We checked out of the Mango Tree, and moved to the Copacabana side of town to check into our new hotel, and meeting place for our G adventure tour. After a chilly air conned wait in reception while our room was sorted out, we went into our room. We had our own bathroom which was a bit of a luxury, and we felt like holidayers again, not backbackers.
As the day was fairly nice, we decided to head down to the beach, as you can't go to Rio and say you didn't go on Copacabana. It was actually disappointingly underwhelming, as we really had been spoiled at Ipanema. The sky suddenly turned grey which probably didn't help, but the sea there was full of rubbish, so swimming was kept to a minimum. With that said, we noticed the iconic Copacabana Palace hotel was just a short walk from where we were sitting, so decided to take a look at that instead, and then head back to the hotel to prepare to meet our group.
Back at the hotel, an ambigious note was left from Guila, our tour guide telling us to meet in reception at 7. It followed with our names, and the other 5 members of our tour. Tom couldn't believe that another member of our crew was also called Thomas!
We nervously, but excidedly went down at 7, and sat in the lobby. There were a few people sitting around us but we wern't sure if they were waiting for Guila too. Suddenly, a tiny, bohemian, frizzy haired chick turned up, and introduced herself as Guila (said like Julia). She is a half Columbian, half Italian, and a pretty cool dude. After that we met everyone in the group. It's a real mix of people from differnt countries and walks of life. There is Irish Susan (30) and Norweigan Melissa (22) who are the really friendly and easy to talk too. Then there is retired Sun, a Chinese/ American gentleman, who lives in Miami and enjoys trekking. And finally we have Christina (38) who is German, who talks a lot to other Thomas from Switzerland who is a similar age. Thomas is hilarous, and every so often his accent reminds us of the Swiss man in Frozen (again, another Frozen resemblance). We may ask him to say "Yoo-hoo! Big Summer blowout!!"
We sat down in the lobby whilst Guila told us what was in store for us over the next month or so, and we quickly got incredibly excitable. Everything sounds like it's going to be mega fun and unforgettable.
After our meeting, Guila said she'd take us to a good restauraunt a few blocks away, so we freshened up and headed out. On the walk there, we spoke to Thomas further, to discover that his life goal is to collect a Hard Rock Cafe T shirt from every cafe in the world! So far he has 72 T shirts, and needs a further 90 to complete his collection. He hears there is one in Equador, so that is what brings him to this side of the world.
We arrived at a posh looking place, and went inside to a table Guila had reserved earlier. She told us it was an all you could eat meat restauraunt, and we quickly realised how hungry we were after just eating beach snacks all day. The waiters were constantly coming round and offering us large chunks of meat, served on the traditional long skewers. We tried SO many different meats, from all kinds of animals. Tom's favourite was the pork belly, and Steph enjoyed the shoulder of beef. We talked amongst ourselves again to find out more about each other, and learned we all have lots in common. Christina for example loves to snorkel, so her and Tom can talk for hours about fish. Melissa has also just come from Thailand, so is good to talk to when it comes to our plans for Asia later on in our trip.
Feeling incredibly full, we came back to the hotel, to be ready for a bus to come and get us at 11am, which would take us to the Paradise Island of Illha Grande.
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