Rio de Janeiro

Day 1: As I mentioned, I managed to get a cracking deal on a flight from Florianopolis to Rio. I was looking at about 24 hours on a bus to get there but after some research, managed to find a flight that got me there in 1 hour instead. Even more good news - the flight was actually cheaper than the bus! No brainer you could say.

I said goodbye to Junior, Maria and the rest of the staff in Floripa and then boarded my flight early afternoon. It´s safe to say I was pretty excited - Rio de Janeiro is a city that I´d always wanted to visit and I couldn´t wait to get there.

The flight was nice and smooth and offered some cool views over the city as we prepared to land. Once down, I got a taxi into the city and this offered some even more incredible views as I made my way in. I got my first glimpse of Christo (Christ the Redeemer) - the famous statue that overlooks the city and is one of the seven wonders of the world. Just driving in, it looks amazing and only increased my excitement at arriving into the city.

Luke, Matt and Dan had given me a hostel tip from their time in Rio so I decided to go ahead and book it prior to leaving Florianopolis. This was despite some trepidation on my part because the hostel, Lisetonga, is actually situated inside a Favela - one of Rio´s famous shanty towns, which are notorious for large amounts of crime. They assured me that this one had been pacified though and was perfectly safe. My main worry would apparently be a huge hill that leads up the Favela towards the hostel.

They weren´t kidding!!! The hill is huge and not really ideal when you have a heavy backpack on you (which is starting to feel like lugging a dead body around). By the time I had reached Lisetonga to check in, I was basically pouring sweat over the forms I had to fill in. There I met Holly (Wales), who worked at the hostel and reassured me that that was a commmon occurence. I don´t think I´ll be the last either - a brutal hill. It seemed worth it though because the hostel looked really nice.

Once I´d checked in, been shown around and met the nice hostel owner - Liz (Mexico), it was pretty late afternoon and I didn´t really fancy venturing out at that stage. Luckily, they had England´s final Euro group game on so I was quite content watching that (surprise, surprise). I also met a nice Danish couple - Casper and Lisa.

That evening, I decided to chill at the hostel and got a Pizza from a place further up the Favela. Having not been out into Rio yet for some exploration, I didn´t think it would be the best idea to start at night and potentially get myself lost. Whilst I was very excited to be there, I also felt quite cautious because of the reputation the city has and the large levels of crime that still exist throughout it. Better to get stuck into it the following day when I could start to get my bearings properly.

Day 2: I booked onto a Favela tour after having it recommended by Holly. It wasn´t of the one the hostel was situated in but a different one in a small neighbourhood called Ipanema. It was also run by another of the hostel staff, Daniel (Australia), who actually lived inside the Favela.

Obviously, I´d never been to Rio before but having seen films, images and spoken to others who have, I could tell that the Favelas represented a significant, famous part of the city. Generally, they run up the front of the mountains that surround Rio and they look pretty amazing (from what I had seen on the taxi ride in). You might wonder what the appeal is with visiting a shanty town but they are also apparently amazing to explore and of course, give a real feel for what life is like for the vast majority of Rio´s population. There are hundreds of Favelas scattered across the city and the majority of them haven´t been pacified and still experience the huge levels of crime that has become synonymous with the city. Thankfully, the one we were heading to in Ipanema had been pacified, although this didn´t completely relax us about going there.

Favela tours are one of the main tourist ´things to do´in Rio and consequently, a number of different companies offer them. However, after speaking to a few other travellers and to Holly, I was told that these company tours have a feel of being like visiting the zoo, with tourists reluctant to get too close to the residents or interact with them. Needless to say, this wasn´t really what I wanted and I much preffered the idea of visiting with someone who actually lives in one. I met Daniel that morning as well as the 2 other guys who were on the tour - Adam and Jordan (both Canada). We then went and caught the bus to Ipanema.

After getting some initial information from Daniel on the way, we were pretty amazed to find a brand new lift had been recently installed at the foot of the Favela - Not really what you expect when visiting what´s supposed to be a shanty town! Daniel told us that the government had recently put this into operation and, while the residents were grateful for the convenience, they also felt that the money could have been distributed to other ares of the Favela. After walking around for a while, we could see what they meant.

