Brazil

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Hi,



Well I had amazing 5 weeks in the UK and now that wedding fever is over I am back out in South America hoping not to develop any other kind of fever!


I arrived in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday night and made it to my hostel despite the efforts of my accelerator foot heavy taxi driver. I had found a nice hostel and in the morning I got up and went for a run around the neighbourhood. I felt safe and my only annoyance was the heat!

I spent the day visiting the central area of Rio and saw the Cathedral and an art museum. I then went to Santa Theresa which is a nice area with cobblestreets and arty types and nice cafes. My plan was to get the tram there but as it turns out it derailed last year killing 5 people so it's currently out of service!

Saturday I visited Christ the Redeemer. I arrived In the morning in gorgeous sunshine but the train was fully booked for a couple of hours so I decided to buy a ticket for the afternoon and go and visit some other areas. I went to the botanical gardens which was very pleasant and I particularly enjoyed the orchid garden and the I went for a walK around a big salt water lagoon and found a nice Arabic restaurant for lunch. It was amazing seeing all the locals out and about. Lots of people out exercising and some interesting, skimpy, outfits! It appears to be necessary to be in full Lycra sports gear regardless of the level of activity you are undertaking.

At 4pm I went to see Christ and of course he was completely covered in cloud! It was disappointing but actually the atmosphere up there was quite fun as every time the cloud cleared enough to see everyone cheered.

Saturday night I went to the hotel where I met with my fellow travellers for the Gap trip to Peru. There is only 6 of us, one couple ( Irish / english), two Norweigions and another English girl. The tour guide is Peruvian and seems lovely. I am the oldest apart from our guide but everyone is pretty mature and seems like a good bunch. We went for a dinner that night and bonded over some deadly caipirinhas.



The next day I went for a run along copacabana beach in 24 degrees of heat and got to witness some of Brazil's prettiest, and not so pretty people. We then headed off in our minibus south and took a catamaran to Ilha Grande which is a beautiful island.



We spent today at Lopes Mendes which is one of Brazil's finest beaches. We took a boat and walked for half an hour to get there. It was beautiful. It was quite cloudy but still warm enough and with enough UVs to get burnt! we had fun body surfing and reading and chatting. The group are all really nice and we seem to be getting on well. We are off out for dinner now and then maybe a party somewhere. Tomorrow we head back to the mainland.

Lots of Love, Clare xxx

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