Rio de Janeiro

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We arrived in Rio the night before Lorna's birthday and stayed in a truly nasty hostel in Downtown Rio. When we awoke we got out of there very quickly and headed to the posh hotel in Copacabana we had booked as a birthday treat.

After exploring the area and enjoying the luxury of the hotel we went for dinner and champagne at a lovely restaurant on Ipanema beach. Lorna had sparklers in her pudding and the waiters sang 'Happy Birthday'.

Most of our following time in Rio was spent lazing on the beach and working on our suntans. We were in need of some relaxation time after the hectic schedule in Peru and then travelling through Brazil. For the first few days when the weather wasn't so good the beach was quiet, then when it got hot the beach came alive, full of skimpy bikinis and boys playing football! Much more like we had expected.

Of course, we managed to fit in a couple of football matches! The first being Vasco de Gama versus Fluminense and the second game saw Flamengos beat Fortalese (these are some of the top teams in Brazil). After the Flamengos match we saw ourselves on TV in the crowd!

One day we did a tour of the city which took us up to Corcovado to see the instantly identifiable statue 'Christ the Redeemer' which was great, the views from there were amazing. The tour also took us to the Sambadrome, the finishing arena of the carnival, where we danced a little Samba!

After that we headed to the Maracana stadium (the largest football stadium in the world) which is being renovated for the next South American Cup. Mark sat in the press room and went in the changing rooms as if he was a football star! We put our feet in the casts of the Brazilian footballers and one girl on the tour asked us if Pele was famous!

As always, we did a walking tour of Downtown, checking out the markets and the locals. Here we saw some people practising Capoeira in the street, it is a type of martial arts crossed with dancing, they were very impressive. We also saw a few Favellas, the areas where the poor people live.

On our last day we took a trip up to Sugar Loaf Mountain. We caught the cable car from near the beach to the top of the smaller mountain and from there to the top of Sugar Loaf. The views were great. Unfortunately it started raining so we got stuck up there for a little while.

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