Caesar Park Rio de Janeiro

... of like souvenir shopping for the entire country in one place. I brought back some sundried tomatoes and pepper which I have been eating like crazy!

I'll be honest though, I have had a pretty hard time adjusting to being back. Being on vacation really reminded me of a lot of the things I miss and gave up to come into Peace Corps. Not just the obvious things like running water and such, but especially being around friends and going out and having fun. Its been ...

... go on the trip they had organised that evening to a Flemengo game at the Maracana stadium. The game itself wasnīt great, home side winning 3-0, and atmosphere was OK, but crowd was just under 15,000 and the stadium claims to hold about 200,000, so pretty sparse as you can imagine.

Back to the hostel around 9.30 and went for pizza and beer with a couple of girls i had met. Didnīt really sober up all day, but went to bed ...

... place itself was in Bahia da Gloria, right at the beach front which afforded fantastic views of Pao da Azucar. The food was phenomenal, with a steady stream of waiters offering mouthwatering meats every 30 seconds, I thought of all the men in my life -Andreas, Tata, Harry, Juan Esteban this would be heaven. I was provided with a coaster, one one side reading "yes I want more" the other "no thanks, I'm full". We stayed here for 3 hours ...

... we never felt threatened in any neighborhood during our entire stay in Rio, though we were definitely much more cautious and vigilent than I had been in almost any city and we only brought what was necessary with us at any time. It was a weird feeling to feel semi-scared and overly watchful always, especially when I was anywhere around Centro or walking around anytime after sundown. I, for once, got a sense of what it must be like to be a woman ...

... Come on everybody, sing along with me....I've changed a few of the lyrics, but it's still to the tune of 'My Way', but of course, now it's 'Our Way'..... And now, the end is near; And so we face, our final City. My friends, We'll say it clear, It makes us feel, just kind of ******. We've lived a tour that's full We've travelled each and every highway; And more, much more than this, We did it Our Way! Regrets, We've had a few; But then again, too few to mention. We did, what we ...

On my last day I actually had to go to the dentist which was altogether an ordeal because I had to first get my teeth X-Rayed in one place and then go to the dentist who was in Niteroi, an island 50 minutes away from Rio. Thinking I won't be doing any touristy stuff that day, I didn't take the camera. Of course, it turned out to be ...

... sometimes appeared to be entirely random and at other points had definite themes or told a story. In fact I believe the winning Samba school (who paraded on the Monday) had their theme as the evolution of drumming or something similar. You couldn`t help but watch with awe your eyes glued to the parade and your feet itching to dance...which is exactly what we did all night long. Watching the sunrise around 6.30am and catching a taxi to Copacabana beach where some ...

... be very careful, unless you are into getting mugged. We don't recommend it for the package or short term vacation, as there are too many other beautiful beaches with less than 15 people being mugged per day. However, we admit that any long-term cultural tour of South America wouldn't be complete without a visit to Rio not to mention we've never experienced anything quite like it - so for the road warriors out there don't erase Rio from the itinerary.

It was raining when we woke up but we'd expected a decided to book a favela tour this morning, which hopefully would not require fabulous weather.

We made our way to the collection point, chatted away to some friendly Brit backpackers who were also doing the same tour ...