Rio Rocks!

I love it here, and I am having a blast. I arrived on the night of the 14th, and had a quiet night, since I did not know anyone yet. The hostel is quite large and I did not realize until the following day that I was actually on the 5th floor (since we had taken the elevator up -- no I did not pay attention to the button that was pressed.). This hostel has its own bar and an 8-person hot tub -- nice.

On Thursday there was a trip to a deserted beach -- that turned out not to be so deserted -- but there were no other tourists there, just locals. Before getting to the final beach we stopped off at another beach and saw some cute tiny monkeys in the trees.The beach was about a 40 minute walk from the road, but it was nice to go and play in the waves and just enjoy a beach day with a bunch of people.The hostel provided sandwiches -- I never knew how nice tuna could taste when you are amazingly tired of ham and cheese. The walk back only took about 30 minutes and then we sat at a food stall, enjoyed some coconut juice (water -- whatever) while waiting for the bus. It was a very good day. This is the town or area were we waited for the bus.Friday was again a day of hostel organized events. These were all included in my package for Carnival. So Friday it was a booze cruise around the harbour. Similar to those we did out in Halifax during frosh week, but warmer, and we were able to go swimming. So we spent most of the afternoon enjoying caipirinas and beer while anchored off the coast of Rio surrounded by an amazing tropical view, jumping in the water from the boat and dancing. Great day! But it did not end there. After the boat tour we went back to the hostel for a little down time. Then at midnight we went out to a street party in Lapa (a part of Rio). It was fantastic. Ton and tons of people in the street just having a good time. Food vendors, alcohol vendors, trucks with people dancing in the backs of them, and lots of clubs to go into. We went into one local samba place and had a blast. What a great night. Got back around 4:30 am. Sorry not pics because it was not a safe place to take my camera -- I did take a disposible, so I will have some later.

Today (Saturday) I woke up fairly early and took my laundry in to the cleaners -- it was getting pretty bad. They said it would be done by 2. So I took a walk along Copacabana (yep like the song) beach. I had not yet explored my area and I decided that that would be fun. On my walk I came across a truck with 3 kids aiming water guns at it -- so I had to watch to see what would happen. About a minute later 3 women appeared covered in mud and the kids raced to clean them with their water guns -- quite funny.Then after picking up my laundry I headed over to Sugar Loaf. It is a mountain with a great view of the city, and a cable car that runs up it.The morning had been prefectly clear, but the afternoon was a little cloudy, which made the view very cool, as the clouds keep drifting past. I kept trying to get a good picture of the Christ statue, but it was only visible for a few seconds at a time. Very cool to look at -- but hard to photograph. The view of the city was often quite clear. This is Copacabana Beah (at least a little of it).Sugar Loaf was more interesting then I expected, because in addition to the views there was also a great walking path at the top with a pretty bamboo forest and nice flowers -- which I liked. Also in the gift shop at the top they sold amazing animals carved out of semi precious stones -- very cool.Not sure what I will be up to tonight, or tomorrow, but I know it will be good fun.