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Here goes my last blog! We are waiting for our first flight of 4 to take us back to Saskatchewan and I have 24 hours of waiting to do until I'm home so I thought I better write up a blog.
So we had our beach day at Ipanema. We walked from our hostel in Copacabana which took about an hour. We laid out for a few hours and I tried to tan my white cheeks in my Brazilian bikini but it didn't work. Too white I guess. There are tons of pedlars on the beach trying to sell you their stuff and we bought some bracelets and a cup of Açai and granola. On our walk back home we stopped at a corn on the cob stand where we got some corn totally slathered in butter and salt. Then we got a churro a little while later. I had some churros in Isle Grande that were so good but these were definitely a disappointment cause they were cold! Yuck! Later that night we went to a buffet restaurant that was just down the street from us. I got the buffet which wasn't very good and mom got the all you can eat pizza deal where they bring around different pizzas and you choose which ones you want, which was way better (she shared with me). I can't wait to make dessert pizza at home like they do here! Mmm they are good!
The next day we went to the centre. We took the subway and went to the Municipal Theatre, the national library, and selaron's steps. Selaron's steps were very cool. These are the famous tiled steps that separate the Santa Teresa and Lapa neighbourhoods in Rio. A famous artist, Selaron, started them many years ago and now people send him tiles from all over the world to add to the always changing staircase. He also has a studio next to the steps where he sells his artwork. Unfortunately he died in January of this year (he killed himself on his steps). It's kind of sad because the steps will never change again, and I was looking forward to seeing him because he's always at the steps. We took a tour of the municipal Theatre and the library. The library tour was pretty boring but they had some very old books on display from the 1300s and they were very cool. All the pages and pictures are of course hand drawn so it was pretty neat to see. The library was huge and very ornate. We saw about 6 different reading rooms and one room had 4 million books in it across 5 floors... Hard to imagine that being just one room! The tour of the theatre was more interesting. It had just been completely restored 3 years before so it was gorgeous and we got to see a video of the restoration which was really really cool. They had hundreds of people working on it for 3 years. When we got into the concert room there was a ballet rehearsing and we got to watch the dancers for 15 mins or so which was so awesome!
The next day we had a favela tour booked for the morning and hang gliding in the afternoon! It was a gorgeous day up until we were supposed to be picked up for hang gliding when suddenly it got very cloudy and we couldn't go! We rescheduled for the next morning before our flight to Campo Grande but it ended up raining that morning so we had to cancel again! I was pretty bummed because hang gliding was supposed to be one of the best things to do in Rio, but that just means I'll have to come back again :). Bruno, our bike tour guide, organized the Favela tour for us so he picked us up and we met up with another guide, Thiago, who lives in the Favela but speaks no English so Bruno translated. Another very annoying lady who asked way too many pointless questions was also on the tour. First of all, a Favela is a poorer neighbourhood in large Brazilian cities. They are generally dirty and have more crime and drugs, etc. we went to the first favela ever established in Rio, called Santa Marta. It used to be quite bad but there is a new initiative that is about 5 years old to stop crime in the favelas so this one has a police unit in it. Thiago said since the police have come there has been no crime, the drug lords who used to live there have moved out and it's now one of the best favelas to live in. It was much nicer than I expected. It it built on a very steep hill underneath the Christ statue, so from the top you get a beautiful view of Rio. They have a gondola that goes to the top (thank god). The favela is 75 years old and I don't know how people climbed to the top before the gondola was built. It would have been so incredibly hard! With groceries and bricks to build your house and things all on your back (there are no roads, just staircases up). There is also an art project going on where this group of artists are finishing the outside of everyone's homes and painting them very bright colours and putting nice designs on them so in a few years when it is finished it will look quite nice. The picture with this blog is of some of the painted homes at the beginning of the favela where the street ends. The rest of the homes are just red brick and cement. Some are actually quite nice, but some are not so nice. A nice one will cost about $40,000 US dollars according to our guide. There is a large sense of community in the favelas and many people who grow up there stay there their whole lives even if they have the means to leave, unless its one of the dangerous favelas. There was a cool soccer field built at the top of this favela, next to the police station, and it had a great view of the city! The favela was way nicer than I expected. The only down side was that everyone had dogs so there was dog poop everywhere, and some streets had lots of garbage. A cool fact about this Favela was that Michael Jackson shot his music video for his song "No one cares about us" here! They have a mural of him and a statue where he shot it. The video helped to expose the conditions of the favela (which were much worse back then). Our guide, Thiago, is kind of a leader in their community. He is a guide, a journalist, a DJ, and a photographer and he works hard to make sure his community is being looked after. He has guided many celebrities through the favela including Alecia Keys and Madonna (he was very proud to show us his pics with them)! At the end of our tour we stopped at a community hall type place where a group was performing. They were doing a local sport which I can't remember the name of but it is a mix between dance, music, and martial arts. Everyone was playing instruments, singing, or performing their moves in the centre of the circle. It was very cool to see and we were lucky we ran into it! After the tour we found out hang gliding was cancelled so we went to the beach but it was too cold to tan so we watched some guys play foot volley for awhile. Foot volley is volleyball but you can't use your hands!! It is so cool. To serve they kick the ball over the net and to bump and set they use their chests or heads or knees or feet and to spike they jump and hit it with their heads. It looks really hard but I imagine because soccer is such a popular sport that is why they are good at it. That night we went back to a little Italian restaurant we found by our first hotel and had some great spaghetti and dessert which we completely guessed on! It turned out to be a cream puff type thing in chocolate! The next day we made our way to the airport to fly to Campo Grande and got their despite a big mix up at our stop in São Paulo. I am not supposed to divulge the details but it almost caused mom to be left behind... You will have to ask her if you want the full story. It was stressful but we made it to Campo Grande together and safely! We got a hotel that night and the next day headed to the bus station where we were picked up for our Pantanal tour.
