Rio

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Day 1

We arrived in Rio in the morning after a 13 hour journey, somehow ended up in a taxi that took us to our hotel. Then we crashed out for a couple of hours. We woke up in the early afternoon and went for a wander round Flemengo and along the beach. Later we went for some dinner, where we started to reallise just how foreign we are. Usually in europe you can muddle you way through and I thought I a basic understanding of Portugese, but appartently not. Watching Carly trying to get her way through a family size Chicken Lasagne was funny though! By the time we were finished it was dark and walking back to the hotel was interesting, there were these people trying to sell stuff on the streets that they had blatently found on the beach or stolen that day. Things like worn shoes, old brooms, a cam-corder like one of the russian ones Del Boy sold once in only Fools and horse´s one guy was even trying to sell 1 boot!!

Day 2

We got picked up at about 8 and went off on a tour of Rio. First stop was the Corcavardo, which is the mountain which the statue of Christ stands upon. It was truely amazing, the views were stunning, You can see across the whole city. On the way down the driver took us through a Favela (slum area) which was a little un-nerving especially if you´ve seen City of Gods. All the houses are just on top of each other and bundled together. Not very pleasent. Then next stop was Avenue Presidente which is where they hold the Rio carnival, basically it just a straight street about half a mile long which stands at the sides. Then we went to the Maracana. Awesome! it´s amazing that it can hold nearly twice as many people as Old Trafford but look about half the size. Unfortunately we couldn´t go in so we just had to admire from the out side. If we had stayed there an extra day we could have gone and seen a game, never mind. We got dropped of at Copacabbana and walked along the beach and then walked back to the hotel. It took us about 3 hours in total in blistering heat, but we got to see parts of the town you wouldn´t normally get to see. Proper travellers now!! In the evening we met up with the rest of the guys who are doing the trek with us, everyboday seems friendly and fun so it looks like we´ll have a good time.

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