Landed in Rio Tuesday pm and shared a taxi ride to the centre. I was staying in the old part of town Lapa, considered the party place at night but also pretty sketchy with high crime. The hostel I’d picked was only four months old, so in good nick, but it was the biggest dorm room of my trip with 24 beds! And my first triple stacked bunks, luckily I got a bottom bunk. A friend Lisa came over that I’d met in Morro, within thirty seconds of leaving the hostel a kid on a bike had grabbed my necklace in attempt to steal it; he only managed to break it luckily. It wasn’t so expensive anyway but it was the only bit of jewellery I’d bought myself the whole trip from Bolivia so was glad I still had it. Lesson learnt, guard now fully up. A pretty quiet night, met another buddy from Moro for some drinks before a relative early 1am finish. Unfortunately Lisa then had a less then pleasant journey back to her apartment in another area were her taxi driver tried to assault her, luckily she got out of the situation unharmed. Continue reading →