Rio de Janeiro!

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Well, we have arrived safely in Rio de Janeiro! Which was VERY exciting although it was also RAINING but still quite hot. We saw our first glimpse of Christ the Redeemer which was lit up in the dark, that was pretty cool as it´s the iconic image of Rio.

We spent our first day having a look around (with Alice, who is also on our tour), went to Copacabana beach which was empty and not at all like the pictures (must have been the rain!) and then went up Corcovado to see Christ the Redeemer. It is huge!!!! We had a good view of the city but it was pretty cloudy. We had one of the mosty random train rides back on, what we call, the Samba train! (I was made to get up and dance! - Caryl & Alice have video evidence, it was very embarassing!). We also saw Hugh Jackman. We saw a crowd and loads of people taking photos so went to have a look, at first we didn´t know who it was and then figured it out!

That night we had out first night out in Lapa, the Samba district. I had a few too many Caipirinhas (sorry Mum & Dad, I sensibly switched to way when I realised!) and then just as we were leaving the restaurant to go to a Samba club it started raining (it seems to rain a lot here) REALLY hard. We decided to sit it out for a bit but within about 15 minutes we realised the road was actually flooding and the number of taxis reducing so had to get in a taxi quick, we literally had to wade across the street! It was quite an experience! Again, we have video evidence.

The second day the sun was out so we went up Sugar Loaf mountain which was so peaceful and tranquil despite there being a lot of people (we saw monkeys!) and the view was amazing, Rio is HUGE!!! We also went to the beach which did then look like the Copacabana of the pictures (boys, you would have LOVED it!), I guess the sun bought the Brazilians out.

We met up with our tour group (who are all very nice) for dinner that night and went to this proper local restaurant which was really great. It´s been quite hard for us as not many people speak Portuguese, and although we are trying to speak it they don´t understand us. So, it was quite nice to go somewhere with our Portuguese speaking guide Joaquin and eat something that wasn´t cheese based (because it´s the only thing we could understand).

Today we have left Rio and moved down to Paraty, which seems very nice, it´ll be the beach for us tomorrow! It it doesn´t rain.

Hope you are all well.

Lots of love

Rachel Xx

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Comments

[Lucy Field]

Hi Rach, Just read your Blogs. I'm glad that you are having a good time. Makes me want to travel. Its a lot better than doing a FF on NBS marketing directors wife, then going to a home visit to discover the customers father is a recently retire Executive-Director! Could only happen to me! Make sure you look out for yourself. Think of you Lucy