The last few days have been very relaxing. A few days on the beach sunning ourselves, exploring the town by foot, going shopping and we also had a sneaky watch of the new Eclipse film!
The copacabana beach and Ipanema beach and all connected in a long stretch of blue sea and palms. The current here is so stong is quite intimidating, we haven't swam yet.. partly because of Liz's streams of facts about shark attacks in Rio! All along the beaches are beautiful tiled stretches of pathway, they have two different patterns. The famous pattern all along the copacabana is supposed to represent the waves on the sand, it's very beautiful. As with all streets in Rio they are tiled... Very unstable! - but very beautiful.
I still cannot get over how much colour there is in this city. Everyone seems alive and full of passion. On Tuesday we walked up through Botofogo and up to Jardim Botanico, there is a large botanical garden which has lots of huge beautiful trees and plants and we enjoyed getting lost for a bit, this is all hidden in the mass of this big city. We saw; huge ants with leafs, gross bugs, hummingbirds, and parrots!
On Wednesday we went to see Eclipse with Portugese subtitles, and the Brazilian's get just as excited about it as we do! Yesterday we went to the beach in the morning and then walked back through Ipanema to the Museo de Indio which has exhibits all about the lives of the indiginous people from around this area. Again, so much colour, something we seemed to have missed out on in England. However one thing is in this city there is so much traffic, the roads are huge and busy and driving is rather erratic. You are never far from a big road which can be exhausting and make you feel a little as if you're walking along the M25.
We have all developed an addiction to the reems of fresh fruit that we have around here, mangos, pineapple, passion fruit, watermelon, strawberries, acai and guarana. Though I have found a shop that sells Earl Grey tea bags.... well you can take the girl out of England, but not England out of the girl!
Today we walked around the cost from Botafogo to centro and then caught va lovely rickety tram (it's free if you hang off the sides and dont sit inside!) up the hill to Santa Theresa, which is underneath Jesus :) It is full of pretty architecture and has a much calmer Portugese feel to it than the busy latin feel of the city. We met some interesting people, we seem like a comodity here, we were stopped by local boys to take photos with because we're white girls! We had the same when we went to Maracana, we were stopped by schooil children and giggled at because we're English!
At home at the hostel..'home' is definately the word. It's lovely here, music, sofas, friends! We have met some lovely people here and most nights consist of dinner, drinks and late night chats about everything. From how our countries differ, to learning songs in other languages, the best dance clubs, how to insult people in other languages and whether love is real! Our conversations seem to get more deep the later it is and the more Caiprinhas have been drank!
All in all having a lovely time, getting a little tanned (I know!) and enjoying the experience wholly! Hope everyone is ok at home!
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