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Happy Days Travel

Happy Days Travel

We are Andrea and Mark, an ex-teacher and a retired engineer from the UK. We love travelling slowly, exploring new destinations, discovering different cultures, tasting local foods, meeting people, and enjoying every single day we are on this earth. Read more🇬🇧Mablethorpe
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    • South American Adventure

      A working afternoon

      February 28 in Brazil ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

      When we got back from the shops, we had some toast with the delicious kumquat marmalade we bought from Hendrick's mum in Trinidad, Paraguay. I then set up my office on the terrace and worked all afternoon. Mark kept himself busy rigging up a washing line, cleaning the kitchen, and preparing dinner for us.Read more

    • South American Adventure

      Exploring Gloria

      February 28 in Brazil ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

      We got up at around 8am and had a banana and a coffee to keep us going while we went shopping.  The local shops are all at the bottom of the hill we came up in the taxi yesterday.  It took us about 15 minutes to walk down and a bit longer to come back up!  A daily trip to the shops will keep us fit while we're here!

      Compact, quiet, middle-class Glória is named for the baroque Igreja da Glória that crowns a hilltop above Guanabara Bay.  The church overlooks elegant art deco buildings, the yachts of Marina da Glória and verdant Flamengo Park.  Cycle and walking paths lead to the Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM), known for its 20th-century Brazilian art, while over at the Feira da Glória market, stalls sell fruit, spices, cheese and tapioca snacks.  

      There is plenty for us to explore over the next few weeks.  For today, we compared the three supermarkets we found and chose the one we thought was best.  We couldn't buy everything we wanted because we had to carry it all back up the hill, but we got enough meat, potatoes, salad, and drinks to last a few days.      Read more

    • South American Adventure

      Moving to our Airbnb

      February 27 in Brazil ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

      This morning, after a leisurely breakfast (our last hotel breakfast before the Premier Inn at Gatwick in May! 😂), we got packed up and checked out of the hotel. We asked them to store our bags for us while we went out for lunch.

      We ended up going back to the same restaurant we ate at on our first evening in Rio. We shared a pizza and a salad. On the way back to the hotel, we picked up some bananas and drinks because we don't know how far our Airbnb is to the shops.

      We ordered an Uber to take us to Brian's place in the Gloria district of Rio, home for the next four weeks. It's only 2.5 kilometres from where we've been staying, but I think it's mainly uphill, so a taxi is needed!

      This, indeed, proved to be the case! Luckily, the Uber driver took us right to the door with all our luggage, and once we arrived, Brian, our host, found a strong guy to take our bags up the steep flight of 50 stairs to the terrace and a further 20-step narrow spiral staircase to our room! The room is adequate, and I can set up my office on the terrace. The shared kitchen is used by a couple of people who work for Brian in his camera hire business, Stefano from Italy, who has lived in Brian's smallest letting room for the past ten years, and us. It will be good to cook for ourselves after so long on the road!

      There is a lovely view of the bay from a second terrace that gets the sun for most of the day, and Brian has said we can also use the terrace that belongs to his house next door.

      Brian is British but has lived in Rio for the past fifty years. He's coming up to 80, but he certainly doesn't look it. He is now retired. During his working career, he was a freelance documentary film-maker who produced work for the BBC and ITV, amongst others.

      Once Brian had shown us round, he left us to settle in. It was nice to be able to unpack properly for the first time on the whole trip! We didn't venture out again this afternoon. We had a banana each and a soft drink (Mark is staying off the beer to see if it helps his condition) and just relaxed!      Read more

    • South American Adventure

      Lunch at Copacabana Beach

      February 26 in Brazil ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

      Our bus tour continued past Rio's big wheel, Sambadrome, football stadium with a statue of Pele outside, and Ipanema, an upmarket district full of designer shops and posh restaurants as well as a world-famous beach. We finished back where we had started at Copacabana Beach.

      Here, we left the bus to have some lunch. We chose the Tropika Beach Club so that we could 'people watch' while we ate. Mark had a prawn risotto, and I had a pork and pineapple sandwich with spicy barbecue sauce. Both were delicious, which is more than can be said for the only sugar-free soft drink they had! It was a Brazilian fruit drink that was absolutely disgusting! I won't be having it again.      Read more

    • South American Adventure

      Back to Lapa

      February 26 in Brazil ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

      The Samba Bus tour continued through the Lapa district where we had the opportunity to get off and visit the Selaron stairs with Andrea. Mark stayed on the bus because we were only there the other day. I went to have another look, hopeful that it would be less busy today. It wasn't!

      Back on the bus, we drove past some colourful houses and the Metropolitan Cathedral, somewhere else to come back to at a future date.      Read more

    • South American Adventure

      The bus tour continues

      February 26 in Brazil ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

      From Copacabana Beach, the bus took us close to Sugar Loaf Mountain and on to Teatro Municipal where a girl was dancing the samba on the steps. She got on the bus to give us a private show!

      The Theatro Municipal is an opera house in the Centro district of Rio. It was built in the early twentieth century and is considered to be one of the most beautiful and important theatres in the country. The building is designed in an eclectic style inspired by the Paris Opéra of Charles Garnier. The outside walls are inscribed with the names of classic European and Brazilian artists.Read more

    • South American Adventure

      Rio Samba bus

      February 26 in Brazil ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

      Mark was feeling a bit better this morning, so we decided to get out and explore Rio. He wasn't up to walking far, so I looked for a bus service. The only hop-on, hop-off bus I could find was the Samba bus, complete with music, a live commentary, and a dancer. It had mixed reviews on Get Your Guide, but seeing as we only wanted to familiarise ourselves with the layout of the city, we decided to go for it. We will save our proper sightseeing for later.

      The starting point for the bus was a shopping centre at Copacabana Beach, so we took an Uber there in time to catch the 10.45am service. Our guide was Andrea, too! The sound system wasn't the best, and we couldn't always hear the commentary, but the two and a half hour loop of the city was very enjoyable. It gave us an idea of where the different city districts are and a list of places to return to after carnival.

      The first of these is definitely the iconic Copacabana Beach. It was packed with people sunbathing, enjoying the ocean, and drinking cocktails. The atmosphere was relaxed and full of fun. Everyone was smiling and generally appeared to be enjoying life. It was the same wherever we went in the city. I don't think we've ever been anywhere where there are so many openly gay people on the streets. People wear what they want, often hardly anything at all! Nobody bats an eyelid. I love that!! I'm sure we're going to love being in Rio. I'm not naive. I know there's a seedy, dangerous underbelly here, but the general vibe is exciting and fun.      Read more

    • South American Adventure

      A day off

      February 25 in Brazil ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

      After breakfast this morning, we headed up to the roof to swim and enjoy the sunshine.  I started a book, the first one of the year - When I Fell From the Sky by Juliane Koepcke.  It's the true story of a plane crash in the rainforest of Peru in 1971.  17-year-old Juliane was the only survivor.  I vaguely remember reading it before, but this time, it had greater resonance as we were so recently in the country described in the book.  I raced through it in a few hours!

      Later this afternoon, we went in search of a local supermarket.  Neither of us really wanted to go to a restaurant, so we just bought some fruit, cheese, ham, and rolls, and had a picnic dinner while watching Shawshank Redemption!      Read more

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