The past few days back in Rio have been fantastic, after our first nasty experience in Brazil... After leaving the beachside paradise that is Paraty, we headed to the north of Rio de Janeiro state to the little college town of Petropolis, which Lonely Planet describes as having the feel of a "European mountain resort" with pristine colonial architecture and tiny bridges spanning a network of little canals... Well, in reality, Petropolis was a complete shit hole, and felt nothing like Europe, nor anything resembling a mountain retreat! The town's only nice architecture is limited to a very small part of the city, and is surrounded by non-stop traffic... The grandest buildings are largely chained-off to pedestrians and set far back from the road... Petropolis' main street that runs through town turned out to be a congested nightmare of rusting old city buses belching fumes, seedy one-star flop houses with names like "Hotel Haiti" that post rates not by the night, but by the hour, and filthy taxi cabs beeping their horns... and the "canals" actually seem to be open sewers, clogged with rubbish and smelling like a squat toilet... After taking an eye-opening grand tour of town, we immediately set about finding a way to leave... We booked a hotel for the following night back in Rio, slept off the day's events, and caught the first bus out of town the next morning... So glad to be back in Copacabana! We have had 4 more wonderful days here in the city, and now taking off tomorrow for Chile... Not sure what to expect, but have been doing a bit of research, and think that it should be a wonderful contrast to tropical, beachy Brazil... We shall see! Just glad to have made it out of Petropolis, which Paul has since dubbed "Barfopolis." xxx Jason
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