Ambassador Hotel Rio de Janeiro

... design team. Recently there has been some gun battles (last month) in the favelas so All in all it felt like a city to visit without small children, so you could venture forth at night but obviously following the advice of the locals. The have a lot of work to do to prepare for the Olympics...

One great tip from our hotel was to eat with the locals in the great BBQ/buffet style restaurants, you select the salads and BBQ meat you want, get it weighed ...

... in Lapa that has been converted into a very quirky samba-jazz bar/club. We had a great night with the live band playing samba and wished we had seen more of the Rio nightlife.

Such a fun city with so much to see and do and we highly recommend it and cant wait to go back one day!!!!

Next stop is Igassu Falls.. the huge set of waterfalls which borders Brazil and Argentina.. so only a 22 hour bus ride to go and we will be there!!

loads of love XXXXXXXXX

... a very confusing map to guide us. Local area is very bohemian. We visited the steps which had been decorated with tiles by a locally based artist from Chile (we didn't see him). After posting this we'll try to put up photos. We then headed for 'Centro', another region of the city. Less busy than Copacabana in the morning.

We're starting to feel a little more relaxed and orientated. Noticed halfway through the day that we both had fat hands ...

When we got to Rio, it was pouring with rain, so rather than go straight to the beach, we had lunch and then went to a good Haviana (the flip flops) shop to buy loads of pairs. I got quite a few pairs. King spent 200 reais, which is about 60 to 70 pounds, which sorted all his presents for people at home.
That night, we said bye to King who was heading up into the Amazon on the next leg of his trip. That left just 6 of us. After the goodbyes, we headed to the Maracana ...

... Aussie couple for a real dinner and a real beer.

The next day we rented bicycles and rode to Leblon, giving our legs a little bit of a warm up and stretch. Katie felt the need to change venues the next day and we moved to a bed and breakfast in the artistic/bohemian neighborhood of Santa Teresa, which sits on a ridge above the city and is filled with old mansions that are in various stages of disrepair. The neighborhood started to decline in the 1970 ...

... and I went big with fish and goat (not together but two seperate dishes) the fish was nice, the goat was interesting and pretty soon we were back in the van.

We got to Sugarloaf Mountain with just enough time to hike to the top before the sunset - so we got hiking (after being told off for nearly breaking a seasaw in the park). The hike up the Mountain wasnt too bad but definitely demanded more than just flip flops. We headed from bottom to top ...

... be awoken by roosters in a city of several million! Always, always, there's a rooster or a mosque that wakes me up. It's a travel tradition, I guess. Between Ney's passable, French, Spanish, and English and my not so passable Portuguese and Spanish, we communicated well enough to make small talk and settle in. She had a computer with cable internet, which I loved. But right as she was about to leave, I noticed that the computer was gone, and so was ...

... boss Jorge to get a ticket for me but he wasnt around when I got back to the hostel so I assumed he had had no luck. Well, if I didnt see him at the sambadrome later on that night! He was in the same section as me and had a ticket waiting for me at the hostel, which he paid 95 reais for, so had to pay him most of the price of that as well as the 60 I'd alreay paid. It was well worth it, roughly 40 euro for the tickets altogether. The parade was amazing, we were there till ...

... on reception?!

When we got inside the taxi it sped north east through Ipanema and Leblon, around the corner of the bay where a very nice Sheraton hotel sits and then another 10 minutes along the next beach.

It was a lovely day and a very nice ride, but I could see Katie ...

... in between. In the end, I got everything that I wanted, did things I never thought Iīd be able to do, and saw a place thatīs more beautiful that I had ever imagined. Of course it has itīs flaws, but then which country doesnīt. My thoughts are really not organized, but I wanted to write down some random thoughts that I had during the trip. Mind you, this is the first time I had travelled on my own, so this country has quite a sentimental value to me. 1. My first ...