We just boarded our bus to Buzios, Brazil. Lonely Planet says that it is a 3 hour bus ride so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to write about our short time in Copacabana.
After finding Deanna in the Rio airport, which was surprisingly easy, we changed some money and hopped a bus to Copacabana. An hour later we arrived at the beach. The beaches were really packed so we consulted our Lonely Planet book for a good hostel to stay at. We picked one that seemed to be close to where we were and set off to find it.
About an hour later we were still walking around in circles looking for the hostel! My back, legs and feet were killing me! A 9 kilo backpack gets extremely heavy after walking around for an hour! We finally decided to go into an electronics store and and ask if they knew where it was...they didn't, but after all the employees looked at our map and couldn't figure it out they went on to Google and printed us directions on how to get there! About 15 minutes later we found the hostel! I was so relieved to finally be able to put my bags down!
According to Deanna, the hostel we found was pretty nice. It was about $12 US/night for a dorm style room. Our room had 8 beds, a private bathroom and a private kitchen. Thankfully, we only had to share the room with two other girls from Israel. They were a little younger than us and had just finished serving their time in the Israeli army. All in all my first experience at a hostel wasn't too bad. It was pretty much like living at the Kappa house minus Mary Ann cooking every meal for me!
The first night in Copacabana was spent walking down the beach. We stopped at one of the street vendors and had Agua de Coca, a favorite local drink which consisted of them cutting a hole in a cocoanut and sticking a straw in it. After that we walked through the street market and then decided to walk further down the beach to Ipanema for dinner. After dinner we started our LONG journey back to our hostel and crashed!
The next day we went to see Christo Redentor. It was pretty much what you would have expected...a really big statue of Jesus with lots of tourists taking pictures with him. You did get a really good view of the city from up there which was nice.
After seeing the Man, we decided to just go sit on the beach for the rest of the day which was a nice break from all of our walking around. We went to Ipanema because their beaches seemed to be less crowded, rented a chair and set on the beach. It was very relaxing aside from vendors stopping by about every 2 minutes to try and sell you something.
We left the beach and headed back to the hostel for a long rest and shower. We finally got ready and went out with a group from the hostel to a cafe on the beach for Brazilian cocktails...which were rather strong. Our group consisted of 2 Americans (me and Dee), 2 Brazilians, 2 Peruvians and 1 Belgian. It was really entertaining for all of us to try and have a conversation, especially after the strong cocktails! It started pouring down rain so we said goodbye to our new friends and headed back to the hostel to go to bed.
This morning we got up, packed and headed out to catch our bus to Buzios. We have heard that the beaches there are amazing so we thought that we would go check it out. Right now we are planning on staying a few days in Buzios depending on if we like it or not and then heading back to the Copacabana/Ipanema area to conclude my trip to South America. I'll keep you updated on what is going on here! Ciao!
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