The shuttle bus was about 2 hours late picking us up and the trip was about 5 hours to the campsite so we didn't get there until about 6 pm. The Pantanal is the wetlands in Brazil for those who don't know. When we got to the park we were dropped off and picked up by a jeep to go the rest of the way on bumpy dirt road and across many scary looking bridges. On the way to the lodge we saw a toucan and many many caymans (small crocodile types about 2m in length). That night we had no activities but we met our guide, Tom, and our roommates, two gals from Holland (I won't attempt to spell their names) who were such a riot! We had supper and Caipirinhas that night and got to know our group and then went to bed. The next day we had a 4 hour boat tour along the river and then a couple hours of horse back riding and then a night tour for spotting Caymans. On the boat tour we saw many different species of birds including falcons, hawks, storks, king fishers, macaws, and many others. We saw the largest rodent in the world (I forget the name but they look like a large gopher, about as big as a large dog), a giant otter (very scary creatures, they eat the caymans!), and iguanas. Unfortunately we didn't see any pumas or jaguars as I hoped. We stopped for a swim not far from where we saw the giant otter and when we spotted him swimming near us we had to get out because getting a chomp from him would be nasty. We also saw many howler monkeys!
Our horse ride was nice but I got kicked by another horse in the ankle! There was a girl who obviously didn't know much about horses and she was riding a really cranky horse (he had his ears back the whole time). She just let him do whatever he wanted and they came up beside me and my horse in a very narrow path so her horse decided to try and bite my horse and then I was like woah and pulled back to just let them by but that wasn't a good decision cause then her horse kicked me! I wasn't very happy with the girl because she should have known better than to let her horse so close to mine or any of the others. But, oh well I still had a good time and my ankle is fine. That night was the cayman spot. We did see a few Cayman but we saw much more in the day time. The weather changed abruptly that night so our guide said that was why not many animals were out.
The next day we had a walking tour and piranha fishing. On the walking tour we saw deer, more birds, a wild pig, and raccoon type creatures. We learned much about the trees and plants of the area. Our guide showed us how the indigenous people extracted fibres from a certain plant to make jewelry and which fruits they ate. We got to taste a few but both were not very good. He also showed us a fruit which they use the juice from to paint their bodies. It goes on clear at first but a day later it is a dark blue colour! We all painted ourselves and now I have a blue streak on my wrist which doesn't not come off with scrubbing! Good thing I didn't paint my face. Piranha fishing was cool, we paddled a ways out in the river on canoes and then fished from the boat tied to shore. We had 7 ft bamboo poles with a piece of fishing line tied to the end and a hook tied to that. Then we used a chunk of red meat as bait and waited for them to bite! They were always biting but it was hard to hook them! They often just bit the meat off without getting stuck on the hook. But we caught 8 piranha and grilled them up that night for supper and got to eat them! Surprisingly they were really tasty. They just grilled them whole and then we used our fingers to pick them apart and get the meat off. Their teeth are huge and sharp!! That night we had a camp fire and caipirinhas. The next day we had no activities and started back to Campo Grande at 1:30 pm. We arrived at about 8 and settled into a freezing hotel room for the night. Now we are just waiting for our first flight! I can't believe I'm going home. It makes me really sad to have come to the end of my trip but I am excited to see all my friends and family and start planning my next trip :). Travelling is definitely addictive. I think I'll be doing it often for the next 20 years. I better find a job where I get lots of holidays!
Some things I am really looking forward to back home: hugs from everyone :), milk that needs to be refrigerated, good salads, going to the movies, my bed, the hot tub, boating, and cooking for myself. Can't wait to see everyone! Thanks for reading my blogs! See you soon! Xxx
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