At the Copa, Copacabana...

We flew from Foz de Iquasso to Rio de Janeiro the day after a serious airplane crash that occured near Manaus, so we arrived especially early to the airport only to find ourselves the second people there. Apparently, the accident had not affected travel outside the major cities.

We took a bus from the airport to Copacabana and our first view of Rio at night was a large park full of Futbol (soccer) games. We hiked with our packs on to the hostel which was to give us the keys to the 2 bedroom flat we reserved, but were told we would not get the flat but we could have a private room full of bunk beds and a shared bathroom. Danny was not arriving until the following day and it was late, we were tired so we stayed there in a smelly, dirty, room right by the gate so we could here everyone coming and going. It was the fist time in almost a month of travelling that over three months of travelling seemed like too much! Are we getting too old for hostels???

Danny arrived the following day (after two hours of walking around lost with his pack) and we found an awesome flat closer to the beach! The highlights from our four days in Rio were a tour of H. Stern (jewelry maker), Nate and Danny Hang gliding (landing on a beach from 2000 feet up a mountain), seeing the city from Corcovado, finding a cafe that we loved (Chocolate waffles with Nutella and ice cream for breakfast), playing beach soccer with the locals and seeing a Fla vs Flu soccer game in the middle of some crazed fans. The fans started cheering and bouncing around 1/2 hour before the game started and only paused at halftime to sit for a few minutes. Danny has great video footage of one of the goals that he will add when he gets back to the states. The only negative incident was a spark from a flare landing in Kristy´s hair, burning a small patch of hair.

We found Rio to have more characteristics of a big city with lots of people, dirt and had a foul odor. We were expecting more of a beach town and less of a big city. It was also difficult to communicate in Portugese even with our Spanish background. The majority of people were not willing or able to help and smiles were not abounding there. We began to use the thumbs up which is huge here and upon returning we are going to see if we can have it catch on in the states.