rio de janeiro: dia 1

The flight landed 20 minutes early. half hour later, i cleared customs and immigration. countless stantions were strewn across the airport but no bodies to fill them with. Something tells me that this is not the norm. I make my way through the corridor of welcome, the point where people hold signs with names, the place where the people hug and kiss. Taxi drivers are hawks and quickly spot me. I quicken my pace and walk outside. A blue bus called the real bus is what I'm scanning for; I find it. I wait about 10 minutes and off I go. The busses in rio are nuts in a tokyo drift kind of way.

I have some what of a rough sketch of where the bus is supposed to go and stop. Still, I miss my stop but manage to find my hostel with ease. The hostel is a story in it of itself, one which I've included in the post below.

An hour later I was gone and on the road again.

Here's the thing about the busses in rio, if you don't deliberately waive them down to the point where it almost becomes a fist pump, they will not stop! It took me a few tries but I finally caught one.

Another hour on the bus and I finally reached my hostel. The staff was great.  I was given a key to my room but most importantly the door had a knob!

The rest of the day I spent it walking through Ipanemas' board walk, had myself an amazing dinner with an even more amazing dessert! Some kind of coconut pudding cake. Bomb

I met some chill Americans at the hostel, had some local brew. Laughter and insults followed. I was in my bed by 11pm.

rio nature hostel: a review

since they took half of my cash, i think its only fair that i express my thoughts about the place. to be fair, if their "policy" is to keep half of the reservation when canceling then fine; my bad. but to keep half when you haven't even been there a whole hour! keep the first night's costs. but half? when the hostel isn't even fully booked? ok ok so it went down like this:

after 20-30 feet of climbing uneven slabs of concrete stairs into the sky, i finally reached the lobby. it was a stale and mosquito ridden space of fifa propaganda, walls covered in astro-turf. the receptionist gave me a quick rundown and hurriedly handed me a map and plastic bag of sheets. no key? odd.

she walks me to my room, again more steps to climb. we get there, the door knob is TAPED TO THE DOOR! i guess that's why i didn't get a key. we walk inside and there's 5 bunkbeds/10 beds inside; exactly what i had chosen on the website. what i didn't forsee though was how close in proximity they were going to be of each other. the room was no bigger than 12x12. nay! i would say 10x10! TO THE POINT where the guy next bunk would've had his grimy feet next to my pillow. 

in my head i said, ok. hey, you're here for the world cup, you've seen worse - and have i - i walked back to the lobby hung out for a bit, got on the wifi, checked in with loved ones and took it all in. but something just didn't click. the place was plain ol' sketch and when i say sketch i mean: the area, the people who were staying there, overall safety of the hostel grounds. still i dismissed these thoughts and told myself that it was no thang.

i come back to my room. i forget that my door knob is taped to the door and there goes the door knob flying into the murkiness that is my room. i finally find it and attach it back to the door. i wiggle into my space and begin making my bed. i unwrap the plastic bag and take out the bed sheets and pillow covers to see that my sheets have blotched stains on them. i freeze and close my eyes for a brief second. in my stillness again i think of other worse situations that i've been on. i hunker down and crawl to the farthest corner away from the blotches of God knows what. 

after a few minutes of looking at my rape cell, i come to the realization that this hostel is truly a piece of SHIT! i pack my stuff and head out to the lobby where i talk to the receptionist. she's real polite and in the back of her head, i know that what i'm telling her is valid. but since she's probably staying in the hostel for free, she didn't want to risk her job and still decided to keep half of what i paid.

to the owner of this hostel...you p.o.s.

i'm sure that you're not the only person who's been blinded by FIFA greed but wow, i've been to 30 plus countries and this has been one of the worse hostels i've ever witnissed. at least keep your hostel clean! and have lockers that conventional locks fit! instead of a hostel, just list this place as a brothel or a love hotel. you truly shame the name of "hostel" and trust me, that is a very hard task to do. 

anywho, if i dissaude just one person away form this hellhole, than i've done my job. trust me, just pay the extra bucks and stay at better spot. that's all i have to say.