Rio de Janeiro

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One week in and all is well.  After 24 hours of flying around South America we finally arrived in Rio.  This place is crazy!  Upon leaving the airport you are immediately driven through the "Favelas" which are the shanty towns that are often representative of Rio's poverty (These are the places where the movie "City of God" was filmed).  

Our hostel is located about six blocks from Copacabana beach.  This area, as well as Ipanema, are like a completely different world from the initial impressions of Rio.  The streets are lined with multi story housing complexes, so the density of people in these areas is amazing.  At any given time of the day or night it is so crowded you might think that you were in Manhattan at rush hour.  Thus doing anything from shopping to crossing the street takes some getting used to, particulary since red lights in Rio are just a suggestion.  To add to the whole scene it is also about 96 degrees with 80% humidity everyday, and our hostel does not have air conditioning.

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We have made our way around our small section of the city nicely.  The bus system is awesome and will take you where ever you need to go.  We made it up to the the "Christ the Redeemer" statue which provided a stunning view of the city, and we have also had a chance to tour around some of the quieter and more peacefull neighborhoods.  We have loved the local cusine, which primarily consits of buffet returants where you pay for your food by the Kilo (imagine the implicaitons of such a system in the US...)  Overall in a short time we have experienced a nice slice of life in the city.

Tonight we are taking an 18 hour bus ride down to the island of Florianopolis where we will be chilling on the beach for the next two weeks.  After Florianopolis we have decided to skip our plane ticket to Santiago and go to Buenos Aires instead, so our itinerary has changed a bit.  Our plan is to bus from Buenos Aires across Argentina to Santiago to catch our next flight to Peru in a month and a half. 

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We are doing great, and hope that everyone this reaches is doing well too.  Our next journal will come from the beaches of Florianopolis.  Take care everyone!

PS.  We are trying to figure out the best way to post pictures, so it will probably be a few more days before we are able to post the Rio Picture. Please check them out because they will tell a much better story than a few paragraphs.