Rio de Janeiro

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hello all and sorry for the delay in my blog, it's been a hectic few days travelling and the internet facilities aren't as good as Asia was years ago.

I love Rio!!! it's amazing - it has the beach, city, mountains and sushi! I was pretty nervous about arriving in Rio on my own but was very lucky to meet a lovely girl on the plane who was travelling on business and gave me a lift to my hostel in her company chauffeur driven car! I had been really apprehensive as i had read the taxi companis were a real rip off and all shout for your business at the arrival gate, it wasn't anywhere near as bad as that though. the flight was delayed in taking off and the customs queue took forever so i finally got to my hostel at about 4am uk time.

I've been out of the travellers mindset for over 2 years and was brought firmly back into it sharing a 6 bed dorm with 5 smelly boys and no air conditioning! I expected dorms but in Rio they are 3 beds high! thankfully my spare one was the bottom bunk.

I only had a few days in Rio before meeting my tour group so i tried to cram it all in and on day 1 took a tour of the Favelas. i met a lovely girl at breakfast called nicola and we set off with a group of people to the slums. at the bottom we changed on to the back of a motorbike and sped to the top of the hill, which was a real experience in itself. at th etope we all got off and walked down through the favela main walkways. The Rocinha favela houses about 200,000 people and has everything they need including running water and they steal electricity from the main streets so there are cables everywhere!

that night we went to the footbal at the grand maracana stadium - 15000 people going crazy with drums,horns and songs. apparently the stadium can fit 150,000 though! i was hoping for a hot dog and beer but ended up with a coke and a cold dog and crisps which resmbled frazzles but were hugely disappointing!

day 2 and we went on a city tour to see the selaron steps, normal steps which were transformed by an artist with tiles from all over the world. then to see Christ the redeemer which was absoluetly amazing structure and amazing views. we went through the jungle, saw a real monkey, had a walk by a nice waterfall and then on to sugarloaf mountain to watch the sunset overt the city.

that night 7 of us from the hostel went out for a BBQ meal - all you can eat for about £7. a huge buffet and fresh meat that comes around on skewers - beef, chicken, sausage, chicken hearts(!), lamb. the meat here is great but they cover everything in so much salt!! after dinner it was another night of drinking Caipirinhas in our hostel bar.

Day 3 and i checked out of the hostel and into my hotel ready to meet my tour group, the welcome meeting wasn't until 7pm so i hit the beaches at copacabana and ipanema and had a walk around town. i tried the Acai drink i had been hearing so muh about but wasn't that impressed but i may have ordered the wrong thing as it came in a bowl with a spoon!

I met my new room mate Alexandra (alex), she's 21, from London and absolutely lovely and i'm sure we'll have no problems sharing and getting on well over the next 45 days! the other members of the tour group are Stu & Mel from Essex, Lou & Ben from Ireland & Oz, Harry (London), Paul & Michael (Denmark) and our Canadian tour leader Tara. We all went out for another BBQ meal and got to know each otehr over a few Caipirinhas, then i took Harry and Alex back to my old hostel to meet my other friends and drink some cheap Caipirinhas and didn't get back til after 4am, maybe not the best idea for the day before travelling the next day! more from Ihla Grande next time...

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