First day in Rio de Janiero

And so our South American adventure begins... We arrived in Rio de Janeiro this morning at about 5am. The flight went fine, but it was an old airplane and some tv screens on the seat backs would have been much appreciated. Honestly, after so much anticipation and a crazy sleep schedule the last few days, it made it pretty difficult to sleep on the plane regardless. The nice part about getting in so early was that the queues in customs were literally non-existant. It took all of about five minutes to get our passports stamped and make it completely through customs. When we got outside, we of course had the initial feeling of "Crap, we have no clue what we're doing...", but it turned out the random man that approached us was genuinely trying to help us and quickly pointed us in the direction of the bus we needed to take downtown.

The bus ride itself was oddly exciting. I have looked at so many pictures of Rio over the past few months and I was anticipating that there could be something I recognized around any turn. Speaking of turns, the bus drivers here are a bit crazy! My stuff was getting thrown around and I definitely noticed a few red lights were run along the trip. Although, we later found out that it is legal for cars to run red lights after 10pm! Good tip to know and totally explains why the #2 cause of death for tourists is getting hit by a car! The other thing that was really interesting about the bus ride was that we got our first view of the favellas. I mean, I have seen pictures of them before, but I don't think anything can prepare you for the sight of them. In addition to these shanty houses being stacked one on top of the other (which you expect), there were often whole sides of the houses that were missing a wall all together!

We probably made it to our hostel, Lighthouse, at around 7am. The night time security guard barely spoke English, but was able to communicate that the staff would be back at 9am and that we were welcome to leave our packs behind while we busied ourselves over the next two hours. Trusting people when you travel is always an interesting balance of risk vs. reward and a lot of times is the result of a gut feeling, but the thought of hauling around 30 lbs on our backs in a city we barely knew definitely made our guts much more inclined to believe the hostellers were amongst the most trustworthy people we could come across.

After finding a corner to unload our bags, we made our way to Ipanema Beach. What a gorgeous view. I mean, there was definitely some trash that had washed up overnight and, I won't lie, I almost immediately saw a cockroach (luckily that's the only one I've seen thus far and I think was a bit of a fluke), but the view... Amazing. We walked down to Arpoador - a little rocky bit of land that juts out into the ocean - and got to do some fun early morning people watching. A group of twenty-somethings showing off their rhythm on plastic garbage drums, an old man doing Tai Chi that looked like he'd done a bit too many drugs in his time, a portly older man getting ready to surf that you'd never believe could even make it as far as standing up, the most ridiculous hardcore makeout session right in the middle of the public area (and they were older than us!), and even what seemed to be a pretty legit photo shoot of a model on a motorcycle. Oh, and of course, a ton of awesome dogs that probably appreciated the beach, waves, and general surroundings more than we ever could (made us wish little Catherine was at our side).

After stopping at a grocer to grab some breakfast basics (bread, salami, mini croissants), we made our way back to the hostel and hung out until our room was ready. The owner, Sylvia, took the time to sit down and go over all the highlights of the city with us. We definitely have our work cut out for us to make sure we get to experience a little bit of everything over the next two weeks. The hostel itself was pretty much what I expected - a decent community area (where I currently sit blogging), an open kitchen where we can cook for ourselves and will be key to keeping our budget down, normal dormer of 4 bunk beds (8 beds total), and two tiny, tiny little bathrooms. I'll tell you though, as long as the staff continues to be as helpful as they've been so far, I don't think we'd switch it out for a private hotel room.

After napping and catching up on some much needed sleep, we checked out the nearby block party and grabbed a bite to eat. The block party was a bit of a misnomer; the main street along the beach looked packed to the brim and the party continued about three blocks back off the main beach strip. If this is almost a full two weeks before Carnival, I really can't imagine what it's going to be like when the true Carnival block parties start up. For dinner we kept it cheap and simple - pastel de carne (basically a deep fried beef turn-over) and something similar to Caldo de Faijao (bean soup) that ended up being more of a side dish with beans, hard-boiled eggs, bacon, and cornmeal. Yum! We both thought it hit the spot.

A sudden downpour brought us back to the hostel and, so, here I sit. Looking forward to calling it an early night (maybe after a quick search for an ice cream cone!) and more fully exploring the city tomorrow.

Ciao for now!

- Lauren