The Last Hurrah

23rd - 27th September 2012

So after a boat back to mainland and a pretty short bus journey later we had left 'paradise' and were on the way to our last stop - Rio de Janeiro! We arrived about 6pm on Sunday 23rd September that evening but had no plans apart from a wander around the neighbourhood where we were staying and dinner. Slight disaster this turned out to be!! Firstly I hold my hands up - we had gotten plenty of advice from people telling us to stay in Copacabana or Ipanema regions so what did we do - ignore it! Well not exactly but we were struggling to find a place with availability for the nights we wanted with a private room and at a reasonable price so when we stumbled upon our hostel, sick of researching we just decided to book it. However the location was crap (for anyone who knows Rio it was on the outskirts of the Santa Teresa region) and there was nothing around! After walking for AGES we eventually found a globally recognised international restaurant to tantalise our taste buds - nah not really, we ended up eating in McDonald's! The shame. Bad food day! We didn't go any further afield than our own crappy area that night so it was not the most successful of days!

The next morning we were up at a reasonable hour (had rubbish breakfast in the hostel) and as the weather was good, we decided a visit to the Big Jesus was the order of the day.  On the way we dropped our last laundry load off at the laundromat - an embarrassing experience due to us having to stand there while a dude counted and sorted our dirty clothes - literally airing our dirty laundry in public, eww!!

Visiting the big JC was the one thing the location of our hostel was good for and we could walk to the tram to bring us to the top of the mountain. There was a pretty long queue and we ended up meeting a guy that we met in Iguacu while we were waiting. The views from the top of the mountain were amazing! Rio looked fantastic from up there.

View of Rio from Christ the Redeemer

Christ the Redeemer was pretty impressive but there were just too many people for such a small area. As we hadn't being in such a large city in weeks (probably since La Paz, Bolivia in August actually), our tolerance for large crowds was pretty low! Also I think the photos taken from helicopters above the statue are more impressive than the angle we had! Either that or after all we have seen over the past few months, we are hard pleased now!  

Typical tourist pose!

Afterwards it was lunch and collecting laundry time!  Then we got the bus to the Ipanema region which was a beach area. Now we did get advice to stay here (which was good advice!) but we couldn't find availability at a proper price. When we arrived and saw the area I was gutted we weren't staying here as it was fab! We messed around on the beach and watched the sunset before indulging in some beach-side caiprinihas.

Ipanema beach for sunset

And then begun the pilgrimage to find a restaurant for dinner. After about a 2 hour walk we found countless buffets and eat by weight 'restaurants'. I say 'restaurants' as according to Ronan, they largely represented the canteen at the mart in Ballinasloe! Obviously we weren't eating there. Finally we found stumbled upon a small backstreet Italian and actually ended up having an amazing meal but it came with a very large price tag! We got the bus back to our hostel afterwards which was an experience in itself due to the Brazilian style of driving. They basically have two ways of driving - either foot slammed down on the accelerator like a brick or foot slammed down on the brake like a brick.  Even if they are pulling off from a bus-stop and have to stop 10 feet away at traffic lights, they accelerate as quickly as they can before slamming on the brake just before the lights. So when I had to stand on the bus on the way home I was literally chucked about like a rag doll....

The next day was 25th September and we were doing the flavellas tour (tour of the slums).

Rocinha - the slum we visited

I was unsure about doing the tour as it seemed sort of voyeuristic - I wasn't sure if we should be making a tourist attraction out of other people's misfortune. I'm not sure what we were expecting from the flavellas but we had heard about the terrible living conditions, the poverty and the crime so we definitely weren't expecting a small community with shops, banks, restaurants, satellite tv dishes and even wifi!

Viewpoint in the flavellas - blue dots are the satellite dishes!

Flavellas version of McDonalds!

To be honest calling them slums or flavellas is an insult and they are really small communities. They weren't dangerous and just looked like a normal neighbourhood bar the fact the houses were super close together so no cars can drive down the narrow alleyways. We learned that the people who live in the flavellas are very often the people working in hotels, restaurants and all manner of service industries so all very respectable! It was fairly interested learning about the culture in this little communities even though the tour was nothing like we expected.

Graffiti in the flavellas - spot Cead Mile Fáilté

Narrow walkways through the flavellas

After the tour the weather was nice so we decided to hit the beach in Copacabana for the afternoon.  Afterwards we wandered around Copacabana and watched the sunset again before the rain started.

Copacabana beach

Amazing sandcastles

We begun the now-dreaded search for somewhere to eat dinner. Without going into details of how hungry Nicole dealt with walking around for hours in the rain looking for food, suffice to summarise with the fact we ate in KFC that night. I've never eaten in KFC before (even at home where there is one five minutes away) and hope I don't need to again!

Our second last day dawned wet and miserable. So after an equally miserable breakfast we decided to go back to bed for a lie-in seeing as there isn't much to do in Rio in the rain! We headed to a massive shopping centre called Rio Sul for the afternoon and by 3pm I was already dreading having to find somewhere to eat! When we got to the shopping centre Ronan declared he would love BBQ ribs! I replied asking if he remembered the last few days and he should count himself lucky to eat anything that's not fast food! We saw a sign for a steak house (Outback Steakhouse) on the way in but lo and behold do you think we could find it, no!! We continued looking around the shops for a while and when we reached what I think was the 7th floor we spotted the steak house! What was more it wasn't open but there was a massive queue so we figured it must be good. Then to my amazement they had BBQ ribs so Ronan got his wish against all the odds!!

On our last day we wandered around a few different areas of the city that we hadn't seen. My favourite thing happened as we wandered around the city centre - we found the Rio equivalent of Bewley's, Confeitaria Colombo - a really fancy beautiful art deco cafe! After a terrible few food days in Rio we had two nice meals in a row. Got a really fancy brunch and some speciality teas and passed a fabulous couple of hours people watching. It was pretty expensive especially when they tried to sell us paper placemats for €8 each but it was worth the expense for a lovely relaxing afternoon.

The Bewley's of Rio!

I think I look pretty happy to be here!

We visited Lapa which is where the famous street parties usually happen on the weekends but I can honestly say this was the first area in Rio that we didn't feel safe! Even in the middle of the afternoon. There was a massive police presence between police walking on patrol, on horses, in cars and the area still had a very bad vibe. We stumbled upon a really cool church though so it was worth it for that! So all way a really nice way to pass our last day in Rio with no hotel room!! It was time to leave for the airport around 7pm due to heavy traffic and we were in the air on the way home at 11pm.

The arches of Lapa where the street parties happens on the weekends

Cool church

Outside of church

The feeling of leaving for home was soooo strange. I was excited about going home and seeing everyone but also sad that our amazing adventure was over and that we would probably never do anything like this again!

This is the last photo taken on our honeymoon. I think it captures the excitement we felt at coming home but there was a tint of sadness there aswell!

Last photo of the honeymoon taken in the airport