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South America 2005 - part V

Brasil and back home

Andreas Mayer
2005-12-03 18:28:04

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Rio de Janeiro

Took a bus from Iguazu to Rio De Janeiro (20 hours), met up with Henrick (an old school mate now living in Sao Paulo) at the bus station and explored Rio for the next few days. It was good to meet Henrick, I had not seen him for a few years, and we talked a lot about the good old times in Hong Kong and what various people were up to now.

We started to walk up the back of the Sugar Loaf mountain, hard work as it was bloddy hot, but eventually it got too steep (basically I chickened out) and we got the cable car up instead. Went to to Lappa that night, a street cramped with locals drinking and smoking weed, not necessarily a dangerous crowd but certainly a different atmosphere to Buenos Aires.

The next day explored Ipanema, the beach next to Copacabana where all the hot girls are supposed to hang out. It did not disappoint and we spent the afternoon biking watching and taking the occasional dip.

In the evening some of the girls working at the hostel organized tickets to a big party up at the Sugar Loaf. It was some techno party, with DJs from England and Germany, I was pretty sure it would not be my thing, too much noise, but most of the people from the hostel went so we thought 'why not' and went along. Again, predictably, I did not really have a great time, as did none of the other as far as I am aware. The music was too loud to talk, terrible to dance to, and the crowd was basically all the rich kids from Rio, expats and a few backpackers, not my scene really and we went back fairly early (4.00 am).

The final day in Rio we went up to the Statue of Christ (OK), went to Copacabana (pretty disappointing) and then just had an early dinner, both of us exhausted after a busy weekend.

Ihla Grande

And so to my final stop on this tour, a four day visit to Ihla ...