Hey Travelfeed and Hive Friends,
if you read my last story ( part 1: @onlyanna88/first-journey-alone-why-not-go-to-brazil ), you know that I flew to Brazil alone in 2021. Here is part 2 of my story. The next stop of my trip shall be Rio de Janeiro.
A must if you come to Brazil. I took the ferry back to the mainland and during the first taxi ride, I saw how beautiful Rio de Janeiro was, surrounded by green mountains, the sugarloaf, and the Corcovado mountain with the Christo statue on it, which you can see from far away.
My first hostel was supposed to be in the art district of Rio, Santa Teresa. Looking back I can say that it was a good choice and that Santa Teresa is one of the most beautiful districts of Rio de Janeiro.
Of course, I looked at the tourist hotspots of Rio in the first days.i I started with The stairs of Selaron , because it was 200 m from my hostel. The tiled staircase bears the name of the artist Jorge Selarón. The Escadaria Selarón is made up of and decorated with tiles, ceramic tiles from all over the world, and pieces of mirrors. It consists of over 2,000 bricks and tiles, mostly in the colors yellow, green, and blue (like the Brazilian flag, by the way). Really beautiful!
I walked to the world-famous Copacabana beach, tried a cheese on a skewer there, for a cheese fan like me an absolute must, and of course drank a Caipirinha on the beach. I went to a flea market in Ipanema. I rattled off every second-hand shop in town anyway, so I felt like I saw every corner of the city.
And then of course at the Christo statue, for my taste, it was all much too touristy, which is to be expected in a city of millions, with so many visitors. But it annoyed me a bit to have my temperature measured 8 times😵💫But the view made up for everything, the city looked almost unreal from up here.
The Christo statue is 30 meters high and stands on an 8-meter high pedestal in which there is a chapel. and was in 1931 completed on the 710-meter-high mountain Corcovado.
I can recommend Rio de Janeiro to everyone, a very beautiful city with charm, there is something new to discover on every corner. But of course, you also see a lot of poverty in the favelas between the parts of the city, and homeless people just lying on the street. I heard you can also book bus tours through these favelas, I found it kind of tasteless, the people must feel like animals at the zoo. If the proceeds go to the benefit of the people, it's something else again, but I don't think that the poor people benefit and I didn't book it.
I don't even remember how long I was in Rio, but at some point I had enough of the big city and all the traffic, every 2 cars in Rio felt like a taxi. I kept talking to people throughout my trip and asked which corners I absolutely had to see, the talk was always about Buzios and especially Cabo Frio .I was very surprised how well I got along in the country without Portuguese language skills, the Portuguese on the street whom I kept asking for directions, none of them spoke English but helped me with all their possibilities. They were always incredibly friendly and with the help of Hands and feet, we understood each other anyway.
So I took the bus to Cabo Frio, Brazil has a great bus system, you can get anywhere cheaply. I was also looking forward to the nice bus ride with the great view.
I got to know a nice couple from Canada in the first few days and did a lot with them. We went on a boat trip together and had a boat party! we started drinking at 9 o'clock in the morning. Caipirinha, beer, Champaign ...everything 😑The boat tour was really really nice, we made repeated stops to snorkel at a beautiful white sandy beach. We really had a lot of fun, the hangover the next day was anything but nice.
We did a lot together, drove to different beaches, someone told us of a kind of crevice in the jungle, the swallowing stone. (Pedra de Angola) a really small crevice between 2 stones where you had to slide in. unfortunately I don't have my video of that day more. but we all squeezed through and were able to swim back to the exit under the stone in which there was a small lake. Really adventurous and cool, especially if you didn't know exactly what to expect "inside".
After 2-3 weeks the Canadian couple left, they were traveling by bike and wanted to go further inland I wanted to stay by the sea and wanted to go on to Buzios. Arrived in Buzios I had to realize that I didn't get any more money from my credit card, I hadn't thought about anything else at first and went to the nearest bank, there again no money. I was getting a bit more concerned and checked online what was the matter because I was sure that I still had enough money on it. I always made a rough note of my expenses. I was shocked to find out in the hostel that I was in the minus 2000euro with the credit card, the limit was exhausted, I was shocked and couldn't explain it. I called my bank and had to hear from the incompetent employee that I didn't have my finances under control😠Of course I called everyone crying and asked what I should do now and that I didn't know where the money went. I called my Canadian friends if they could help me, and they said yes and arrived in Buzios 2 or 3 days later. until then I could pay for my hostel with Paypal and lived on crackers and fruit because I only had 15 euros in cash haha.🙀
I kept calling my bank...finally, after 2 days it turned out to be 180 euros were repeatedly deducted over days until the card was completely scooped out. My credit card was hacked by someone. Before I knew it, my girlfriend had given me money again, which was gone again the next day.
Countless weeping calls home and to the bank that my credit card was hacked. Since I called my bank about 2000 times I still had a mobile phone bill of 470 euros, I didn't think about that simple phone calls to Germany being so expensive. I definitely learned a lot from it, I've only paid for everything in cash since then.it really wasn't a nice feeling to be completely broke abroad, luckily someone was able to help me. By the way, months later, after a long bureaucracy, I got my money back from the bank in full. After the shock, there was of course a lot of caipirinha with my Canadian friends.
Thank you who has read up to here,
I would really appreciate a like and a comment!
And have you ever been broke abroad? How did you manage? Let me know!
In the third and last part, I will write about my favorite place of the whole trip Arraial do Cabo. If you want to know what I experienced there (1 really embarrassing story anyway) please subscribe to my page :)
Greetz
Anna 🥰