Raining in Rio

Escardia de Selaron

We arrived into Rio under dark, rainy skies.  According to Angel, the flight was scary and he was quite panicked (a note here: Angel hates flying, he says it's a necessary evil). Immigration was quite slow, but we made it into the country just fine.

We'd asked the hostel to book us a taxi so there was a bloke waiting for us with a sign, probably the best thing we have done so far.

The city is huge, the driver told us there are 6 million people in Rio, he pointed out Christ the Redeemer  to us as we drove towards Copacabana and through the tunnel under the statues mountain. His English was not great, but as our Portuguese is pretty much non-existent we spoke in broken sentences, nice bloke. 

This is pretty much the most expensive place we will stay in on our journey, it's £72 a night and very basic, but has air conditioning and private bathroom. It's called Bonita Ipanema, and we're just 2 blocks from Ipanema beach.

Our first day we woke up to grey rainy skies again, a bit disappointed but we did not let that stop us.  We walked from our hotel to the beach then walked along the beach and around to Copacabana beach and along it to the metro. (Unfortunately the metro station 2 mins from our hotel is closed, so it is about an hours walk to the next one). 

We then caught a bus to Santa Teresa and wandered in the rain along the cobbled streets to find the top of the Escardia de Selaron, and walked down the beautifully tiled steps (the pic here is us on them) unfortunately it was pissing it with rain and they were slippery, Ellen fell down them, twice. To be fair it would not be a holiday without Ellen hurting herself on the first day! 

Pizza and toasted sandwiches for lunch at Ernesto's near Lapa, and headed back to Copacabana beach to walk back to Ipanema. Loads of walking today. 

Booked tickets to go up the 'cog train' to Cristo Redentor at 10.20 tomorrow.

Now, to plan which city we head to next....