia Azeda is one of these beaches that is protected so there is no surf what so ever. Again the water is very warm, somewhere in the high twenties so it a nice day at the beach. I just have to remember to put screen on after every dip in the water and not drink too many beers. Around 4:30PM, I walk back to the pousada passing through town along the way, it's about an 50 minute walk. I relax in the pousada for a couple hours before walking back to town for dinner at a small outdoor cafe. I like this place.

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The next day I work for an hour or so on my blog and read for an hour before heading for the beach. Today I'm going to a couple of beaches right at the end of the peninsula called Praia Joao Fernandes and Joao Fernandinho; they are side by side with a small rock outcropping between them. It's almost the same walk to these beaches as yesterday only a little farther. Once again I grab lunch as I cross through town and there is another cruise ship in the bay. Again there are no houses overlooking these beaches and they are quite a bit bigger than the small beach from yesterday. The water is nice and calm again today and this time I don't bother with renting a chair and umbrella.

Praia Joao Fenandes

I stay at the beach until about 5:30PM before finally walking back to town. I'm hungry so I decide and stop at a Subway shop and just grab a sandwich before heading back to my pousada. I was planning on heading to town for a drink that evening but I get wrapped up writing my blog and then reading my book so I don't go anywhere.

I've got 1 more full day in Buzios and I want to explore a few more beaches. So that morning I head to a nearby beach that is closer to the start of the peninsula called Praia Tataruga. It's a nice beach facing north up the coast but it is a little

more exposed and there is a small surf coming in. I stay for about an hour and go for a swim but it's not as nice as other beaches I went to so I decide to try another beach. I cross the peninsula which is about 1.5 kilometres wide and go to Praia Ferradura located at the end of a long inlet. The inlet faces south down the coast and the beach is a large 1km or more crescent shaped beach. Most of the beach is fairly exposed to the wind and some fairly big surf but the east side of the beach is protected and I hang out there for about and hour. This beach is right in the middle of a residential neighbourhood so it does not have the same vibe as the other beaches I've been to so I decide to end my day back at Praia Azeda which is my favourite of all the beaches.

Praia Ferradura

Later as I'm walking back to the pousada, I stop at the bus station and buy a ticket to Rio for the morning. Once there, I will buy another ticket to Angra dos Reis which is about 150kms south of Rio. I spend another quiet evening at the pousada watching a couple of videos that I had downloaded onto my tablet.

The next morning I leave the hostel at 8:45 to catch a 9:30AM bus to Rio. It arrives at about 12:30PM but it takes me a while to figure out which bus company sells tickets to Angra dos Reis. I finally find the right company's ticket office but there is a lineup of about 20 people and only one ticket window is open. I'm hoping to get through this lineup in time to catch the 2PM bus but the line is no moving very fast. At 1:55PM, I finally get through the lineup and I'm able to buy the last ticket on the bus. The moment I have the ticket in hand, I literally run to the platform where the bus is leaving from and within 2 minutes of getting on the bus, it's on its way.

The 150km drive from Rio along the Costa Verde highway is amazing. The coast has all kinds of small towns and beautiful beaches tucked into small bays all the way there. Angra dos Reis is a town right on the coast with a population of over 120,000 people. Its main industries are ship building and fishing. It is also the main port where ferries come and go to the nearby Ilha Grande. It's too late to catch a ferry as it is almost 5PM when I arrive so I need to stay the night but I decide to stay for 2 nights because I'm not meeting Hannah for a couple of days. I walk from the bus terminal to the main part of the city and find a decent room in a nearby hotel for $30US per night. The only downside is that there is no Wi-Fi.

Angra dos Reis

By the time I'm in the room and settled it is almost 7PM and I'm hungry because I did not have time for lunch. So, I go in search of a restaurant and I can't find anything other than a hamburger/sandwich cafe which I reluctantly settle for. The next morning a decide to go for a walk around the downtown core looking for a better restaurant for dinner tonight. I find some nice restaurants tucked along one block of the waterfront so at least I know where I'm eating tonight. I then grab some empanadas and drinks to go and walk along the ocean road that winds it way south out of town in search of a beach. I

walk for a couple hours and find a spot where locals are swimming but there is no beach as the tide is up high right to the seawall and I finally give up. On my way back, I look down into the water which is tight up to the seawall I'm walking on and I notice a sea turtle and over the next 20 minutes I see a dozen more. That's a good sign as we are very close to Ilha Grande and I'm hoping to do some snorkelling there.

