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We had left the window open, as our room faced east and I was awoken by the sunrise. It was a little cloudy and the sun shone red on the horizon. I took a couple of pictures before heading back to bed.
When I awoke again it was 8am and Shivani was awake. I was still a little groggy and Shivani turned on the tv. We watched a little before getting up and showering. We then went down for breakfast which was thankfully quieter today. We had a good breakfast before heading back to the room and getting our swimming stuff. We headed to the beach but found all the hotel sunbeds and umbrellas were taken. We were only staying a couple of hours so didn't want to pay for one so decided to lay on our towels.
It was really hot and after a few minutes I was sweating. I went into the sea to cool off. It was really cold but felt good, I took a quick dip before Shivani had her turn. After only a few minutes we were really hot again and went back into the sea. It was too hot without shade and we were about to leave when a sunbed and umbrella became free. We quickly took it and were relived to be out of the burning heat. We sat there for a while, Shivani listening to an audiobook while I caught up on the blog. It was soon 1pm and we headed up to the room to get ready before our favela tour.
After a quick shower, we headed down to reception for our tour. We were supposed to be picked up at 1.45 but ended up waiting till 2.15pm. We were not happy and didn't get an apology. We were soon on our way though and after picking a couple of people up we set off for the Rochina favela. It was actually located in between some rich areas, which I found strange. When we arrived we saw a lot of police and the guide informed us that there had been a police operation happening for the last couple of months that was cleaning up the gangs in the area. This meant that it was much safer now and there were no gang members with guns hanging around.
Our guide said that we would take local transport to the top of the hill and then walk down. I thought we were taking the bus but found that we were taking mototaxis. It was a little daunting but we jumped on board and were soon wizzing up the hill. It was a little scary as the driver went pretty fast and went head on into traffic. We made it up safely and then started to walk down.
The Favela had tight streets that no traffic could go along and we walked down the narrow allies. I first stop was an art studio, where we first got some great views and info from the guide before seeing the art. The art was good but expensive. We quickly moved on and next stopped at a house where a few local kids banged out a samba beat on some makeshift drums and a couple of others danced.
We then walked further down past a few shops before stopping at a bakery where I got a cake and Shivani got some acai and a pastry. We then continued further down, actually leading ourselves as the guide had forget his kites at the bakery, noticing the area got worse as we were further down. It wasn't that bad though, we didnt feel unsafe, and I think the squaller is much worse in other parts of the world.
Our next stop was a nursery that looked after the kids of the favela and was supported by the tour company. It was good to see a project to help people and it looked well run. There was also an excellent view so we took some pictures. We then walked out of the favela and went to a couple of shops while we waited for our minibus. The tour had been okay but we hadn't been impressed with the guide who had stopped giving information at a point and spent time hitting on a couple of the girls instead.
When the bus came we all boarded and were soon back near our hotel. We decided it was time to get some souvenirs so went to the havianas shop next to our hotel and bought sandals for all the girls. We then went up to our room to drop them off before heading out to the market next to the beach to get some other stuff. We managed to pick up a football shirt for Janesh, a picture for Yas, a mini football for the boys and I got some caperio pants. That only left dad and Umang to buy something for.
It was late now and we were hungry, so we went back to the room and quickly showered. I had asked the concierge for a Mexican restaurant to eat at and he directed us to one in Ipanema. When we got there we found it was pretty busy but we were able to get a table upstairs. We were hungry so ordered nachos to start and I got fajitas and Shivani a burrito. We also ordered a jug of margarita. The starter wasn't that great but the mains were good and huge. The margaritas also went down well and at the end of the meal we found ourselves full and drunk.
We decided to walk it off and went to an icecream place which we had visited last time and Shivani proceeded to try every flavour before having a cappuccino one. We then took a taxi to the copacabana palace where we wanted to go for a drink. It was a posh hotel and there was a lot if security around. We felt like we were being watched, as we didn't look the part but we managed to walk around a bit and took some pictures before deciding we didn't want to have a drink there.
We walked out and decided to walk back to our hotel. It was a nice night and we walked pretty slowly realising it was our last night. It was actually quite far and when we finally got to our hotel we were pretty tired. I quickly checked into our flight on one of the computers downstairs before joining Shivani in the room and going to sleep for our last night in South America.
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