November 11 - 9:00PM - Girl From Ipanema Hostel

I am sick. My nose won’t stop running, my eyes are itchy and watery and my ears make that annoying popping sound when I swallow. I am also hot and my shirt has been soaking wet all day long first from the heat and then from rain. This hostel is a shit hole. We have a tiny room with barely enough space for two beds and not anything else, scratch that, not even beds, two mattresses on the floor right next to each other and that’s it. The shower is my ultimate pet peeve, floor fills up with two inches of water so your feet come out rinsed in shower floor scum water. I am just in a bad mood from having to farmer blow my nose all over town today. I think this head cold has something to do with my back pain in the Amazon and it isn’t cool to be sick in the heat. Maybe I have malaria from the Amazon.

But lets be positive. Times are good as we hit the middle of our stay in Rio. Went to the Botanical Gardens today and it was really one of the most beautiful places that we have seen so far although the beaches and also the view from Corcovado and sunset on the Amazon and the streets of Salvador are hard to beat. Tons of huge trees that are hundreds of years old, an orchid greenhouse which is really just a roof because the temps here in Brazil are hot and humid and exactly what orchids like, fish ponds, turtles, fountains, all kinds of nice stuff and greenery abound. From the black and white pictures on display here of people posing in old style clothes it looks like these gardens have been here for at least a hundred years. Definitely worth seeing.

After we checked out the gardens we tried to get Brazilian BBQ at a restaurant that was recommended to us but there were hostess girls standing at the front door and they would not let us in. We couldn’t figure out why because they didn’t speak any English. It was closed though so we didn’t get to try the famous BBQ. Found out later that is was because of a water problem. Utilities infrastructure seems to be an issue here. Instead of BBQ we went to a grocery store next door and bought some cachaca and coke and are going to make rum and cokes later. For dinner instead of the meat place we walked to Copacabana to a restaurant we had eaten at earlier in the week to get the national dish of Brazil which is called feijoada. What it is is rice and beans with whatever meat scraps can be found around the house or I guess in this case the restaurant. The history of the dish as I have heard it is that during slavery the slaves would gather whatever they could find from the scraps of meals that they would make for the slave masters and throw it altogether in a pot. This is how the dish originated and now it is popular to eat on the weekends. Weekends because it takes awhile to digest. It was pretty good, really hearty and filled me up. Some of the meat was interesting. I have never had pig ear before but the texture is very weird, squishy on the outside and crunchy in the middle like grissly. An acquired taste I think. Most of the meat was pork from what the menu said and pork was used liberally throughout the meal. There were even homemade pork rinds for croutons on the salad and Kevin sensed the possibility of bacon grease as the oil in the oil and vinegar dressing.

I forgot to mention that on the way to dinner we stopped and hung out with the paparazzi. Back story needed here so I will say that all week as we have been walking around Copacabana beach about six video cameras and uncountable still cameras have been posted up in front of a hotel on the main street that runs along Ipanema Beach. I asked one of the cameramen and he said that Madonna is staying on the top floor. What we have been told by people around town is that she has a twenty four year old Brazilian model for a boyfriend. It’s all good I guess. Anyways, we hung for a little bit but didn’t see her because it started raining and we were hungry.