Once we got inside, the look of the Favela was pretty much as I´d expected. The residents are obviously quite poor and don´t have much in terms of housing, space and possessions. We all felt perfectly safe once we started walking around though and the residents seemed genuinely quite content and happy for us to be there. No sooner had we got inside before Daniel got chatting to a group of lads he knew who lived there, who then proceeded to put on an impressive dance montage for us all. Unfortunately, our Portuguese still isn´t up to much so interaction was limited but we knew enough to say thank you and let them know we appreciated the performance.

Daniel then tooks us to his own house in the Favela, so we could get an idea of how they look inside and what sort of space the families have to operate with. The answer: not much! His place was absolutely tiny - basically just 2 small rooms and a bathroom. It´s certainly not a place that I could live but Daniel seemed really happy there and clearly enjoyed living in the Favela too. He has lived in Rio for almost a year now and actually chose to live there, unlike many of the other residents. It´s fair to say he´s getting a true Brazilian experience by doing so and at quite an inflated price too - 200 quid a month! It may not sound like much but I can assure you, for the amount of room he had, it is.

Following that, we went to explore some more of the Favela and appreciate the impressive works of graffiti that decorate parts of the inside. Looking around and listening to Daniel, it was hard not to be impressed by the place because it´s been built 100% by the residents and they have done a really good job. The other Favelas in Rio, which haven´t been pacified, are still home to major drug dealing and crime levels apparently and this one was no different until the police went in and removed all the drugs and weapons a few years ago. You wouldn´t have known it from walking around though - it was actually quite pleasant. I´m sure the same can´t be said of the others though, which the police are trying to pacify one-by-one. A long process I suspect.

As we explored further, we got the impression that some of the residents perhaps weren´t as poor as we had initially imaged - most of the houses have Sky TV installed!!! Again, not something we expected. As we got higher up, we were also able to get some incredible views over the city - an aspect of Favela life that they are definately fortunate with. Jordan then bought a nice piece of art from one of the locals before Daniel took us right to the top for some even better views. Rio looks stunning from a high viewpoint.

The tour finished with a quick kick-about with some of the local kids - an activity the three of us weren´t going to pass up. Their samba skills were naturally quite impressive. We then stopped for lunch at a cafe inside the Favela, paid for with the money we had paid Daniel for the tour. Another advantage of touring with him is that we knew the money would be going back into the Favela, something I doubt is the case with the big company tours. At this point we said how grateful we were to him for showing around and also how pleased we had taken that option. It was a quality tour, where we got to fully interact with the residents (language barriers aside) and had no feeling of it being like visiting a zoo. An authentic Rio experience on my first full day there.

That afternoon and evening, I took a walk along Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Once I had navigated the hill from Lisetonga, Copacobana was really close, making the hostel location ideal as far as I was concerned. It´s one of the most famous beaches on earth so I was keen to see what it was like by night.

There was loads going on - Volleyball games (played by men wearing shockingly small trunks it has to be said), Football Games, Football-Volleyball games and numerous street performers and Dancers all the way along the beach. It was enjoyable to just walking along and watching everything that was going on. Doing this, you can also get a feel for why the Brazilian footy team is consistently so good because the quality of football on the beach, particularly when combined with the Volleyball courts, was really impressive. The skills on offer from some of the girls on the beach were just as good and it was fantastic to watch. Lots going on at Copacobana beach by night.

Day 3: After breakfast, I embarked on a long walk towards another of Rio´s famous neighbourhoods - Lapa. It was quite a trek to get there (about 2 hours) but it was well worth the walk because I got some great views of Sugarloaf mountain on my right-hand side. Like the mountain that accomodates Christo, Sugarloaf is another famous spot in Rio and I intended to pay it a visit on another day. This wasn´t a city that I wanted to rush.

