rio

i got to rio right after new years, because i couldn't (didn't wanted) to pay the prices they asked for hostels over that period! in the bus there, i saw a friend i met before, so when we got to rio we decided to get to the same hostel, with me was a friend from slovakia i met in the hostel in sao paulo and with him his sister and a friend, with advises from others we went to the "stone of a beach" hostel, we were lucky and all found beds, all the others didn't visited rio before so we decided to see all the big tourist attractions together, but the weather was manly cloudy the first days so it didn't made much sense to go up those famous hills to see the panorama, when you can't see anything! someone at the hostel told us that there was an market which was nice, and told us directions to get there, but even after about 2 hours walking in a circle, we couldn't find that misterios market, but at least i got a good shot of the corcovado!
at night we went to a "forro" club in "lapa", organized by the hostel, they packed us all in those old vw buses and told us that they get home at 3a. m. so we had plenty of time discovering that Brazilian dance! that club was completely packed, it was very hard to get anywhere but the atmosphere  was amazing, i never saw people dance that good in my life!  of course there were plenty of willing Brazilian guys ready to tell me and my friends how to dance, but i wasn't the biggest talent ;) anyway we had a great night out for little amount of money (always good!)
next day the weather was better so we went on the tour organized by the hostel again for 40r$ to go up to the corcovado and to see santa teresia and the famous "escaderia selaron" in lapa! a big program! i did most of those things in previous  trips to rio, but the views are that spectacular that  it's always fun to do! our driver was a true original one, he stopped ones to get the phone number of a girl he liked while we were passing her on the street, of course the whole bus applauded when he got her number (very funny guy!) so we went up to the corcovado with this huge amount of other tourists, far too many for my taste!
but we were really lucky with the weather so we enjoyed the panorama of rio!
after we headed to santa teresia, the old town of rio, very beautiful, from there you have a great view of the whole city and it's not far from lapa and the escaderia seloron, which was definitely the highlight of my day! first you don't see anything, cause the mosaic you can just see from the front, but the more down you get the more impressive it looks! the maker mister selaron was there as well,  that was special to see him in person!
afterwards our driver took us to the cathedral of rio, i never saw any image before of that church, a modern cathedral, i liked it very much (i was the only one!) from the inside you see all this coloured windows, very impressiv!
before we got back to the hostel, my friends wanted to go up "pao de sugar"  the sugarcane, so i went with them, well even more tourists! but the views are superior! so it was worth to see!

at night we had a party on the hostels rooftop! with churrasco and caipirinha and a capeira group, that was a very good night!