That subtle smell that always accompanies a fishing village permeated the air while we zigzagged through the historic center, admiring the clean white paint on the walls and the colorful doorways. Making our way lazily down toward the water, we came to the boat dock. The old, worn ropes and the chipping paint on the small fishing boats were like old friends–so charming and obviously well-loved.

Quiet fishing village

Fishing boats docked in Paraty

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Day 67: Paraty, Brazil

Maybe it was jealousy as our sweet 3rd story pad, but our bunkmates at Botafogo were the worse we´ve ever had–ever worse than that guy with his crazy night noises in Uvita, Costa Rica! They were all up at 5:45am, talking really loud and slamming doors and opening the window to let in bright sunlight that looked more like midday than early morning. One of them had dragged the mattress of the bed (bottom bunk, sucker!) to try to get more air from the fan but had left the room and was sleeping on the couch outside the room when we left. What the hell?! Read the rest of this entry »

Day 66: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Well, after much resistance, today we went sightseeing like every other tourist. Admittedly, we did see some awesome stuff but it´s just not very exciting or very personal to be knocked and jostled around by 50 other tourists snapping pictures and posing and being generally inconsiderate about their fellow sightseers. Everyone´s going to have a chance to look and take photos so why de so pushy and rude? There´s no reason for that now, come on! Read the rest of this entry »

Day 65: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Today was the day to be in Botafogo (a small neighborhood in Rio) and we were lucky enough to be there. Today was the big futbol match between Botafogo and some unworthy opponent. It was a requirement that we go. We headed toward the stadium in a swarm of black and white (Botafogo´s colors). There were fans of the other team there somewhere but they dare not show their faces. Botafogo is one of the largest teams in Rio and thousands of fans had came to see the regional finale. Unfortunately the opposing team was rather small and only had a limited (few hundred) fans show up.

Action at the stadium

As we entered the stadium the crowd was already a buzz. Chants and black and white balloons filled the air. This is the epitome of Rio, futbol on a Sunday in one of the largest stadiums in the world. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »