Rio Holiday - Obrigado Brasil

Like I always say, when travelling in groups why stay in a hotel that is going to cost you over $100 a night each when you can negotiate a private villa for less than that. So while visiting Rio de Janeiro last October with 6 other friends, that is exactly what we did. I must have started looking for apartments and villas a good 3 months before the vacations. But because it was off season I was not too worried about availability anyways. So of course my first instinct was to look for places in Copacabana and Ipanema. I found some great value apartments right across the road from the infamous beaches. The largest were 4 bedroom pads with large lanais and plunge pools. The plan was after spending a week in a secluded villa in Bahia we would be ready to turn things upside down city style. Unfortunately however we could not get any of those apartments. The owners of those pads are not inclined to rent to guys traveling on their own. Apart from the rule that says you can’t bring girls over you also cant share rooms, so that totally blew my budget plan. After looking for loads of places and assuring owners we were not planning to shoot porno films I still kept hitting brick walls. The places that did have good locations were shitty and the livable ones were way out of the friendly zone. I finally got in touch with a company called Rio Holiday. After trying to help me a place the city, the American owner wrote me a long email about a house he had in an area called Niteroi. He explained that it was 45 minutes away from the tourist hub, but that they also had spectacular beaches and the house would be great for us. Although I was worried that this house would be too far away, I went ahead and booked it. Before getting to Rio every tourist we met gave us bad news about Niteroi. Told us that there is nothing like staying in the city and we were going to suffer being out there. Well, all I can say is that this house made my vacation. Not only was it fabulous to stay in, with HUGE breakfasts every morning, a TV room, games room, private pool, and 4 bedrooms, Niteroi was also a fucking awesome area to stay in. We got to visit some mind blowing beaches and hang out with the locals in real bars and clubs that don’t cater to American tourists. We even hung out with Romario (the footballer) in one of these small bars!! Not to mention we also had our own hospitality manager that came over every morning to plan our days. Anyways, this a short clip from my movie ‘Obrigado Brasil’. The beginning is not what I want it to be yet but I feel like putting this up today. I need to get hold of crisp clip of the opening scene from MTV Cribs, with the theme music. Not as easy as one might think. The clip is laced with some sweet tracks too. The full movie should be out this February…