I'm about half way back to town and the bright blue skies have suddenly gotten very dark and ominous, I can tell it's going to rain soon so I pick up my pace.

Just as I get with 2 blocks of the hotel it starts to rain lightly and within seconds of getting to the hotel the floodgates open and it is pouring. This is not like heavy rain in Vancouver, it is more like 10 thousands buckets being dumped down at the same time. Within minutes, the streets are under a few centimetres of water. The storm last several hours with lots of thunder and lightning, hopefully the humidity drops a bit after this as it was extremely wet out this morning.

Finally at around 8PM, the rain almost stops so I

take advantage of the lull to head to one of the restaurants I saw this morning where I have Frango Cubana (frango means chicken in Portuguese). I'm not sure exactly how it is cooked so I guess it will be a surprise. When it come, it's in a cheese sauce which looks good but it is so thick and totally tasteless and just dripping in grease; I can barely eat it. So far, I'm missing the good food I was eating in Argentina and Chile, especially the beef. I was eating fantastic Argentina steaks for less than what I paid for this lousy chicken and I had some bad meals in Rio and Cabo Frio as well.

Wharf at Vila do Abraao

I'm up at a decent time to get all my stuff packed and ready to go. Then I walk down to where the ferry docks and buy a ticket for the 11AM sailing for $12US. I then go back to the hotel and an hour later grab my stuff and head for the ferry. The ferry is a catamaran passenger ferry that holds about 80 people. It makes an hour long crossing to Ilha Grande 3 times a day. The weather is beautiful as we cross to the island and the storm last night definitely knocked some humidity out of the air. The ferry is taking us to the largest settlement called Vila do Abraao on the northern end of the island and there is a Cruise ship moored in the bay as we come in.

It is Saturday and not the best day to get a room here as weekends are always the busiest time. I meet a young Brazilian women who offers to take me to some hostels and pousadas. She gets a small commission from the hostel but I don't mind because my guide book has no accommodations for here listed so I'm flying blind. We go to at least 10 different places, everything is either completely booked or very expensive ($75US or more). By now the heat is really getting to me as I walk around with my big pack on, so I finally agree on a small suite with a 2nd double bed in a loft and it has a

Praia Lopes Mendes

small kitchen as well for $60US but I only take it for 1 night. Maybe Hannah needs a room and we can split the cost? If she already has booked something, I will check out room options in the morning as about half of the people here will be leaving tomorrow.

The place I'm staying has WiFi but there is barely enough bandwidth to open Gmail but I'm able to get an email out to Hannah about the room. She sends me a message back a short time later to say that she had already booked a room; she is in 3 week vacation mode and not long term traveller mode meaning everything is pre-planned and pre-booked. No problem, one place that I saw that was cheap said they had rooms available tomorrow.

I decide to explore the town and it is small, probably only 2500 to 3000 people and it is only 7 or 8 square blocks in size. There is quite a large bay on one side of town but not any real nice beaches. Ilha Grande is very mountainous and there are steep hills surrounding the backside of the town. Ilha Grande used to house a large prison but it was closed in the 1960s. Because of the reputation of the island as a prison, it sat pretty much untouched for about 30 years other than a few very small fishing villages along the inside shore facing the mainland. Finally, someone noticed some of the fantastic beaches on the east side of the island, the most well known being Praia Lopes Mendes which Footprint ranks as one of the top 10 beaches in the world. With the islands close proximity to Rio and Sao Paulo, it has quickly become a major destination for foreign and domestic tourists. But so far, the government has not allowed any major resorts on the island so it still has a deserted island charm even though it has become a frequent stop by the many cruise ships that cruise these waters December through March.

Tomorrow I want to go to Praia Lopes Mendes and there are 2 ways to get there; for $12US I can catch a boat there and back or I can hike along a seaside trail about 2 hours. I was originally thinking of the hike but after walking around for more than an hour looking for a room in 90% plus humidity and mid thirties temperature, I decide I will take the boat. So, I'm up early and walk to the Pousada Ilha Grande and get a room for $35US and they promise it will be ready to check-in by 10:30AM. I go back and pack my stuff and check out but when I get to the pousada, my rooms not ready. Finally around 11AM my room is ready, I quickly get changed into beach wear and grab my snorkelling gear, sun screen and day pack and head to town to buy tickets for the boat. The last boat leaves at 11:30AM and I just have time to get my ticket, buy some water and snacks and then jump on the boat just before it leaves.

It takes the boat an hour to get to a bay called Saco das Palmas where we are dropped off. It is then a 15 minute walk over the isthmus of a peninsula to get to Praia Lopes Mendes, this saves over an hour in the boat with an exposed ocean and rough seas. Just this short walk has me drenched in sweat as there is a decent hill to go over and I'm so glad I did not choose the 2 hour hike. The beach is beautiful, the trail comes out on the west end of the beach and then the beach does a slow curl for about 2 or 3 kms to the east and the sand is powder white that gently slopes into the water.

Almost everyone at the beach is at this west end near the trail but I don't know why they don't walk to the other end because this end is not protected at all and big waves are crashing in on the beach. There is a point on the other end that sticks out a good kilometre and protects the last few hundred metres of beach. So, I stop for a quick swim to cool off then walk for about 40 minutes to the far east end of the beach. The water here is nice and calm and there is almost no one here, it's perfect. I just lie and relax for the first hour and a half or so with quick dips every half hour. There is even some trees at the top edge of the beach that offer some welcome shade. I then grab my snorkel gear and head to the shallows near the point, I have been carrying this gear without using it since the Galapagos Islands so it is nice to finally do some snorkelling. There are huge boulders scattered all along the shallows beside the rocky headland, there is not much coral but there are lots of fish. I snorkel for about 45 minutes and the highlight is 4 or 5 large sea turtles and a group of 5 squid.

By the time I finish snorkelling it is time to grab the rest of my stuff and start back to where the boat dropped me off. It takes almost an hour to get there and I have just enough time for another quick swim to cool off before the boat leaves at 4:30PM. By the time the boat gets back to Vila do Abraao and I get back to the pousada and have a shower, it is almost 6PM. Once again my pousada does not have internet and the internet was not working at the other place this morning. I know Hannah was due to arrive around 5PM and I know the name of her hostel. I head to an internet cafe in town to see if she sent me an email but the bandwidth of their internet is so low I cannot open Gmail. I decide to walk over to Hannah's hostel and she is right there in the courtyard when I get there. She's just arrived so we decide to meet in town at 7PM so she has a chance to get settled.

We meet in town at 7PM and find a nice looking restaurant with a patio. It's great catching up with her as it has been a long time since I saw her on Little Corn Island and we have a nice dinner. We are both a little hungry still and decide to go to a desert bar for some cake; we both order chocolate cake and we get the 2 biggest pieces of cake that I have ever seen. We should have ordered 1 and split it because we both don't even eat half of our pieces. Tomorrow, Hannah wants to go to Lopes Mendes and I want to do a snorkel tour. So we agree to meet up tomorrow evening, Hannah will send me an email about where to meet and I will check emails at a internet cafe after my tour. There are 4 internet cafes in town so surely one of them will have decent internet connection.

The next morning I'm in down at the waterfront by 9:30AM checking out tour options. Every tour company offers the same snorkelling tour for the same price of $75US and no one will discount. It's a bit expensive for snorkelling as I have done 2 tank scuba diving trips for less but I'm here and I want to go snorkelling so I book a tour. The tour leaves at 10:30AM in a speed boat with 8 of us plus our guide/captain. Everyone on the boat is Brazilian except me but one couple and their 30 year old daughter speak English. We cover a lot of the island along the inside coast and stop at 5 or 6 places for 45 minutes each. There more reef here than I saw at Lopes Mendes but it still not near as good as the Caribbean or the Galapagos. There's a fair number of fish with the highlight being a sea turtle, a couple of squid and some really interesting bottom fish with long pectoral fins that looked like wings.

We are back from the tour by 5:30PM and I decide to check for messages before going to my pousada. I end up at all 4 internet cafes and I could only get one place's computer to load Gmail and I could see a message from Hannah but it crashed before I could open the message and then I couldn't get it to open Gmail again. I don't see how these places survive with this kind of internet as every place I was at was dealing with 2 or 3 people having the same problem as me. Even small island in the Caribbean like Little Corn had better internet than here. So I head to by room and have a shower and get changed and then go over to Hannah's hostel. She's not there but I write her a message to meet me at 7:30PM along the waterfront. I wait there until 7:50PM but no Hannah. I'm guessing she didn't get my message. I have dinner at a nice pizza place on the main walk of the waterfront and I'm hoping to spot her but no luck.

