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29th November,
The night before you do anything important, let alone a massive leap into the unknown, you never sleep well. Drifting in and out of concious, waking with a jolt, adament it must be time to get up. When the alarm finally goes off and you have to get up it's more than OK to be a little apprehensive.
We checked in fine, all luggage under weight limit, massive relief! Short wait before one flight from the North, and our goodbyes to Newcastle, down to Hethrow. 3 hour wait. The accepted law with airports goes as the following.
- Drinking is OK, regardless of time, country or reason for travel.
Everyone does it, businessmen, holidaymakers, the lot. When your caught between time zones who cares? So after spending half an hour of my life that I'll never get back with a moronic Polish lady on the foreign exchange, I calmed myself with a cold pint of Heineken. The plane took off nearly an hour late, which meant the next beer was gonna be well needed.
I'm not a fan of long haul flying so was less than impressed with a full plane. You do wonder what some people are doing on your flight. English couple with two daughters probably between 8 and 10, why are you flying to Rio? You should be in school!!
Jen sleeps at most opportunities so reading, films or inflight drinks are my choices. I opted for a combination of the above. Many many hours and 5700 miles later we touch down in Rio De Janeiro after some more weather related delays. I once flew out of Denver in a electrical storm and it still ranks high on my 'moments I thought I was going to die' list, so waiting for weather to clear doesn't bother me.
We're two hours late (00:00 local time), more after struggling with entry forms but the bags have made it as well! Transfer was still waiting for us at the airport, even better! We arrive at our hostel and the place is nothing like the website showed , our twin ensuite, is more like a cave but unlike the plane it doesn't have screaming kids. BONUS
30th November
Both of us wake up early, rearranged the rocks in our cave and navigated the shower and toilet. Toilets in foreign countries are always a obstacle, will they have a seat or not,do I flush the paper or bin it? Breakfast is good, included in the price so you have to make the best of it and fill up. Papaya fruit for the first time in my life and I can reveal it's good! The rest of the hostel looks really nice, it's just our cave that's dinghy.
We take our first day to relax and regain humaness after the flight, it's 34c so you can't relax too much but the beach is stunning and only 5 minutes away. The mountains rise up hundreds of meters to each side and melt into the city behind us. The sand on the beach is real quality sand not that sharp crappy stuff you get on beaches in Europe linked by SleasyJet flights.
Seems like 'Y' fronts and Speedos are not only acceptable as the only item to wear, but madatory for every bloke over 30. Not cool. There's a lot of toilet seat shops not far from the beach, yet everywhere has the same rubbish seat. After both of us have burnt and look like a couple of tomatos we head back. I have some pretty gay patterns because I can't apply sun tan lotion properly, Jen just has one consistent burn.
For Tea that night we dine on true backpacker food of Pasta with ragu type tomato sauce. It was suprisingly good! Afterwards we sat and read on the balcony of the hostel, it's noisy because local police are clearing an area nearby of druggies, dealers and whoares ready for the 2016 Olympics. Lot's of gunfire. Not that bigger deal we're told.
1st December
Today we took the more tourist route,
first stop is 'Giant Jesus' as Jennifer dubbed him. 710m above Rio the statue of Christ the Redeemer stands. A stunning peace of work with a even more amazing backdrop. From here you can see the entirety of Rio and it's 10'000 toilet seat shops. Sunburn is an issue today, especially on our feet so walking up massive hills is a pain but well worthwhile.
We reel off the generic tourist photos, dissapointingly nobody seemed happy to take our photo without us paying so it's just singular poses and a few myspace styled pics with an arm crossing half the backdrop.
We visited several other places but the only other one worth mentioning was the 'Sugar loaf' a Cable car takes you 200m up the side of a steep mountain and then another takes you across a vast open area another 450m with a horrible incline, through the clouds till you pop out seconds away from a vertical wall of sheer rock and certain death, at this point the car jerks suddenly upwards and your on top of the 'sugar loaf' named by Portugese sailors because it reminded them of sugar cane or something. MASSIVE SHEER drops either side of you but brilliant views. Some nice monkeys around too. Signs instruct you not to feed them, naturally this just gives people the idea to feed them.
Another exquisite pasta and sauce combination nthat night. Being removed from your surroundings leaves you with a lot of time to think about the world. This time is made better if your lucky enough to catch some of the carling cup quarter finals on the telly. Bonus. Football = global language.
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