Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Churrascaria? Don't mind if I do!!

Right, so, following on from the Favela tour Kate and I thought the sensible thing would be to organise our life for the next two weeks and attempt to book some bus tickets out of Rio.  We got dropped off at the back end of Copacabana and headed to the Information centre to find out where to buy bus ticket; no help!! So we pretty much try 12 travel agents along the way who only book tours and flights... and it was only after about an hour that we were given an address for a bus ticket company.

Result!!  With a small sense of achievement it is definitely time for a beer!!! (still yet to buy the tickets).  So we found a small Brazilian cafe with probably the worst toilet so far and most likely Cockroaches all over the place.  However; it turned out to be the most entertaining lunch that we’d had so far as it involved a game of charades to order:
Griff: ‘How do you say “eggs” in Portuguese?’
Me: ‘erm... eggs??’
This was then followed by 2 minutes of chicken noises, oval shapes and pretty much looking like idiots while the every other Brazilian in the place was having a good old laugh at the tourists.  Although, success!! We managed to get everything that we wanted along with a litre bottle of Skol to wash it all down with.

Another hour down and the bus tickets were purchased for the next morning.  So, the plan: bus to Ilha Grande; which is a small island off of the coast South of Rio, stay there for 3 days and then a boat and bus to paraty (small town further south) for a night and then a mammoth bus ride to Foz da Iguazu on the Argentina/Brazil/Paraguay border.
Time for some beach action!!  Took the bus to Ipanema; however the clouds had well and truly rolled in, so we chilled out for a couple of hours with a beer, watching a load of Brazilian kids playing beach football and realised that after doing nothing for a few hours it was time to eat again!!  Where else to take Kate for a slap up meal in Rio?? Churrascaria!!  After about half an hour it was pretty much physically impossible to eat anything else, so took an easy walk back to the hostel, had a bit of a nap and got ready to meet up with Gui for a night in Lapa.

Got to Lapa with a couple of guys from the hostel and headed to ‘Casa da Cachacas’.  Dirty looking Brazilian bar with a list of over 50 different cachacas; and absolutely dirt cheap!  Met up with Gui and a few of his amigos and after a quick catch-up headed across to the road to another bar with about 20 pool tables crammed inside.  A few hours, few games of pool and several beers later, Kate and I had to leave as we had an early bus booked for the morning; although we were very close to the point of no return and should have bit the bullet, sunk another beer and powered through!!

There’s always next time!!!!

x





No comments:

Post a Comment