adamerika

Ipanema was very touristy and not as clean as we believed it would be. There were parts of the town with great shopping, beautiful eateries and dinning spots and great botique hotels. We showed up for the last few days of the Carnival celebration, after the parties but before everyone left the city so we were warned that finding a place to sleep would either break the bank or be near impossible.

We found a row of hostels all in the same area and settled on "Girl from Ipanema Hostel" where we were given the suite for the first two nights. The place started off as cool, lots of fellow travelers from all over the world including some hilarious Australians who kept us laughing in the common room. "Crap hit the fan" when we had to move to a double room upstairs that had a squeeking fan, impossible bed wtih a rubber mattress cover, pink walls, a common bathroom to share with 10, and the weather was smoking hot at night. We slept about 1 hour and mostly from an overdose of Xanex because we were sweating, the fan was screaming and the rubber mattress cover gave me radiation sickness, not Adam though cause he slept on the suitcase and twin bed sitting up--literally.

The tourist highlights were Sugar Loaf where we had a great view of the beaches and bays and Christ the Redeemer where we took piccys wtih Jesus from above the city. More on this later!