A huge conference called ´Rio + 20´was taking place throughout the city for a couple of weeks, which meant lots of crowds scattered around. I had to navigate a couple on my way to reaching the small neighbourhood of Lapa. It was a good walk though, allowing me to explore a nice park and it´s monuments as well as some other impressive statues. Like Buenos Aires, Rio also has it´s national flag up all over the place and this adds to the scenery of the city just the same as it did in BA.

Once in Lapa, I caught sight of the famous archways that divide the neighbourhood. They look a big grubby now it has to be said but I could imagine how impressive they had once looked since they are quite big and imposing.

Just around the corner from there, I found Lapa steps, which are probably the main appeal of this particular neighbourhood. This is a huge staircase, that was taken over by a Chilean artist called Jorge Selaron in 1990. He started renovating the steps with new tiles as a tribute to the brazilian people and they have become a focal point of the area ever since.

It´s pretty cool to be honest. I walked to the top and got some good photos of the whole staircase, which was also used by Snoop Dogg in his 2003 video for ´Beautiful´. The tiles that form the steps are ever changing, because the artist constantly replaces them with ones he buys or others that are donated by visitors. This is all explained in a short passage from the artist, which can be read at the foot of the staircase. His reason for doing it is apparently based on a problem from his past but the passage doesn´t elaborate on that. He finishes by saying he will continue to keep changing it´s image until he dies. I hope he doesn´t remove the brazilian flag that overlooks the main staircase though because this is definately the best part.

An enjoyable day exploring Lapa and the steps in particular were impressive and well worth a visit. I didn´t fancy a 2 hour walk back to Copacabana though so caught one of the unofficial buses that transport people about town. A pretty chilled late afternoon and evening following that.

Day 4: Adam had caught a flight back to Canada the following evening so Jordan joined me for the day for some more sightseeing. This time, I wanted to check out Santa Theresa and Centro.

We caught the bus up to Santa Theresa - an old neighbourhood siuated at one of Rio´s highest points. It´s a pretty nice little place, with cobbled streets and some interesting old buildings. It also offered some good views over the city and of Christo in the distance. Also near the viewpoint were some tiny Monkeys after some food. Luckily, Jordan had brought some bread rolls with him so we fed them for a bit and watched them all scrap over them. Gotta love the Monkeys! 

Lapa is pretty close to Centro so we popped in there next so I could show Jordan the archways and the steps. We then took the short walk into Centro, where a huge photography exhibition was taking place in the middle of town. This was great actually - high quality photos of famous places across the world so we took our time looking through them.

Following that, we walked around Centro for a couple of hours and got some lunch there. Like Lapa, it´s a pretty nice area full of impressive buildings, statues and monuments so it was enjoyable just walking around and exploring.

Once back at the hostel, we met another traveller called Eva (Germany) and got chatting to her. We then decided that the 3 of us would head to Lapa´s famous street party that evening and consequently, all headed out to get some supplies in for pre-party drinks. Having drunk so many since being in Brazil, we got the ingredients for some home-made Caipirinhas, which actually turned out pretty good. It was basically guess-work in terms of working out the quantities of Cachaca, Lime and Sugar since none of us had made them before. Luckily though, they turned out pretty well and after a few hours drinking, we were pretty pissed before even leaving the hostel.

We then headed into Lapa and were joined by Scott and Sophie (Manchester), Thiago (Brazil) and Ivan (Norway), all from our hostel. The Burnley lads had told me good things about Lapa street party so hopefully we were in for a good night.

There were thousands of people around Lapa but unfortunately, there wasn´t as much going on in the street as I had imagined (apart from a couple of fights). There wasn´t any music outside, so it basically just had the feel of lots of people waiting to get into all the bars. It was ok, (the Caipirinhas were cheap) but not really what I expected. After a while, we all headed into this hip-hop bar that Thiago knew but it wasn´t that good so myself, Jordan and Eva left not long after. We then hung around the street some more getting pissed and trying out a couple more bars. Again, not great unfortunately but we had a good laugh on the Caipirinhas nonetheless. They are very addictive so I´m looking forward to making some more when I´m back home.