Day 64 - On the road

Thursday, 16 October 2014

Today is really a travelling day. I could've taken the night bus from São Paulo to Rio and therefore arrive in the morning and have an extra day in Rio, but I wanted to sleep properly in a bed. It is, after all, the tail end of my travels, and I want to take it easy from now on, especially when I'm not feeling well.

So after breakfast, a shower, and packing all my stuff, at about 9-ish am I took a cab to the Rodovaria bus station. I arrived at about 9.30 am, and there were buses leaving for Rio at 10 am, so I bought a ticket and straight away got on the bus. For once, no waiting! And it was quite a pleasant journey with beautiful mountainside scenery along the way.

I arrived in Rio at about 4.30 pm, and once again I left all my lovely snacks on the bus. Some things I just never learn I guess. And then my now usual modus operandi of getting information from the tourist information counter, and then I took a cab to my hotel. It started getting dark from 5.30 pm onwards, what is going on!

When I was researching where to stay in Rio, one of the things I had to decide was whether to stay near the beach and head out to the town centre and touristy places from there, or stay in the town centre and head out to the beach and touristy places from there. Either way, the touristy places are far away from the beach and from the town centre, and of course, I just have to do it all when I am in a new place. Explore and investigate as much as I can, otherwise what is the point of traveling?

The important beaches are Ipanema and Copacobana (her name was Lola!), and I found a place, reasonably priced, in between both beaches - about 10 to 15 minutes walk to both. So I decided to stay here, the reviews were all good on the usual travel sites. But when I arrived here, I had to climb stairs to get to this place - a lot of stairs - and luckily someone offered to help carry my luggage (for a tip, of course) and the place looked a bit dodgy and I was wondering what the hell have I gotten myself into, and then I finally figured it out (being the sometimes blur nut that I am) - I am staying in a favela! How cool is that! It is a safe favela of course, but a favela no less, and I get to stay here and experience life in a favela in Rio! Sometimes I am a genius without even knowing it.

I must say, that all the accommodation I have chosen thus far have been excellent in the sense that it was perfect for the things that I wanted to do - in Ecuador, Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires and São Paulo, all the places where I booked my own accommodation, it was close to the city centre so I got to walk around on my own and explore the important landmarks, and now here in Rio I stay in a favela! At times like these I love myself.

I decided that I will explore Rio tomorrow, hopefully there are tours available because the places I want to go to are far away from each other, but I will figure it out tomorrow. Today I will shower and spend some time alone with myself.