The next morning I decide to head back to Lopes Mendes. I head to the waterfront area a  bit early hoping to check my email but once again all the internet places are useless so I catch a 10:30AM boat to Saco das Palmas. When I get to the beach, I go back to the far east side of the beach like last time. I'm about half way along the beach when I see a lone penguin on the beach ahead of me. I walk right up to it and take a couple pictures. I know penguins on the Pacific side go as far north as the Galapagos which are right on the equator but I can't help but think this guy is lost this far north on the Atlantic. I'm sure he doesn't like the high twenties water temperature either.

I try and stay out of the sun as much as I can today because I burnt my back yesterday. I thought I put screen on every time before snorkelling but I guess it washed off quite quickly and my back is pretty red. This is the first time I really got a sunburned this whole trip. By 1PM the beautiful sunny day has turned into a cloudy day with a threat of rain. I decide some more snorkelling would be in order since I saw more in 45 minutes here than I saw all day yesterday. I end up snorkelling along the rocky headland all the way to the end of the point almost a kilometre away and it takes close to 2 hours to get there and back. It was fantastic, I saw around 15 sea turtles, tons of fish including some big ones, a bunch of puffer fish and 3 small schools of squid. The largest school had 19 squid of various sizes, they let me swim right up to less than a metre and we just stayed there staring at each other for a few minutes. When I first saw them they were gold in colour and looked like they had diamonds on top of them, at one point they turned vibrant purple and then they turned pink and seemed to have a yellow light inside them. They were always lined up in a perfect line always facing the same direction and they seemed to change colour in unison. The largest one was about 25 cm long and it seemed to be checking me out as much as I was checking it out. I so wish I had an underwater camera because they looked amazing.

By the time I'm back from snorkelling it is time to get back to catch the 4:30PM boat. Once back in town, I try and check emails but 2 of the internet places are closed and the other 2 tell me the internet is not working the second I walk in the door. I once again leave a written message for Hannah at her hostel to meet me in town without any luck. It's too bad, she's come all this way and we only see each other the one evening. She is heading back to Rio to meet her sister who is flying in and they're going to spend a week or so in Rio with her dad who is in Brazil on business and I'm heading to Paraty which is another 100kms south down the coast.

The next morning I'm down at the dock at 9:30AM and I buy a ticket on the 10AM ferry back to Angra dos Reis. This ferry is a large old one that seats a couple hundred passengers. It takes more than an hour and a half to get to Angra but only cost $2.50US. Once in town, I walk 20 minutes in the rain to the bus station. Luckily it is only raining lightly so I hardly get wet. I then buy a bus ticket for the 1PM bus to Paraty and within minutes it is pouring rain.

More on Paraty and my way south to Uruguay next time.

RIO DE JANIERO, BRAZIL - FEBRUARY 6 - 16

My Emirates flight left Buenos Aires right on time at 9:30PM for Rio. I noticed as we were boarding that some of the flight crew were inside the terminal near the gate entrance and were greeting many of the 1st class passengers that they seemed to know which I've never seen before. The plane was one of the new large Boeing 787 with 11 seats to an aisle. The first thing I noticed was the number of staff working, there must have been at least 6 attendants working the aft section of the plane where I was seated and probably at least 20 attendants throughout the plane. They also read out a list of more than 20 languages

Pao de Acuca, Botafogo & Copacabana

the flight crew spoke in case any passengers required assistance. Each seat had a private video screen with movies and TV shows on demand, I ended up watching the most recent Bourne movie on my screen. The dinner they served was amazing and everything other than Champagne was included with the flight. There were 2 camera feeds available on our TV screens, one was the view in front of the plane and another was a view directly below us, too bad it was dark because I couldn't see much but it was interesting to watch us land via these cameras. We landed a few minutes ahead of schedule and were clearing

Praia Flamengo

immigration by 1:30AM. The airport wasn't very busy and I got some Brazilian money (Reais) out of an ATM and then hopped into the cab for a 25 minute drive to the Rio Nature Comfort Hostel in the Corcovado area of Rio. I booked the airfare a couple months after making my hostel reservations and then I could not get a flight the day a wanted so I am in Rio 1 day before my hostel reservation. I was not able to book the same hostel for this extra night but this hostel is in the same neighborhood. I had sent a couple emails to the hostel about my late arrival when I booked this extra night but I did not hear back from them so

Guanbabara Bay & Praia de Botafogo

I'm a little concerned. When I get to the hostel, it takes a few minutes before anyone answers the door and it is just a guest, all the staff are either at home or asleep. The guy that lets me in suggests that I sleep in his dorm where there are a couple of spare beds because my room is locked and we have no access to the key. This is fine with me because I'm tired and I want to get some sleep before I have to check out tomorrow morning.

