Advanced Tourism 301

Oi! from Rio. We have been MIA, not because we've been mugged, but because we're a little surprised that we love the city so much. We've been busy pretty much from sun-up to sun-up. We're at the point in the trip where work and home feel like a distant memory. The cellphone withdrawal shakes have finally subsided and I'm jealous of all the folks we meet who are traveling indefinitely.

Our hostel is sick. 1 block from the beach in a really nice (safe) part of Ipanema and the people here are incredibly friendly, even by hostel standards. We had a big group of new friends literally within an hour of arriving. In the mornings, we roll out of bed and get a group together for lunch or a tour or the beach. There's always an afternoon siesta and then we all hang out again starting at our hostel's happy hour and into the evening's fiestas. Last night for New Year's, we rolled 20 deep down to Copacabana and managed not to lose anyone, but that's another post.

A couple days ago, 3 of us, Selin, myself, and Chris, otherwise known as the Giant German, arranged for a private tour of a neighborhood called Santa Tereza. We met our guide early in the morning, but she showed up to tell us that she had to cancel because her mom was very ill. Completely unprepared, we decided that it would be fun to try to do it ourselves. Since were were expecting a guide, we hadn't done any reading on what to see or how to get there, let alone brought a map. Therefore, it was dubbed Advanced Tourism 301. Selin found a bootleg map at a hotel and we navigated the public transportation, including a rickety old tram that locals think is a Disneyland ride, and made it to Santa Tereza. We stumbled into a few of the sights, most importantly, the stairs featured in Snoop's "Beautiful" music video. Naturally, I booty shaked in his honor while Selin sang.

Feeling confidant about our super awesome navigation skillz, we decided to hit up the nearby downtown. Much sketchier. Thank god for the Giant German. We identified 3 sights to see, and hit up the first 2, aqueducts and a cathedral without any issues. We thought were were sailing through the course and then it started to pour-- crazy, mudslide inducing, road washing out, wet t-shirt contest, bone soaking, rain. Oh, and we had no idea what we were looking for. Sambodrome f-ed us. It was on our not-to-scale bootleg map and looked like it was close. We must have stopped to ask oh, 5 people where to go and they all said different things. After wandering around in the downpour for, I don't know, 2 hours, we finally found the damn thing and had a good laugh at ourselves. We looked ridiculous, cabs wouldn't even stop, but so much fun.

Ciao for now!