World Cup in Brazil

We couldn’t believe that we had reached our last stop, and our last two weeks of 6 months. Now it was time to enjoy some beach and sun! Only we didn’t know that it was winter in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro..

 

We arrived in Sao Paolo very early in the morning. After a very long line in the airport and a long ride with the bus in rush-hour we were very happy to be able to check-in early and go to sleep. It was surprisingly cold in Sao Paolo so we had to check the weather online. We found out that the weather was a lot better and warmer in Rio. We had already decided not to stay very long in Sao Paolo, but now we wanted to go to Rio right away. We went for a little walk at night and the next day we went to an art museum that was free. It was so cold that we decided to go to Rio the next day.

Sao Paolo by night

We arrived in Rio and the hostel Piratas de Ipanema. It was a small hostel, so when we walked in everyone was very welcoming. We talked to a lot of people right away just cooking dinner. We headed straight to Ipanema beach the next day. For a beach this famous, with prizes of “the world’s best beach”, we were kind of disappointed. The temperature was perfect when the sun was up, but it set really early around 4.00-4.30. The next day we had to get up early to go to the game Brazil- Portugal which was showing in a huge arena built on the Copacabana beach. We were waiting for everyone in the hostel to get up, but finally we almost had to run to the beach, and the line to get in was enormous.

Ready for Brazil - Portugal

We actually got in. There were so many people and all 20 000 people were wearing something yellow or green.

Fifa Fan Fest @ Copacabana beach

We met a norwegian girl named Silje (haha, yeah), a South African named Annesu and an Indian named Vik, who worked at the hoste,l and we all hung out at the game.

Beer + Nightshift + No sleep = Vik sleeping on the beach

There was a lot of beautiful beachart in Copacabana beach.

Art in the sand

The next day we changed hostels to Copacabana hostel in Copacabana. We got a 10 % discount here from the hostel we lived in Sao Paolo and we wanted to have a little bit more luxury the last days of our trip.

Brazil – Chile was playing the next day and we met up with Silje and Annesu there. It was a great game and everyone was extremely happy and partying at the beach.

Heading for Brazil - Chile

The game started 3.30 in the afternoon and we stayed at the beach until 8.30 dancing and having fun at the concert after the game. There were a lot of people there. In Brazil, they close everything for the football-matches; supermarket, schools, restaurants etc..

A big concert after each game

In the Lonely Planet and other travel books it says that we shouldn’t take camera with us anywhere and don’t take anything to the beach. However, we have been bringing our beach bags as usual, but we never leave them and have them close to us at all times. A boy approach us at the beach one day and was talking in portugese to Silje (brunette). He tried to point at her Ipod and wanted to take a look at it. He even started to grab it. She said no and grabbed it tightly in her hand. Then he started to use his hands as a phone and ask if we had a phone and we would get 1 REAL (brazilian money) if he could borrow it. She started to get the picture that this guy was up to no good and just turned away from him. He then turned to Silje (blonde) and asked her for a phone. Luckily, we have a language that few people understand so Silje (brunette) smiled and said to Silje in norwegian that she should watch her things and don’t talk to the boy.

The next day we went to a city-tour. The first stop was a beach where people doing hanggliding and paragliding landed. It was fun to watch a landing. After that we went to a look-out-point of Rio.

A great viewpoint

We drove to the Parque Nacional da Tijuca and saw some funny fruits, monkeys and a beautiful waterfall.

A waterfall in the National Park

People-friendly monkey

The next stop was the famous Christ-statue, Christ the Redeemer. It was enormous. The whole group walked the stairs to the statue, this was nothing compared to all the other seightseeing-stairs we have climbed.

Christ the Redeemer

View of Rio De Janeiro from Christ

After the statue it was time for lunch in Santa Teresa. It is a more cultural neighbourhood with musicians and artists. We saw the famous tram go by as we had lunch.

Next stop was the steps in Lapa. The maker has put tiles from all over the world in the steps and changes them still.

The famous steps in Lapa

Tiles from all over the world, including several from Norway

We thought it was very nice. It represents the colorful and multi-cultural Brazil.

On the side of the stairs

Lapa steps

On top of the stairs

The next day we got up early to go to the quarter-final Brazil – Holland. However, everyone had the same idea and we didn’t get in to the arena. However, at the back of the arena, there was a big screen too. So, we got to watch the game at the beach anyway.

In the break everyone went swimming

At our hostel there were the cutest micos monkeys.

Curious monkeys

The next day we went back to Piratas de Ipanema to a Farmer-party. It was really fun. Priscilla had made many Brazilian treats and there were games like darts, ring-tossing, egg-race etc..

Farmer-party (source: http://www.piratasdeipanema.org)

On Sunday we went to the hippie-market in Ipanema. They had a lot of nice things, but a lot like the market in Copacabana, so not a lot of new things to see for us.

Hippie-marked i Ipanema

We wanted to go to Piratas the last night too, but it was only for the people staying at the hostel, which we understand. So instead we went to Casa Rosa with the Holland girls and an English boy at our hostel. It was Samba-night and you could also buy dinner. We thought it was a restaurant, but it was more like a club. There were so many people there, and they only served Feijoada; traditional Brazilian rice,beans and meat.

Samba @ Casa Rosa

When we got back to the hostel there were some people who were going to the Favela’s (Brazilian word for ghetto, bad neighbourhoods). There were two guys there who looked familiar. We asked them their nationality and it turned out they were norwegian and we remembered seeing them in Cuba. They had just arrived, been traveling for 6 months with almost the same countries as us and were spending their last week in Rio. It was really funny.

The last day we paid for a late checkout and went to the beach all day. We made some food, had a shower and packed our stuff. When we waited for the taxi to the airport we started talking to the bartender, and it turned out that she had worked in DisneyWorld the same year as us. Brazil have a college program like USA in Disney. woooow, what a small world!!

We had no troubles at the airport; no overweight and no extra security checks. We slept a little bit on the way to London. We had overheard some swedish girls saying that they don’t exchange Brazilian Real in Sweden, so we exchanged all of our money in London to pounds and spent them on our last Starbucks and some duty free shopping. We couldn’t believe we were on our way home and we started to talk about our trip, the good and the bad.. Which we decided to put in a last post… to be continued…

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