After waiting in the bus station for 6 hours, we had a night bus to Sao Paulo with quite comfortable seats. We also had a cool stop at a restaurant (churrascaria)/gas station/store/rest stop which we referred to as the Buc-ee's (a Texas thing) of Brazil. Matt LOVES the meat buffets in Brazil ;-).
We eventually got to Sao Paulo to exchange buses and continued on to Rio where Mike, Kristin's brother, had a driver waiting for us (sign and all) in the bus station. It was great to have a worry-free arrival! Mike has been coming to Rio for the past few years for his job in the oil & gas industry, and we were very excited to make it work so that we were in Rio the same time as him!! It was so great to be around family and have our own personal tour guide and translator for the city.
The next few days in Rio were spectacular!! Rio has such a great vibe. We stayed on Impanema beach and that part of the city feels so clean and friendly. The combination of beaches plus amazing restaurants and a big city feel made this city very unique. We can't say we did even close to all of the touristy things the city offers, but being in and around the city itself was pretty cool. Our days were spent on Impanema and Copacabana beaches in the sunshine.
One day we went out paddle boarding and the view looking back at Impanema was very cool. We thoroughly enjoyed this activity, but it was definitely much harder staying up on the board in the ocean compared to the lake we were used to. And the water was Freezing!!! Matt really seemed to like jumping in the water off the board, aka he fell a lot. He said it was to "cool off" but Kristin knew better ;-).
In addition to enjoying the beaches, we went up to Sugar Loaf Mountain one afternoon to have a view of the city and enjoy the sunset from on top of the mountain. It was also spectacular to watch the sun go down and the city light up with the night lights. Such a cool view!
Once we were done enjoying the views and were about to make our way down, Matt noticed a couple taking pictures and said, "That's Annie and Chris!", two travelers from the States that we "know" through mutual friends. They left 2 days after we did and are on a similar trip. We had been emailing each other at various times during our trip to see if our paths were going to cross. No joke, that day at lunch Matt mentioned that I should send them an email that evening to see where they were since it had been about a month since we chatted. Such a small world running into them in Rio without even knowing the other was there!! We got to meet each other and chat about our trips for a little while.
Our nights were spent hanging out with Mike and enjoying incredible food, some of Rio's best! Our tour guide took us out to a few of Rio's different neighborhoods including Santa Teresa (a very cool town up in the hills with a European feel) and Lapa (one of Rio's "party" areas where locals dance/ party in the streets late at night). Both of us had been craving sushi, but were skeptical of getting it from certain countries, cough cough- Bolivia. Our first night in Rio we went to an amazing sushi dinner, with a sushi boat and all :-). The perfect way to start our stay in Rio.
It was great to not to have to plan a thing while we were there. A nice vacation from our travels. Believe it or not traveling can be quite exhausting. But, we're not complaining! A BIG THANK YOU to Mike and everything he did for us to make our time in Rio so amazing! I think I saw Matt shed a little tear when we had to leave. We both agreed that Rio was our favorite city in South America so far!!
In Rio we had some info from a friend about Terrase Hostel in Ipanema just a block from the beach. It actually worked out that it was only 3 blocks from Mike's hotel as well. Perfect. It was $25 each for a bed in a dorm. We opted for the 10 bed room to avoid the crowded bunk bed situations. Welcome to Brazil and the high prices!!
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