RIO !!!

Ipanema
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We left Ouro Preto as the most gorgeous man I had seen in 5 months appeared at our hostel - great timing huh.

We stopped for lunch en-route and accidentally bumped into granny's lunch which caused chaos as we had to wait for them all to push in front of us and pay and then one of them got stuck in the toilet... "Oh dear what can the matter be..."

We drove on through the mountains and finally into the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.  We were hanging out of the windows trying to spot Christ the Redeemer and when we finally did I have to say it was all a bit disappointing - he is really not as big in real life as you would imagine!   We got to our hotel and literally threw our bags down to rush off to see Pao de Azucar (Sugar Loaf Mountain) for sunset.

Me and Gem at Ipanema
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It was all a bit of a shock with the numbers of tourists, having come through the middle of Brazil we hadn't really seen that many along the way so it took a while to adjust to the "jostling around" trying to get pictures.  It was totally worth it though - the views are amazing and it was a perfect way to get our bearings on Rio.  We waited and watched the sunset and then after everyone started to leave we stayed on to see Christ the Redeemer opposite get lit up.

We said goodbye to our group the next day and set off for Copacabana for 5 days and freedom!  We had an actual suite at the hotel - it was pure luxury!   We were overlooked by Christ the Redeemer on the hill behind us.  Rio is a beautiful city and we spent our days just wandering along Copacabana and Ipanema beaches watching the locals walking there in their speedos (where do they put their door keys?!), drinking passion fruit sucos, eating amazing buffet dinners while watching Paraiso Tropical the dodgy soap opera, drinking in bars watching street kids perform capoeria.

Maracana Stadium
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We had our biggest fashion disaster in Rio when we decided to treat ourselves to a hair cut.  Firstly we had to employ a lot of hand signals to explain what we wanted, not knowing the words for cut & blow dry in portugese and then somehow we both ended up with a version of a 1990's "Rachel" cut.  To top it all off I tried to tip the guy who had opened the door for us rather than the guy who had cut my hair.

Despite hating football in the UK, I made it to the third game of my South American trip - Botofogo versus Inter at the famous Maracana stadium (nicknamed macarana - as in "Hey Macarana" the song - by me).  It wasn't a great game and the huge stadium (capacity around 100,000) was only a quarter full but that didn't stop the home fans going crazy and the acoustics are so good you felt like you were in a packed Wembley Stadium.  It was an amazing atmosphere. After the football we went out to celebrate in the poshest area of town, Leblon, and eventually found a bar we could just about afford.  We were having a great time but they decided to close when we were the only people left and strolled over to give us plastic cups to take the rest of our drinks away - subtlety wasn't their strong point!

Maracana Stadium
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On a suitably bright sunny day we took the tram up to Corcovado, the mountain which is home to the Christ the Redeemer statue to get a closer look.  The tram was a little like a strange children's ride at a fairground and there were some very odd brightly coloured animals along the side of the track.  The 360 degree views from the top of the mountain were absolutely stunning and the statue was totally awe-inspiring from close up.

As true travellers we decided to take advantage of the card posted through our hotel door for a free car to the H Stern (jewellers) workshop and showroom in Ipanema in order to drop off our laundry at the laundrette.  Once there we decided we might as well have a look around and ended up leaving after spending around $600 between us on gems.  Turned out it wasn't such a free ride after all!  At least we only had to get through one person to pay unlike when we tried to buy our havaiana flip flops and it took 5 shop assistants to serve us and take our money!

Maracana Stadium
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One evening we tried to party in Copacabana.  We spent a while looking for restaurants in our guide book which were no longer there and ended up in a place that had live music and we ate our steaks to the sound of a Bon Jovi medley!  We wandered afterwards looking for a bar and not realising how seedy Copacabana can be at night strolled into a place where we soon noticed every woman was working.  We braved it out for a while with a beer but had to leave when Matt thought he was getting chatted up by a transexual!

Pao de Azucar
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On our last night we found the real place to party - Lapa - and ended up in a proper samba club.  There was an extremely famous samba singer performing and it appeared to be his birthday as they produced a cake for him!  Everyone was up and dancing ... even us (although samba improvisation was not our strong point!).  It was a Wednesday night but everyone was going crazy and were still at it at 2am when we finally gave in to sleep.

All in all, Rio was everything you would have expected and more and I was very sad to leave.  I'll be back for carnival soon!!