WE^RE ARRIVED IN RIO!!!

Day 299

Rio De Janeiro, BRASIL South America

$AUD = 1.5 BRL Reais

Yes! We~re in Rio..tired but excited!!!!!

We caught the shuttle bus from Santiago to board the plane at 1pm and arrived in Rio at 18.45.

Our hostel picked us up at the airport which was great. They had our name in lights! Well not really, but the guy had a sign up with our name blazoned on it and we just went off with him and ended up at our hostel, in the middle of Rio de Janerio..so cool to be here..

It~s a hostel so it~s basic..Our room is a private one which is great..but it~s a shared shower and toilet and there is a lot going on here with everyone in the sitting room or on the computers here where i am now..but it~s a good feeling...not as bad as i thought a hostel would be..it~s cheaper than a hotel, but still not as cheap as it would be in offseason..or in Peru (where it~s a lot cheaper than Rio!).

As we drove here to our hostel..

I could hear Peter Allen~s song...

When my baby
When my baby smiles at me
I go to Rio
De Janeiro
my-oh-me-oh
I go wild and then I have to do the Samba
And La Bamba

And we also passed Sugar Loaf Mountain...which is a hugh granite, vertical rock!

We~ll go and get a better view of that...It rises something like 400 metres from the waters dividing the Atlantic Ocean and Guanabara Bay! Massive rock!

It reminded me of Meteora in Greece..that had the monasteries perched on the top!

From the top of Sugar Loaf we were told there is a good view of the Christ the Redeemer statue which really sticks out from wherever you are in the town!

~We went to dinner at a local cafe which had all the chairs and tables on the side street. A few hawkers came and put peanuts on our table but we just refused and anohter few kids came over with different objects and we also just said no to that....

We ordered something in Portuguese, Frango Asada, which ended up being just what we wanted! Chicken...and chips! We felt like some salt after being so healthy for the last couple of weeks eating healthy food! First they came out with this black bean dish which we wondered what to do with..and we ended up looking over at some locals to copy them...

I think that did the trick with the hawkers too...Maybe we looked more like the locals and didn~t get annoyed after that, even though a heap of hawkers kept going by..or they told the others we were mean!

Anyway, we ended up having a great dinner...and realised it was so exciting just to be sitting in the middle of all the happenings here....

So far, really like Rio!

Rioooo......

Such a cool place!

Woh-ho-oh-oh....
When my baby
When my baby smiles at me
I go to Rio
De Janeiro!!!!

BLUE FOOTED BOOBIE BABY! Pic now added!!!!

Look how big this baby is????? That~s the mother behind it!





I have to tell you a bit more about one of the really special galapagos animals..

The BLUE FOOTED BOOBIE BABY!

When we were on Seymour Island...we came across this weird looking wooly, fury, fluffy THING on a rock! Behind it was a bird...that we found out was a Blue Footed Bobbie mother!

No kidding..this baby bird was literally draped across the rock and it quite literally looked Dead. Our firt impression was just that..that there was this pitiful looking bird, overlooking this ball of fluff.















Doesn~t it just look completely flaked out! See the Dad looking on in the background!!



When we asked the guide about this..he said it was a baby bird trying to keep warm from the warmth of the rock!

We looked closer..and that is exactly what it was! It was a baby blue footed boobie bird!

Doesn~t it look so silly - draped there like that!?????