The next morning I am up at 9AM and I speak with the person at the front desk. It turns out that the email listed on the Hostel World website is an

Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado 

old email address so no one received my message. She is very apologetic for the mix up but at least I save about $60US because I just pay the dorm room rate instead of the private room rate. My new accommodations is called the Rio Corcovado Hostel and is not far but they had sent me a couple of emails stating that check-in is not until 2PM and for me to please not arrive early. I find this annoying considering I'm paying about $150US per night for 10 nights for a private room; this room costs about a quarter of that when Carnival is not on. So, I have some breakfast and spend a couple hours and get a blog posted because I know I will be a bit distracted from working on my blog for a while.

Finally just before 1PM, I grab a cab and head to the hostel. It is located about 2 blocks from the Corcovado Train Station that takes people up to see Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain. I'm happy to see my room is ready when I arrive and it is a private suite in a separate building with a small kitchen and a private deck. I wasn't expecting this and I can't remember all the details when I

Praia Copacabana

booked 3 months ago, I guess maybe this is why it is so expensive. Since I'm going to be here for a while, I unpack all my clothes and put them in a nice built-in closet. I would describe the hostel as more like a bed and breakfast in a beautiful house with fantastic gardens and decks and several outbuildings with a young couple that own it and live there. Just as I finish unpacking, the owner Myle returns home and comes to greet me. She says I'm probably wondering why I'm in such a nice suite when I only booked a single room with a shared bath. Well, the way the reservations worked out, no one booked the suite for 3 nights

but she had another party who wanted a basic room this time period so I got upgraded for 3 nights at no extra charge. It works out great for me because the room is very nice, probably the best room I've stayed in for the entire trip.

The hostel in Corcovado is up out of the main part of the city. It's about a 10 minute walk to the nearest store and about 25 minutes to the nearest place to eat. There is good bus service to the Corcovado Station, so after conferring with Myle about buses, I catch a bus to Copacabana Beach. It takes about

45 minutes to get there and  I get there a little after 3PM. The day is hot and humid with a mixture of sun and cloud, ovrall a pretty good day to be at the beach. Copacabana is a beautiful white sand crescent beach that stretches for about 3 kilometres. It is the first of the beaches located on the outer coast and not on the inner bay of Rio. It used to be a small village until the mid fifties until a tunnel was constructed through one of the coastal mountains that separates Copacabana from the rest of Rio. The residential neighborhood of Copacabana is only about 4 blocks deep but it stretches the full length of the beach. It is the most densely populated part of the city and one of the most densely populated areas in all of South America.

I can't believe that I'm actually here on Copacabana days before the start of Carnival. I have been dreaming of this moment for several years ever since I first started thinking about the possibility of this trip. I just stand there a minute taking in the view and enjoying the moment. I'm on the north end of the beach nearest the main part of the city and the beach curves away to the south. The 50 metre strip of beach closest to the ocean is packed with people and sun umbrellas, I can hardly even see the white sand. I did not bring my bathing suit since it was so late in the afternoon, so I take off my sandals and

walk along the seashore to the far south end of the beach. I've never seen this many people on a beach in my life, there has got to be tens of thousands of people just on this one beach. Everything you hear about the women wearing g-string style bikinis is true and there are many beautiful young Brazilian women everywhere on the beach. However, most of the older women and women who no longer have fit beach bodies also wear these same g-string bikinis which make me I think that I actually prefer the beach attire of the women back home.

