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Hi Everyone. Well we arrived safe and sound at the hostel and have since spent the last few days exploring the city. The Hostel, Rio Nature itself is well errr... ok haha! We are sharing our dorm with 6 other people and a variety of bugs (Some the size of birds and would give a Typhoon a run for its money the way its dive bombs you at night.. a flying cockroach/grasshopper thing!) We are both on a top bunk and lucky no one snores! The hostel is basic but is ok for what we need it for. There is amazing views from the breakfast area where you can see the Christ statue and some of the city. There are also some monkeys that come and say hello from the mountain. The first day we walked into Copacabana which was very pretty and only a 20 minute stroll to the beach. As we was tired from flying we didnt venture to far but we got a good feel for the city. Day 2 we caught the bus upto a town called Cosme Velho. The buses are quite easy to figure out and when you are on it the driver goes about 70mph so you have to watch out and pay attention otherwise you can easily miss your stop. Tickets are cheap, about 80p to anywhere in the city. At Cosme Velho we then got a small train up the mountain to the Christ the Redeemer statue. This was very wet and we had to buy plastic ponchos! There was low cloud too so we couldnt see a great deal but it did shift a little for a nice view over Rio towards Copacabana so I managed to get some piccies. This was lovely and its amazing when you are stood at his feet looking up. After this we got the bus to Leblon and walked the few miles down the beach towards Ipanema and back into Copacabana. The sun had come out so the walk was lovely. On the night we are very close to a large shopping arcade so we look about that as its abit dodgy walking around so we stay local. Today was Excellent too... We caught the bus to the Botanical gardens. This was very beautiful and the gardens was full of nice lakes, ponds, monkeys, birds etc. Look at my photos to see. We spent half the day here before going to the beach as the weather has been beautiful today (around 30 degrees). Now we are back at the hostel about to get ready and go for some tea. The locals make some lovely filled pastries and the supermarkets stock lots of fresh bread, ham and cheese so we are eating quite well for little money. Tomorrow we are off to Sao Paulo which is a six hour bus journey. As there is lots to see on the way I would imagine this will go fairly quick. Rio has been amazing and I think we have seen some excellent and beautiful landscapes. Onwards for the next chapter... Hayls and Jonathan x
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