I had made a reservation for a room in what appeared to be a private residence of some sort. A room which was separate from the rest of the house/apartment and with a shared bathroom (or, at least that's what I thought from reading the description and looking at the pictures on booking.com!). It wasn't until we arrived at the place in the evening, that I found out that I was COMPLETELY wrong!!
The taxi had a hard time figuring out how to get to the front of the address as the road was somewhat blocked with works. He eventually decided to give it a go, and drove down the part that was not dug up. Luckily, we came across a sign by the side of the road with the name of the hostel on it. We took our bags and walked through a short hallway passing two metal doors. We began to wonder whether we were in the right place. We stood in front of a residential area composed of a double row of rooms on one side (i.e. one row along side a balcony up a flight of stairs and the other on the ground level). Across from the rooms was a single row of bathrooms interspersed with kitchens and and a few outdoor sinks for specific uses (i.e. a few for washing dishes, another for laundry and a couple for hand-washing etc.). This whole area was squeezed between taller buildings on three sides.
We saw a few people roaming around in the courtyard area and asked a lady if she perchance knew of the name of the hostel we were looking for. She didn't and nor did another person we asked! We went back out to look at the sign and according to that, we were in the correct place. Inside again, I decided to knock on the first door closest to the entrance. Phew! What a relief! The lady not only spoke english (the others we asked, did not) but she also knew of what we were talking about! We followed her to another room where we met a lady who provided us with keys (one for our bedroom, the other for the bathroom) and explained which room and bathroom were were to use. The room was small and yet consisted of 2 twin beds, a desk, a wardrobe, a small fridge/freezer and ceiling fan.
The english speaking lady explained that she had been renting a room for a few months and that other people reside there on a long-term or short-term basis. The landlord, rents the unoccupied rooms to tourists. As I took in the site of this residential area, I began to wonder if we were in a "favela" or shanty-town (or at least, a fancier version of one). The rooms were pretty much the same size and many of them housed several people!! It was the cheapest accommodation we had found so far, at only $20 or so per night (no wonder!). I had booked 2 nights, though we only stayed for one. After a horrible night of not being able to sleep due to immense humidity, no a/c and being attacked by mosquitos, we decided to look for another place for our last night. Luckily, we got our money back and we walked around the corner to a proper hotel that was pretty cheap and had a/c. Thank goodness! It was still quite the experience. I don't think I've ever had to brush my teeth at an outdoor sink in a residential area, with rain dripping down my back!!
Since it was raining on our last full day in Rio, we decided to spend it indoors as much as possible.
We ended up walking in the rain to the Museum of Modern Art, or MAM, which was further away than we had anticipated. It was still a nice walk as we took in more of the city and stopped by a juice place. There we got chatting with one of the locals about various local fruits. He had heard us asking for a fresh acai juice without ice (due to the fact that Rakesh had a bit of a sore throat). The man, laughed and explained that the acai drink comes frozen and is not served any other way. Many of the tropical fruit juices that were on offer were all frozen prepackaged and then thawed out - a disappointment, as a) I wouldn't call that FRESH and b) Rakesh could not have anything cold to drink. We ordered a mango juice instead, as mangos were one of the few fresh fruits, other than pineapples and oranges we saw displayed on the shelf. Unfortunately, the juice was not the most flavourful (a common problem in big cities vs rural areas).
In the museum we saw mostly Brazilian art, apart from one temporary exhibit of photography by an American (sorry, can't remember his name). The photographs were very good, but went from interesting to morbid to even more morbid!
After viewing this first exhibit of photography we bumped into an english couple, Kate and Tariq, whom we had met during our Amazon tour. How ironic! We had hoped to connect with them in Bahia, as they too went there after the Amazon, but weren't able to . It was just meant to be that we bumped into them in Rio, instead. We agreed to meeting up later in the evening.
We treated ourselves to a taxi ride back to the hotel, as it was still raining and Rakesh was feeling a little under the weather with cold symptoms (we were battling with such symptoms between the two of us, since Bahia, though at this point I was fine). We relaxed and I emailed Kate and Tariq back and forth to come up with a plan for the evening. I had wanted try out a bar-restaurant that a friend in California had recommended. How perfect, Rio Scenarium was just around the corner from our hotel. We met Kate and Tariq there and had a nice dinner while listening to two live groups. The first, an incredibly good jazz group including a 91 year old percussionist!!! The second, a samba group. The dance floor was filled with people dancing during the latter. Since Rakesh was still a little under the weather we thought it would be better not stay out too late and so said our good-byes to Kate and Tariq and returned to the hotel.
The next morning, we had breakfast in our room (how nice, and it was all included in the price), packed and headed to the airport for our next destination - Buenos Aires!!
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