Praia Flamengo

It is past 5PM when I get to the south end of the beach so I decide to catch a bus back to the hostel. I'm hungry as I skipped lunch and I go in search of a restaurant but there is almost nothing near the hostel so I finally settle on a sandwich at a Subway. It's about the only thing I could find within 25 minutes of the hostel. I grab some beer and head back to the hostel as Myle and her husband Walter are having a pre-Carnival party at the hostel. There's about a dozen other guests and a few friends but it is nice to get to know everyone. Most of the people staying in the hostel are actually leaving tomorrow when the hostel rate

more than doubles but I meet a nice couple from the Netherlands and an interesting guy from England who will be staying here throughout Carnival. It is Wednesday night and Carnival officially starts on Friday and runs through the weekend culminating on Phat Tuesday. The party is kind of like the city, everyone seems to be saving their energy for Carnival. It feels like the whole city is kind of holding its breath.
On Thursday morning, I was planning on going up Corcovado Mountain but I wake up to overcast skies and I can't see the top of the mountain which

Guanbabara Bay & Pao de Acucar

means the view of the city will be obscured by the clouds. It's still hot and humid and it feels like it will reach the high thirties again today. I decide to go for a walk. Corcovado is actually located in an area known as Cosme Velho and from there I walk east to Laranjeiras all the way to Praia de Flamengo. Praia means beach in Portuguese and is one of many new words that I'm trying to learn. I had been frustrated with my lack of Spanish skills but having no Portuguese at all is very difficult as very few of the Rio inhabitants speak English. I was thinking that Portuguese was very similar to Spanish and it is in many ways but it is different enough to ensure that I cannot understand almost everything.

Praia Botafogo

It takes an hour to get to Flamengo which is a beautiful beach located along the inner harbour. The beach is practically deserted with only a few people enjoying the sand because the water is polluted and it is not suitable for swimming. I walk south along the beach and I have a nice view of Pao de Acucar (Sugar Loaf Mountain). There is a large bay called Guanbabara full of hundreds of moored boats between me and Pao de Acucar,  it's a beautiful view. I round a point and then have a view of Praia de Botafogo and the part of the city of the same name. This beach is also located at the end of Guanbabara Bay and is completely

deserted. The mountain that separates Cocacabana from Botafogo is a beautiful back drop. By the time I get to this beach, I've been walking for almost 3 hours. I stop and grab some lunch at a small cafe and then walk back to the hostel which takes about another hour and a half. I load up on some water and other drinks because I have a fridge and with it being so hot, it is nice to have something cold to drink at the hostel.

That night I decide to take it easy and have a good night sleep before Carnival. I'm up early and head to the Centro district for my first neighbourhood party

and the start of Carnival. I get downtown at around 8:30AM and the streets are packed with people. Most people seem to be in their early twenties and about half of them are dressed in costumes. The main streets has some grand stands setup as there is going to be a parade. Already I can hear Samba drums beating out a familiar rhythm and vendors are setup everywhere selling cold beer. The overcast from the last couple of days is gone and it's going to be a nice day. I'm guessing it is already past 30C and will likely get to the high thirties. The official start of this street party is 9AM and there are tens of thousands of people waiting expectantly. I can see

the parade participants lining up and getting ready and soon the parade begins. The parade takes about 25 minutes to pass me and is dominated by Samba bands and brightly dressed dancers but there are also a few floats. A large crowd of dancing people follows the parade which winds it way through the streets of Centro. Only a few of the street parties even have parades with floats now that there is a Sambodromo where people pay big bucks to watch 10 hours of parades with huge floats, dozens of bands and thousands of dancers every night during Carnival. This is where all the serious Samba performers go and it is too bad because these performers used to be part of the street parties that occur throughout the city. I'm with a Dutch couple from the hostel at this street party and even though it's only a little after 9AM, it's hot, it's Rio and it's Carnival so a few beers are in order.

Santa Teresa

The parade stops after a little more than an hour but the Samba bands play for another and the party is in full swing to about noon before things start winding down. By then, we are hot and hungry so we find a restaurant with a nice patio and have some lunch before catching the Metro to Ipanema where there is another street party at 3PM. This one does not have a parade but there are Samba bands all over and the music doesn't stop for hours. Everyone is dancing to the Samba music and the Brazilian people know many of the songs and sing along with the drums and the brass section. It is so hot and the beers are going down

Carly & Stuart

far too easy, somehow I lose contact with my Dutch friends and I cannot find them. The party continues strong to about 7PM. By then I'm so hot and tired. I catch the Metro back to Laranjeiras and walk about 40 minutes to the hostel where I find the English guy I met having drinks with 3 English women who are also staying at the hostel. I grab some beer out of my fridge and join them for a couple of drinks. We all talk about plans for tonight and the consensus is heading to Copacabana to some bars but drinking most of the day in the sun with temperatures over 38C has me exhausted and everyone is just starting to get

Sambodromo

ready to go out a little after 10PM and I decide I've had enough partying for the day and there will be plenty more parties over the next few days.

