Show Me the Way Outta San Jose

It's about a nine hour flight from Rio to San Jose, including the one hour lay-over in Panama.  This gave us ample time to do some research (timely, I call it) and it was about then that I read that in order to get of San Jose (which every single review, comment and article highly recommended you do), you need to book your bus ticket in advance.  Perhaps that research could have been more timely.  When we got to our hotel however, the very efficient guy at the counter, on hearing of our plan to leave the next morning, promptly called the bus company and booked our tickets.  Problem solved!

We travelled up to St Helena/Monteverde, a small town nestled in the mountains.  The trip into the mountains on ever-decreasing quality roads went through some beautiful country but the main attraction in this region is the cloud forest where you can go on canopy walks (or tarzan swings if you remembered to pack your loin cloth) and get to see the forest from all perspectives.  Nonetheless, when the first thing the guide showed us was a dead orchid, we did wonder what kind of exotic paradise we were going to be seeing.  But the views were great:

The place is full of wildlife.  Apparently, Costa Rica has more birdlife diversity than the USA and Canada combined and more wildlife diversity than the USA and Europe combined.  I reckon most of this diversity was right outside my hut and I can tell you - these animals didn't avoid extinction by putting their heads down and keeping schtum - you need to hear the  racket at 4.30 am to believe it.  In addition to the external cacophony, there was some strange mouse-like creature (possibly a mouse) in my room, which, when I ushered it out, made a lot of noise about wanting to come back in again.  I guess it was cold...

And there are a lot of hummingbirds:

The town also has one of the coolest restaurants I've ever seen:

Yup, that's me.  In a tree.  And very relaxing it was too!

Rio Window

We decided to do some of the more obvious tourist things during our first stint in Rio before the city got really busy.

Ipanema 

So, we took a stroll down Copacabana beach and then around to Ipanema .

The beaches and the road along them were teeming with joggers and walkers and people playing volleyball or beach football.  And this is all before 8.00 am.

Now these are amazing beache,s but I was disappointed not to run into Lola or the Girl From...


The other must-do in Rio, is to get the view from the high vantage points from where the city's amazing layout can be seen.  Apart from having to battle all the zany people imitating crucifixion poses, the view is spectacular.

Ipanema

View out to Sugar Loaf Mountain

Cristo Redentor

It's easy to see why the harbour was named as one of the natural wonders of the world.

Apparently the statue was the biggest art deco monument in the world until 2010 when some pesky Poles built an even bigger Jesus...


















That's the good in Rio.  The bad?  They all speak Portuguese.  Very quickly.  The ugly?  Our attempts at it.  Just recharging a phone card was some task!  I'm pointing at a poster and saying "Recarga" and they're asking me what sounds like "Chim?" which I'm thinking is a number or a question, so I'm saying "Vinte" (Twenty).  Well, it turns out that "Chim" is how you pronounce Tim, which is one of the telcos here.  So basically, they were shouting the equivalent of "Telstra or Optus" at me and I was enthusiastically shouting "Twenty" back to them.  You can see that this conversation didn't go anywhere fast.  But it is all good natured.

Rio was surprisingly quiet but I suspect most people are just hunkering down before the month-long festivities start.  It will be interesting to see how different it is on our return but for now, it's off to Costa Rica.

Blame it on Rio

Hearing the announcement, "Will passengers Abraham and Henry please make themselves known to airport staff" is not the ideal way to start a holiday but that's how it was.

There had been a delay at security as Paul got detained for attempting to bring a Swiss Army knife onto the plane.  Apparently this is the second such knife he has lost.  I reckon he must have a trophy room somewhere in the airport.  And this was in spite of him knowing, and chatting at length to, one of the guys on the security counter.  And then we just really needed a coffee...  

So having clambered onto the plane looking very much like those annoying people who cause delays, we set off.  For Auckland.  All I can tell you about New Zealand is that we were made to get off the plane, go through security and get back onto the SAME plane.  They obviously don't trust Australian security.  I could have told them, "Look, there's no need for this - they were all over my mate's Swiss Army knife" but thought better of it.  

From there it was a numbing 14 hour flight on to Santiago and then another 4 hours on to Rio.  

When we got to our apartment, first we couldn't work the lift - it was tricky - it had an outward swinging door, so we went up to the 7th floor and back to the ground floor passing some bemused people waiting for the lift on the way.  And if the doorman thought we were clowns then, he thought we were something truly special when we then couldn't open our apartment door.  It turned out that there were 2 doors to our apartment - both with 702 on them mind you, and we were trying to open the wrong one.  Because that's obvious in the dark, isn't it...

So when I say blame it on Rio, what I really mean is we're just idiots but when you have views like this from your window, it hardly matters: