Day 64: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Morning bus back to Rio left us outside in the sweltering 96 degree heat melting beneath our backpacks as we tried to find a cheap hostel. Despite the fact that we left Rio for almost a week to escape Carnival prices, we were hard pressed to find a hostel that had gone back to its usual prices. Of course, since we´re stubborn and tend to make things harder than they need to be, we refused to get a taxi and walked about for 3 hours to find a good hostel before taking the metro from Copacabana neighborhood into Botafogo, a quiet upper-middle class neighborhood near a small beach and huge shopping mall. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 63: Petropolis, Brazil

We were faced with the hardest decision this week (well, besides the tough choice between painful death, aka Toni´s Cheesbuger, and Sudden Death, aka Egg-Cheesburger) : to stay another day in Petropolis or go to Teresopolis? Its a hard life… We decided we wanted a work day for the website and had exhausted Petropolis´s sightseeing options and Teresopolis is pretty similar to here, with only slightly better mountain views. So we toilled away in the internet cafe bringing you this fantastic, weeks late content!

Day 62: Petropolis, Brazil

We are absolutely in love with this city! It´s so beautiful, it´s relaxed, it´s comfortable. It´s perfect! There are beautiful parks, cobbled streets, canals, mountains, typical conveniences, tons of fruit stores, and gorgeous buildings.

Checked out the Imperial Museum where all visitors are required to wear the big fuzzy slippers over their own shoes while walking (sliding, rather) through the musuem.

Our rockin`fuzzy slippers!

It´s $2 for students and $4 for non-students to get in. The route throughout is roped off so you must follow the intended order of things. There are tons of neat artifacts from the royal family like the king´s clothes and crown, tons of ladies´fans, lots of lovely oriental decorations like vases and boxes plus lots of beautiful furnishings. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 61: Petropolis, Brazil

We needed to do a spot of shopping today but all the stores are still closed from Carnival. Most places close down for about a week during the celebration and some don´t open again til March 1st or so. We did some errands and did some web work before taking a late lunch. In Brazil, a buffet restaurant is called a “self-service“ and they usually sell food by weight. It´s typically 100 grams of food for $1.50 or $2 in smaller areas but can be more expensive in places like Rio. Ours tend to come out to about $3-4/person with drinks too! Self-service places are always a great deal but it´s a good idea to have a look at the buffet before you start loading up your plate to make sure the food looks decent and there aren´t any (or many) flies.

We couldn´t help ourselves and had to go see another movie (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button this time!). Of course, we had to make an ice cream stop at Toni`s, but only to kill some time before the movie…

Deliciously Glamourous Banana Split

Day 60: Petropolis, Brazil

We walked around the city all day today and spent a while at the Crystal Palace. It started pouring (hurricaning may be a better description) so we sat inside and waited for it to calm down a bit. The Crystal Palace is a huge clear and blue glass building with a nice little garden area all around it. It´s free to get in and there´s nothing inside it but a small felt stage area against the back wall.

Inside Crystal Palace during torrential downpour!

Afterward we went to one of the monstrous churches and admired the decorations in and out. Read the rest of this entry »

We got up really early to go down to our new favorite bakery/restaurant to pick up breakfast for our wonderful hosts Bernardo and Marilia for hosting us an extra 2 days. Everything would´ve been fine, except we had forgotten to take our anti-malarials the night before (too much Carnival fun!) and had to take them this morning asap. Taking them on empty stomachs is a really bad idea, as we discovered! Read the rest of this entry »

Day 58: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Thanks to those who expressed their sympathy and support regarding our recent robbery experience. We´re fine but just really, really angry. Anyway, today was another day of street parades and wandering through the drunken dancing masses so nothing really new to write about. So instead of boring you with all that we thought we would pass along some tips for Carnival in Rio and the city in general as there are many misconceptions about both. Read the rest of this entry »

Day 57: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

We had the most awesome day ever today! This morning, Bernardo and Marilia invited us to accompany them to another street parade to which we happily agreed. We met up with some of their relatives and, to let them share their carnival tradition with family, we split off and started exploring the parade by ourselves.

Us at Carnival Day 2

Read the rest of this entry »

Day 56: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Our flight finally arrived around 5 or 6am to Rio and we were dying to get out and regain feeling to our lower extremities. But first we had to find an ATM to get new currency (we don´t like currency exchange offices or touts because you get a much better rate if you just do ATM withdrawals) and then find a payphone to call our couchsurfing host to let him know what time we would arrive. We tried at least 160 different phones and realized, thanks to the tourist info desk, that my phone card wasn´t the right kind for these phones. Read the rest of this entry »

Well that flew by pretty fast! Seems like just yesterday we were closing up shop on our home and now we are 4 countries in. We had a great time in CA and are super excited to come back! We walked the cobbled streets of countless cities, got lost and found our way, walked some of the most beautiful beaches in world, discovered a new world under the waves, developed a great appreciation for the simple life, and most of all enjoyed the company of many travellers and locals alike– these are the moments that truly last. Read the rest of this entry »