Aeroporto Othon Rio de Janeiro

... They are built hickelty pickelty on mountains, and sides of roads, using mainly red brick, but as the time has moved on, more stories have been added to the existing houses, using concrete, painted blue, yellow and white, leaving odd shaped housing, plonked wherever the land was bare. This has, as Phil informed me, led to GSK buying the mountain behind its office, off the government to ensure that no favella can be built.

When driving through the city, the landscape is a ...

... at our pousada so we chatted to them
a bit and went to see them play the following night. We sampled some of
the local cuchassa (cane spirit) and had a great time.

After the
gig we got on a night bus back to Salvador, then hopped on another bus
to go south to Itacare which we'd heard was a great surf town. We
arrived late at night having befriended a Hawaiian surfer on the bus.
The 3 of us headed to a pousada and the next day ...

... and playing pool and poker with some of the other people staying at the hostel, which are predominantly English or American. We have the loudest air con system in our room though, so ear plugs will be required for the whole stay I think!

In the light of day, the hostel seems to be in an ok area, with handy transport links. We took it relatively easy today doing the ...

... the famous statue and and so came the silhouette style photographs. In one shot, which will be uploaded shortly, my attempt to pat Christ on the head was unsuccessful. This wasnīt because Cara couldnīt stop laughing in order to take the picture, I was simply way of the mark!

Favelas have fascinated me ever since I read about them for Junior Cert Geography. However when I heard that Americaīs Next Top Model had done a ...

... fries and a Coke, we walked around. As I said before, things were not absurdly cheap. Basic staples like a large bag of rice or beans at the supermarket was affordable for a family, yet meat, clothing and any remotely luxurious consumer good was quite expensive; and these prices were at stores in the favela. As we we walked down the street, we came to a corner where my eye was immediately drawn to a 12-15 year old kid calmly standing with his ...

... face of the difficult environment of these slums. We learned that the favelas were overcrowding as people could build their own places at will (obviously explaining the upward spread) - or on top of their existing places too - and electricity and cable could be stolen from power lines to provide power, TV and Internet connectivity. We then passed by a sweet bakery and then onto one of the favela's funded nursery schools (part-provided from the cost of our tourism). We learned that ...

... Now we only have the long flight home left! We managed to kidnap another girl into our taxi to Ipanema to make it cheaper - OK, just in case anyone is thinking of contacting our Brazilian police friends, we didn't actually kidnap her......we drugged and bound her and then threw her in the boot!! Again, only kidding....honest! The apartment we have booked is brilliant. It is really modern and clean. There's loads of space ...

... with their feather head-dresses and tiny jewel incrusted bikini's. I've never seen anyone move like those girls could, completely unbelievable!!! I've never seen so many beautiful people in one place in my entire life, I felt genetically inferior surrounded by these beautiful freaks. Another amazing night out in Brazil, these people certainly know how to party. Returned to my friends place as the sun was rising, the taxi drove though Copacabna which was surprising ...

... the nearer we got the busier it was - with many many impromptu bars lining the streets. We eventually found our way to the stand in the Sambadrome - a purpose-built area with terrace style seating along one side and box style stands on the other. We arrived in time to catch one of the Samba schools finishing and after a short break the next one was soon samba-ing past - with fantastical floats, glittering costumes, scantily clad samba ...

... somewhat sweaty but happy and walked quickly towards a viewing platform in front of the statue, which looked like it would provide some incredible views out over the city in front of us.

The only problem was that half of Arkansas appeared to be there at the same time as us ...