Rio de Janeiro Part 1 and Buzios

Arrived in Rio super early in the morning, and was driven to the hostel in the Botafogo district by an IDIOT taxi driver who couldn't speak Spanish OR English. After being dropped off, we walked up the 500 steps to the reception in the hot, humid evening (almost DIED from the heat) and finally got a decent nights sleep after having to coerce the lady manning the desk to let us have a bed. Played with the monkeys on the roof of the hostel at breakfast - lots of fresh fruit here, which makes a change to the bread and dulce de leche I've been having for the last few months. We took a trip to the Engenhao Stadium, where we tried to buy tickets for the football on Wednesday Fluminense vs Boca Juniors, which was made doubly exciting (apparently) by the fact that it was essentially one of Brazil's top teams against the top team in Argentina.
We didn't actually manage to get any tickets while there, our Portuguese skills were nowhere near good enough, but the staff managed to communicate in broken Spanglish/Portuguese that the tickets were not on sale yet. We're seriously going to struggle here if the locals don't even speak SPANISH....Oh well, we meet the lovely Carla (who I met back in Santiago), and she took us out for "traditional" Brazilian food; quite similar to Greek Meze in style, but definitely does not compare in flavour! Great to see Carla again. She used to work at Christ the Redeemer and still has contacts there, so she's arranged to get us in for free...and because of our absolutely lacking Portuguese skills, she offers to organise the football for us too! How lovely.

The next day we take the very early journey to Buzios. A lovely chilled out atmosphere, and we find that the hostel that we've booked is not only ON the beach. But we have an ocean view too! AMAZING!!! Spend ages looking for a beach that will have a view of the sunset, but the water here is too cold to go in. We have sunbathing time and coconut water to help cool off...yummy!! A lovely restaurant along the boulevard for dinner - the first time I've had fish in a very long time - and some delicious wine that I recognised as one from one of the wineries that I visited in Mendoza. YUMMY.

We woke up to the BEST breakfast in South America so far. Lots of fruit and FRESH ORANGE JUICE!! Spent a few hours on the stunning Feredinho beach on the south of the peninsula in Buzios and then back to Rio for some more fun and frolics!!