Trying to catch up a bit here...

So our bus ride to rio didn´t quite go as planned. We were told that it would be between 24-26 hours to get to Rio from Lencois. Since we left Lencois at 10am, we figured by 12pm we´d be enjoying some pre-Carnaval festivities. However, after the bus stopped for about 4 meals at per kilo buffets and picked up/dropped off what seemed like a hundred people along the way, 12pm rolled around and we had no feeling of being particularly close to any kind of urban zone, let alone a 6 million person city on the coast surrounded by mountains. Also, the signs on all the roads kept having signs pointing towards Rio that the bus wasn´t following. At the next meal stop around 3pm, we got off with a couple other English speaking backpackers  and determined that we were past Rio. When we tried to get the bus driver´s attention, he just kind of waved us off and went to stuff his face at the buffet. So we waited at the door of the bus for him to come back and Acacia tapped in on the shoulder and quite eloquently said "Rio?". The bus driver turned to her with a look of confusion as if to say "you´re way off track buddy" and then confirmed that we actually did want to go to Rio and not Sao Paulo, which is apparently where the bus was heading. The two backpackers who were also trying to get there bags off the bus to jump on a bus actually headed for Rio told us that the same lady who sold us the bus tickets had told them to get off at a specific bus station about 30 minutes outside of Rio that our Sao Paulo bound bus would stop at. Unfortunately, either because of a language barrier or because she thought we were with the other backpackers, that same information was not conveyed to us. In any case, we got our bags, bought tickets to Rio, and ate some ice cream while we waited for the next bus to Rio, which would take another 4 hours and get us to our hostel about 8pm, a full 32 hours after we were supposed to check-in in one of the most crowded cities in the world for the particular week we chose to visit. Well, we hit some pretty intense traffic, which delayed us getting to the bus station in Rio until 9:30pm and to our hotel around 10:30pm. Luckily our room was still available. So, we checked in, showered, and then went to find food, which ended up being a grilled cheese for the vedge and a ham and cheese pastry thing for me with some stale chocolate (esque) cake for dessert. Then we made it back to the hostel for the first real sleep in a while.

The next day we went for a walk along Copacabana where our hostel was and then rounded the corner to walk down Ipanema beach. Acacia made the same realization I made when I was in Rio a couple of years ago; people on the beaches aren´t as attractive as Rio wants you to believe. In fact, you really can´t even tell if some of the beach patrons are even wearing swimsuits because of the excess mass which just kind of rolled over the skimpy fabric that may have existed.

Acacia Being a Monster Along side Some Graffiti between Copacabana and Ipanema Beaches 

Acacia Doing a "workout" on the way to the botanical gardens

It was pretty warm so we headed into the streets both to find a bank and to get a bit of shade from the tall buildings to avoid any serious sunburns. We ventured along the streets following signs to the Botanical Gardens, which I was under the impression was relatively close, like a mile or so. After walking for about 2 hours though, I began to realize this wasn´t what I had signed up for, which wouldn´t normally be a problem, but I was very low on blood sugars and needed some food fast in order to avoid possible collapse. However, my brain wasn´t caught up with my blood sugar content, and it took walking through and past a local market for me to realize how hungry I was. So I walked straight in to the closest bar and was about to order the fried fish and fried egg that had probably been sitting behind the counter for the last couple of days when Acacia convinced me to handle myself and wait for some better food. Well, I barely made it into the Botanical Gardens about 20 minutes later, and we went straight to the garden cafe which had outrageously priced salads and soups. Great. We ended up going to the closest bench and busting out a bag of granola and some crackers that we had stuffed into the Google backpack that we carry everyhwere, and it was enough to revive me for our walk in the gardens. The garden was huge! And to tackle the whole thing, I attempted to us the tried and true depth first search algorithm I´d learned in one of my computer science classes. Unfortunately, it didn´t work because the map of the gardens had cycles in it, so we ended up just kind of wandering in a giant loop and trying to see as much as possible. There was an herb garden, a giant orchid building, and a building dedicated to plants related to pineapples (I forget their scientific name)(Acacia edit: bromeliads). A lot of the plants had striped leaves with colors besides green, so Acacia and I combined her very practical knowledge of why plants have non-green foliage with my physics knowledge using light wavelengths to come up with a hypothesis of why plants would do that. It was pretty satisfying when we read about it on a sign and we had gotten it spot on. There was a giant lily pond, some spikey bushes that got our legs along the path, and giant trees with Jack Fruits, some of which had fallen off and were rotting on the ground, making for a lovely scent. Anyway, we were getting tired and ready to do something else, so we filled up our water bottles in the bathroom and left.

Who knows why bromeliads have yellow stripes?

Japanese tea garden area of the botanical gardens

We didn´t really know how to get downtown, but that´s where we were aiming for. We walked over to where buses were picking people up, but none of them said ´centro´ on them, so Acacia was ready to walk back to Ipanema and catch one of the centro buses we had seen there. I, fearing another blood sugar crash, opted to ask the nice looking police officer where to get a centro bus. He pointed us in the right direction, and we were on our way to find the German food restaurant we had read about that apparently serves dark beer. On the bus ride I spotted the famous Escadaria Selaron tiled steps that we had to go to before leaving Rio. We hopped off the bus and walked down the alley with the sign that Acacia translated to mean ¨don´t walk here.¨ The same alley John realized his tour guide had also told him not to walk down when he was in Rio a few years ago. Ooops. We survived though, and made it to the first REALLY touristy area of the trip. Rightfully so, the stairs are pretty amazing. The artist receives tiles from around the world and is constantly changing the ones on the stairs. Acacia is pretty sure that she saw some with Haida art, but this hasn´t been confirmed yet.

After the stairs we walked to the German restuarant and were greeted by a waiter in Portuguese that we didn´t understand. John´s low on calorie brain assumed the appropriate response was "obrigado" or thankyou. The waiter just walked away, we assumed to get us an English menu because we are clearly very dumb, but really he just didn´t want to deal with us. We grabbed another waiter and ordered some dark beer... that tastes like the other beer, but with food coloring. A bit of a let down. The food is too expensive, but as mentioned before, John is prone to foodpanic attacks, so we decide to order off the appetizer menu and end up getting 4 fried eggs, a small basket of bread, and a platter of fried garlic (how could we pass that up, right?).