Good bye Rio

I went to stadium Maracana Monday morning of March 20. They have pictures of the most current and old football (soccer)players of this nation which is the only one in the world with 5 World Championships of this sport, the most popular sport on this planet. They already have shirts rooting for the sixth title this year in Germany. They have a replica of the ´Walk of stars´in Hollywood but with the foot prints of Pele, Zico, Didi, Bebeto and many more. I assume Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Roberto Carlos will print theirs when they retire. This stadium for 180,000+ people is one of the most known in the world. It is the witness of Brazil loosing to Uruguay on the 1950 World Cup final and it was also in 1971, I believe, where Pele scored his goal number 1,000 on the last game he played for retirement but wearing the shirt of Santos, the club he started as a 16 year old professional player years before. I decided to go the Maracana since I like football and also I couldn´t make it to the game the day before between Vasco and Flamengo. I missed the game because I thought the game was at 6pm but it was at 4pm. I didn´t mind too much since I was hanging out with Bryony on the Copacabana beach since 2pm. We decided to go to Copacabana after getting our bus tickets to Corumba, the border between Bolivia and Brasil. I was buying my ticket and she recognized me from the hostel. I was half awake since I had decided to go to the beach after partying the whole night. I was afraid of sleeping too late at the hostel so when I made it back at 7:30 am Sunday morning I had breakfast, put my shorts and took the bus to the beach Leblon. After being at the beach for 3 hours, sleeping, I went to the station and it was then when I run into Bryony, who is from England, and was also debating where to go next. I decided to leave Brasil since my other option was to go to Falls of Iguaçu but they say the best view of the falls is from Argentina so I thought, for my next trip, when I go to Argentina I will go to the falls. She then decided to go to Corumba as well.Then we took another bus back to Ipanema, the so well know beach in Rio de Janeiro. Big beaches, tiny bikinis, big buildings along the shore, small rocky islands on the ocean. No wonder it is so famous and popular for tourists. Being there was a feeling of relaxation. A beach is a beach but being in Ipanema is something more because the name is so heard of. Relaxed is the best word I can pick, getting a beer from one of the vendors, checking other vendors and whatever they sell, towels, earings, necklaces, ice-cream, water,hammocks, I saw one guy fainted too. It was around 33 celsius (98-100 F) but some of these guys work the whole day setting up umbrellas for customers so they get heat exhaustion.
This monday then, after returning from the Maracana, where I stepped on the field and visited the showers and lockers of this great players was my last day in Rio. Bryony was in a hostel two doors from mine so we shared the cab. Once at the rodoviaria (the bus station) we met two other guys, Rebeca from Switzerland and Guy from Israel. We became friends right away, and we all had a good connection among us. It was a blessed since riding from 28 hours, from 1pm to 5pm the next day,to Corumba could have been a little ´long´. You meet people from different countries, different backgrounds, different ideas, different cultures and physically differences too. All this make these types of trips so interesting for me. But I want to believe the common factor is they are also travelling cause they are taking a break from their routines and they want to spend time go to place the hear of once. Some have already a plan, work, volunteer, language. Others are just travelling, like me. The bus ride was not bad at all, air conditioned buses,new drivers each six hours, and about 6 or 7 stops for quick snacks. The prices a little high though for the type of food we were getting. I believe these buses fix or coordinate the places where they go, like an arrangement, almost like a monopoly. So whenever we saw another restaurant around the corner we would choose that one to save some reais. We scored really good in Miranda, a stop 4 hours before Corumba. So we ate a lot of meat for almost a third of the price we were paying.