The next morning I am heading to the Santa Teresa part of town for an early morning street party with Myle and Walter. Santa Teresa is up in the hills between Cosme Velho and Centro. It is known to be a hip neighborhood with many artists living there and lots of nice bars and restaurants. The party is scheduled to start at 9AM and we get there at about 8AM. The narrow streets of the main part of town are already getting packed with

people and by 9AM there are thousands jamming the main square. There is no parade here but there are Samba bands that play for a couple hours. The crowd yesterday was all ages but the crowd here seems to be mostly mid twenties.

By 11AM the party is winding down and we head to Centro for another party and a parade that starts at 1PM. It is another sunny day and it is around 38C and very humid. I grab some empinadas from a street vendor for lunch. Today's Centro party is kind of a repeat of yesterday's but it seem everyone

getting a little more into the spirit of Carnival. Myle and Walter are always running in to many friends everywhere they go. Carnival is a big deal to them, they first met at Carnival 10 years ago and then they got married during Carnival a few years later. With the heat, the beers are going down very easy and I can't help but wish there was a little shade somewhere.

By 4PM we have moved along to Laranjeiras for another street party. This one is a little smaller and there is a stage setup with non stop bands for the

next 3 hours. The crowd is also mixed ages including many kids. Everyone dances to the beat and sing along to the songs. By 7PM, the party wraps up and I am exhausted. I'm not sure if it is the beer or the heat but probably a combination of both. I head back to the hostel and have a nice cool shower. I then go have a meal at a restaurant 30 minutes walk away. By the time I get back to the hostel, it is about 9:30PM and I just don't have the energy to go out.

The next day is Sunday and I'm meeting up with Stuart and Carly. I first met them on the Santa Cruz

Carly & Lisa

trek in Huaraz Peru and we have stayed in touch via Facebook. They have tickets to the Sambodromo with some girlfriends of Carly and I'm going to join them. So, I decide I'm going to pace myself and only go to 1 street party to save myself for tonight at the Sambodromo. I go to a nearby party in Botafogo at 1PM. There is a small parade of Samba bands and dancers followed by a couple hours of music. I'm just now realizing that there is actually different themes to each of the parties, this one is a fitness theme and many people are wearing colourful workout clothes. It is hard to know the theme by the costumes because most people where the same thing to each party they go to.

I'm back at the hostel by 4PM and relax and cool down as it is once again a very hot and humid day. I'm supposed to meet Stuart and Carly at their hostel in Botafogo around 6:30PM for a few drinks before we head to the Sambodromo. I stop and grab an early dinner before I get to their hostel because I kind of think this might be the last chance for food tonight. When I get there, I find that Carly and her 2 girlfriends are getting ready for the big night so Stuart and I sit down and have some drinks and talk about where we have travelled since I last saw him. At around 7:30PM the girls are finally ready and I meet

Azadeh & Lisa

Lisa and Azadeh who are friends from London who are here on a 3 week holiday.  A little after 8PM and a few drinks, we are on our way. Another Canadian guy staying in there hostel joins us as well and we catch the Metro to the Sambodromo.

The Sambodromo is a large stadium custom built just for Carnival not far from Centro. It kind of looks like a long skinny soccer stadium without end zone seating to allow the floats, bands and dancers to enter and then exit the stadium. But it is over 500m long and seats over 90,000 people.

The parade begins at 8PM each night and lasts for about 10 hours. I buy a ticket outside the stadium for the same section as everyone else for just over $20US. We are sitting in the last section near where the parade exits the stadium. The centre part of the stadium costs more than $100US per ticket. When we finally get to our seats, the parade is already in full force. The music is non-stop and the floats are all different themes and are amazing and the bands and dancers are in amazing colourful costumes. When you enter the stadium, you are allowed to bring anything you want in in terms of food or drink as long as it is not in a glass container. Everyone in the stands is dancing, drinking and partying non-stop.

