Rio y Ilha Grande

At the copa, copacobana...
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As I write today there is a tropical storm outside!  I was a little worried that I wouldn´t have any stupid stories to tell this week, but luckily today that all changed!  I headed to the beach this morning intent on catching some rays and reading my book for a while, which I did manage to do (my very pink chest can confirm that).  However, I also managed to fall asleep on the beach, only to be woken by the sea coming at me, sweeping away my bag, complete with ipod and camera in, down the beach!  Luckily nothing seems to be broken, apart from my dignity and pride - two bikini clad Brazillian girls found it hilarious!

Marcel
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Anyway, what have I been up to in Brazil...  Well I got here about two weeks ago and have spent the majority of time on the beach - Rio has some great beaches!  Although everyone talks about Copacabana beach, it isn´t actually the nicest - it´s quite dirty and not good for swimming.  Ipanema  beach is much nicer - very clean, great sand, clean (but cold!) water and most importantly, lots of Brazillian girls!

hiking up and down 5 miles of mountainous jungle terrain pretty much killed me!

Sugar Loaf mountain
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Aside from the beaches, I went up Sugar Loaf mountain to get a great view fo the city, and had a run-in with a monkey (who looked like Marcel from friends)!  To get the cable car is quite expensive (around 15 pounds) but the views are spectacular, especially if it is a clear day (incredibly rare!).  The other major tourist attraction is of course Christ Redeemer, but I am yet to make it because clouds are usually hiding him so I doubt the view from up there would be too good!  Hopefully it will be nicer weather before Thursday, when I leave for Lima, so I can pay him a visit.

In front of the Maracan stadium, which used to hold 200,000 people!
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As I am attempting to go to a football match in every country I visit, it was only right that I went to a match at the Maracanã stadium (which used to be the largest stadium in the world).  I went to see Botafogo against Flamengo, and it was quite possibly the worst game of football I have ever seen!  No fancy skills or any Brazillian football that you would expect from, er, a Brazillian football match!  It was decided by a late penalty, so it finished 1-0 to Flamengo.  Of course the match that I could have gone to this week ended 5-2 to flamengo, and had 60,000 at the match (twice as many as when I went)!  Although the match was crap, the day out was great - the beer was well and truly flowing right up until the next morning - in fact I had breakfast before I went to bed!

Inside the Maracan stadium, which on this day only held 30,000 people...
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The hostel I have been staying in in Rio is really nice, cheap basic rooms, with a great free breakfast and an excellent atmosphere.  I´ve met loads of great people here and actually ended up travelling to the island Ilha Grande with about 7 or 8 people from the hostel!  Ilha Grande - what a place!  It´s like a carribean island that hasn´t been ruined by tourism.  There are no cars (apart from the police buggy!) and there are over 50 beaches to choose from, although some are almost impossible to reach.

One of the many beaches on Ilha Grande
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After a relatively short (3 hours) bus ride we got a fishing boat across to the island and found a hostel with free rooms.  The place was called ´Over Nativa´ and is brilliant - the lady who runs it is so friendly and treats everyone like her children!  She spends about 3 hours a day cooking food for everyone and really looks after you!  The hostel also has a free pool table and you can take your own alcohol into the place so it made for a great place to start the evenings.

View of the main town on Ilha Grande
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There isn´t a great deal to do on the island at nighttime, although there are a few bars and it´s not hard to find the bar that all the backpackers are visiting as it is the only bar with backpackers in it!  We managed to find such a bar on the first night and I also managed to get very drunk on what turned out to be very strong caiparinhas!

The hangover that followed was fairly horrific in itself, but hiking up and down 5 miles of mountainous jungle terrain pretty much killed me!  This was the first real trek I had done, and good practice for teh Inca Trail, but my god I felt so damn rough!  The first 2km was pretty much straight up, and involved leaping up and across rocks and tree roots, and was pretty damn tough.  The feeling that I got when we reached the first beach after the first 2km was of sheer elation - and my headache and hangover instantly disappeared when I went in the sea!  The rest of the trek wasn´t so bad, and at the end of it all was the reward of Lopez Mendes beach - reckoned to be one of the 10 best beaches in the world.  I would have probably agreed if the sun was shining when we finally reached it, the sand was so fine that it squeeked under foot when walking, and the sea was so clear.  The palm tree surroundings also added to its beauty, but unfortunately the sun didn´t shine for us!  Word of warning though - the current in the sea is extremely strong here, and the waves are pretty big too (I almost got into a bit of trouble, and one of the guys I was with also had problems!), so take it easy if you go there, especially as you will have just finished a 3 hour trek so legs are already tired!

Just after we had got to the first beach on our hike (hangover-free!)
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Whilst on the island I also went on a boat trip to Lagoa Azul (Blue Lagoon) to do some snorkelling.  I managed to find many Nemo´s and some other really cool fish.  Unfortunately I missed the group of turtles that other people on the trip saw, but I was still suitably impressed!  We also stopped off at two very nice chilled out beaches and saw some houses that have their own private beaches and would be great to live in until you need to do the food shopping... its a long walk to the main town!

I was extremely impressed with the island, and would highly recommend going if you get the chance (I seem to be saying that in every blog entry!).  Instead of getting another slow fishing boat back to the main land, we decided to go for the luxury speedboat option!  This was about 8 times quicker and was far more fun!  I got back to Rio a couple of days ago, and have planned to do some sightseeing since. Unfortunetely I got dragged out a couple of nights ago for a couple´s last night here and ended up not getting back til half 6 in the morning, which pretty much ruined any chance of seeing any sights yesterday, and today the weather hasnt been good enough!  So maybe tomorrow...

I leave for Peru on Thursday afternoon, where I start my 42 day tour round Peru, Bolivia, Western Argentina and Chile.  I´m not sure how good the inet access is going to be in Peru and Bolivia so don´t be surprised if I don´t post any photos or blog entries for a while!

Hope it´s not too cold in England,

James x