All I wanted was no cockroaches...

Twelve hours is a long time to spend on a plane only to end up traipsing through wind and rain to find a dodgy bunk bed. But it´s hard to know what you´re letting yourself in for when you´re 6,000 miles away trying to find a place to stay. Yes, Rio wasn´t exactly all sunshine and smiles when we arrived yesterday morning. Flight number 247 from Heathrow landed at 8am in grey skies and drizzle. Hopes of seeing the famous Christ the Redeemer statue from the air were swallowed up by the clouds. And when we found a bus to take us into the city, we were charged double for the pleasure of being English and clearly lacking in any Portuguese language skills.
The bus dropped us off on a stormy and deserted Copacabana beach and off we trekked to find our hostel. Sadly, the bright green ´Brazucas´ sign appeared all too quickly, through a sea of traffic and street urchins begging for money.
Nervously, we headed towards the door. After filling out the requisite forms, we were shown a choice of rooms. A choice? Bunk beds or bunk beds as it turned out. The ´bright spacious double room´ I had booked was in reality a cupboard with a bunk bed, single bed and wires hanging out of the walls. And the ´bar and cable tv room´ downstairs, which had sounded so attractive, was actually a fridge with a four-pack of lager in it, stood in a corridor with a tv in it. You guessed it - it wasn´t long before I discovered that ´hot showers´ were anything but.
This was not how I imagined our first day in Rio. It wasn´t until the evening that we began to get used to our new surroundings. Two beers and a caipirinha - the local rum cocktail - and suddenly things didn´t seem so bad. And when we returned to the hostel to find a French Canadian traveller, an Ecuadorian and Mexican doctor and an Argentinian girl all sat in the ´bar´ drinking vodka, the clouds began to lift. This trip has not even started yet...