We dance, drink and party all night. It's nice to party at night like this when it is cooler, the temperature only in the mid to high twenties. We stay until the parade ends just before 6AM as it is starting to get light out. It is amazing how fast the night went by and I'm really surprised on the time when we leave. I really had an awesome time and especially enjoyed getting to know Lisa, if only I was 10 years younger. We walk back to the Metro and the streets are packed with people. We all bought return tickets when we first caught the Metro but I can't find my ticket and the line up to buy a ticket is over 30

minutes long. So, by the time I get through the lineup, everyone else has gone. I'm sorry this is how the evening ended because I did not even have a chance to say good-bye to anyone. So I catch the Metro to the closest stop to my hostel and then catch a cab to the hostel. When I get to the gate to enter the hostel, I realize I have also lost my keys. So it's almost 7AM and I have to ring the bell about 3 different times before Myle finally wakes up and comes to let me in.

I first wake up around noon and I have some water

and take some aspirin. I'm pretty hung over and still very tired so I go back to sleep until 2PM. I'm starving so I have a quick shower and grab a sandwich at the local Subway. When I get back to the hostel, I send a message to Carly and Stuart apologizing about disappearing at the Metro and I explain what happened. An hour later, I head to a party in Copacabana with the English guy Brian from the hostel. Once again it is very hot and humid but the beers aren't going down so easy today. We meet up with the 3 English girls from the hostel and then go to a pizza place for dinner after the street party ends at 8PM. We then head to a nearby club but by 11PM, I'm so tired and I'm still not recovered from last night so I say my good-byes and head back to the hostel.

Corcovado Train

It's now Phat Tuesday and the last day of Carnival. I decide to go to 2 street parties, the first is at 1PM in Ipanema and the second is at 5PM in Copacabana. I'm with Brian and the 3 English girls but it seems we are all fading a bit along with everyone else. It's very hot again and we have a few beers and there are small parades with Samba bands at both street parties but the party seems a little more subdued today. My expectations were very high coming to Carnival, and overall I've really enjoyed Carnival and the night at the Sambodromo was the highlite. I'm really happy that I came and it was something on my bucket list

that I'm happy to have done but I would have to say it did not quite meet my expectations. If I spoke a little Portuguese, was 10 years younger (ok, maybe 15 years), with a girlfriend or with one of my buddies from home, I think I would have enjoyed Carnival a lot more. The heat and humidity has been a struggle as well, especially on my endurance but having said that, I would not have missed it for anything.

After the last street party, we head to an Italian restaurant near the hostel and then we all head back to the hostel and have a couple beers on the patio. Almost everyone at the hostel is leaving tomorrow except me, I have 3 more nights here to do some of the tourist things that I have not done so far. So the next morning I catch the Corcovado train up to see Christ the Redeemer and the view of the city. It is a nice clear day and the view is spectacular and I spend a couple hours there taking photos. I then catch a bus to Ipanema and Leblon Beaches and hang out there all afternoon. These 2 beaches are my favourite in Rio although they are just as crowded as Copacabana.

Praia Leblon

The next day I sleep in a bit but when I do get up, I decide to walk all the way to Copacabana and spend the afternoon there. I thought maybe the beach would be a little less crowded now that Carnival is over but it is still packed. Normally I see souvenir shops everywhere I go but a spend a couple hours looking for a decent T-shirt but I don't see anything I like. I stop by the gondola that goes up to Pao de Acucar but it has about a 90 minute wait and I don't feel like waiting so I will come back tomorrow morning. I stop at the Italian restaurant near the hostel for dinner before going back to the hostel.

Praia Ipanema

The next morning I catch a bus to the Pao de Acucar (Sugar Loaf) Gondola. There is only about a 15 minute wait for the gondola. The first gondola takes me to the Morro da Urca which is half the height of Pau de Acucar. I stay there for about half an hour taking photos and then I take the next gondola. The view from Pau de Acucar is spectacular. You have views of Copacabana, Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado, Flamengo and Guanbabara Bay as well as most of the rest of the city. I even see a couple of small monkeys in the trees here. After an hour on Pao de Acucar, I walk back to the hostel which takes a couple

hours. Tonight is my last night in Rio but I'm not doing anything special and I just pack my stuff and spend a relaxing evening reading and watching a video.

Tomorrow I'm catching a bus to a beach city to the northeast of Rio called Cabo Frio. It is supposed to have some beautiful beaches that are not quite so crowded. Then I will be going to the nearby town of Buzios and then I will travel south to Ilha Grande.

Bye for now.