The Outbetweeners

Down for breakfast by 7.45am following which we took our laundry to the nearest lavanderia (for the last time!) We walked to the bus stop and took another local bus to Corcovado (the hill where the statue of Christ is). We arrived at 10.15pm to be advised that due to the throngs of tourists, the next available train to the top was 11.20 but by the time we reached the front of the queue to pay, the next available train was 11.40am. The only trouble with the tourist attractions are the innumerable tourists!! The train made its way to the top (a pleasant wooded journey. Everyone piled out and massed by the monument and railings to take pictures. We joined the throng and took a couple of photos overlooking Rio (from the other side) and a ... read more

Wonderful breakfast at the hotel - a real treat with granola, yoghurts, all sorts of rolls, eggs, etc., etc. and plenty of coffee. We sat around for quite a while saying our goodbyes to everyone on the group with the promise of a bed for a couple of nights for a few of them. Check out was at 12.00pm so we took a walk to the local beach. Very pleasant area but this could have been any city (with a beach) anywhere in the world. At 11.45, we shared a taxi with Jill who was going to a hotel near to our new destination (the hotel we booked for 3 nights a few months before we travelled). Our new hotel was possibly not quite as nice as the one the night before but the location was ... read more

We woke up early and sat around until breakfast which didn't open until 8.30 am. At 8.35 am Jo complained that they hadn't yet removed the chain across the breakfast area as she could smell the coffee and we were both becoming thirsty which was when we discovered that we had 25 minutes left to wait due to Ed having the wrong time!!! A leisurely breakfast of fresh orange juice, crusty fresh rolls, really good coffee (for once) and some fruit. We walked into town which is really very nice with pretty buildings and cobbled streets, a reasonable selection of shops, some cafes, boats bobbing at their moorings all to the backdrop of forested mountains with pleasant walking weather - i.e. not raining and not too hot. We wandered around most of the morning and afternoon, ... read more

Some of the group were going White water rafting (mainly those who weren't on the previous leg of the trip so this was their first opportunity) and breakfast had to be on the table by 8.45am. We cut up melon and boiled the kettle and sorted out the cereals, after which it all had to get cleared away. There was a decent sink with proper running water so prior to breakfast, Jo washed all twenty-four or so food-encrusted bowls as they were not pleasant to eat from! Following breakfast, we walked into the town about twenty minutes away and looked round the shops. A pleasant town although nothing there of any particular interest. We then sheltered in an ice-cream parlour during a particularly fierce downpour of rain following which we found a wine shop/deli that had ... read more

Another 7.00 am breakfast and we all piled into the tiered jeep for a five-minute drive (which the day before we had walked 20 minutes to for the canoe trip) to the boat jetty. We got on to a pontoon with a planked floor bolted across with a wooden ladder to an upper level held up on metal stilts. Some of us climbed to the upper level. Plastic garden chairs were available on each level. The guide started the motor and we chugged very slowly through the fields of plants and water hyacinths in the opposite direction to that taken on the canoes, the boat totally obliterating any sign that we were actually in water until it cleared a watery trail through the middle. The going was very slow as the plants had grown so thick. ... read more