Rio de Janeiro

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We arrived in Rio De Janeiro late on Wednesday evening, a city of 9 million people so pretty big and busy, and as long as we liked the place we intended to stay for 11 days. This was to be our beach break and give us a chance to have some rest and relaxation. The first two days were spent seeing all of the sights, the beaches, the city centre, Sugar Loaf Mountain and Concorvado (the huge statue of Christ - 700 metres above the city - this has now been voted as one of the 7 wonders of the world). The views from Sugar Loaf and Concorvado were awesome.

We decided we did like the city (hard not too really) and booked ourselves into a slightly more upmarket hotel for the next 8 nights. We spent the rest of the time basically laying around on Copacabana beach and relaxing. Copocabana Beach is amazing - 5km long with wide, white sandy beaches and loads of character. There must be about 50 games of beach volleyball or soccer going on at any one time and the rest of the locals just stand around in groups and catch up or else parade up and down the Copocabana beach strip.The beach itself was an experience. Without all the people it would match our best beaches in Australia, but there are so many people that it can be a bit dirty, not to mention crowded. While you are laying there trying to relax you get hassled every 60 seconds or so by some vendor trying to sell you something. You can buy almost anything on the beach, all sorts of food and drink (they cook the food in frot of you in some cases) , sunscreen, hats, t-shirts, bikinis, hammocks, sunglasses - you name it, you can buy it. Its just like walking down a street in Bali. Despite all of this we still found it very relaxing and enjoyable.

Most of the people in Brazil speak Portugese for which we don´t even have a phrase book. When they talk to us they talk really fast as if by talking faster we will understand them but of course we just look at them blankly. Ordering food continues to be a challenge. One day we found ourselves in a shopping centre for lunch and Guy decided to play it safe by eating at McDonalds, or that's what he thought. After ordering a McChicken he ended up with a coconut and chocolate favoured Thick Shake. Maybe next time he'll order a Big Mac - it should be hard to go wrong with that.

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