Portogalo Hotel Angra Dos Reis

... were crammed in to seat-less terraces. Incidentally my beloved a-ha set a world record here for a paying concert audience in 1991 - playing to 198,000 people.

There are 3 sections of hardcore Flamengo fans in sight - lively and drumming and singing along to various uplifting tunes - less aggressive than the english football chants - they seem to be more carnival than hooligan. Flamengo go one goal down and although the game is ...

... nd we h*d to sort lunch for the truck, we rebelled slightly *nd decided to turn up l*te, *ll of us folded *nd only m*n*ged 5 mins l*te. It h*dn’t even been noticed. So fin*l cle*n up of c*mp, m*nd*tory truck photo *nd we were off for rio on wh*t w*s typic*lly * be*utiful truck d*y. Journey w*s nice *nd the entert*inment w*s provided vi* the filling in of tour questionn*ires, some of the *nswers provided were cr*ckers, in both senses of the word. We rocked up to the ...

... get a photo without 10 other people in it is almost impossible! That didnt take away from the fantastic views however which we tried to lap up as much as we could before our minibus left!



That evening, the hostel encouraged everyone to go to a street party in Lapa, a part of the city centre. So after getting to know everyone in the hostel over a few vodkas, we headed to Lapa in a minibus! We were greeted by crazy scenes ...

... US.

As soon as our bags were down at our hostel, we were in our suits and heading for the beach. Ipanema Beach is the stereotypical Rio beach. It is everything one pictures from the bronzed and statuesque bodies everywhere, to the futbol jugglers and volleyball players, to the tiny speedos on every single male, to the wonderful surf, to the perfect white sand that crunches under your feet like some fresh powder in the mountains, to the ...

... on the beach or running or walking along it. /Even walked all the way to Sugar Loaf mountain and took some great sunset shots. Tomorrow I go to Maracana Stadium to see the championship football match before 80000 wild and crazy fans. If you´re watching it on ESPN, look for me in the stands!!

... What really impressed us was the atmosphere the whole time we were in Rio, people seem to treat each other with kindness, courtesy and an openness. We did not see any trouble and we were not accosted by anyone either. There was a great party vibe and lots of fun going on. We went to a few street parties, hang on the beach and also went to the Sambadrome. The Sambadrone was excellent, but I think you should either go ...

... side and the brazillian side. The first day it rained so much but luckily it was nice and sunny the rest of the time! The evenings were spent drinking around the pool bar playing poker and sleeping in tents. We then had 2 full on drive days to go to Paraty and we spent valantines night camping in a tiny piece of grassed area at a service station full of trucks - how romantic! Paraty is a lovely little colonial town, that we camped at again, here we went to the natural park beach a ...

The first stop on our journey from hell from Ihla Grande to Puerto Iguacu!! We got the ferry over to Angra from the island (90 mins) and when we were getting off we met a lovely Australian couple who were to become our travelling companions for the next 48 or so hours - Adam and Alex. We walked, with our backpacks (very proud) from the ferry to the ...

... a taxi to the ferry port with a Brazilian girl who was working on the island. She was singing the praises of the hostel where she worked. Actually we weren´t sure we wanted to stay in a hostel at this point, but it sounded like it was a fabulous location, so we went with it. The hostel Aquario was on the far side of the beach, with a fantastic view of the beach, it´s own jetty and backed by rainforest. Too good ...

... sunbathing. I got the beach taxi back to town early as I wanted to find out about the diving for tomorrow.


2nd March. We set off at 08:30 for 2 dives, the boat took about an hour to the first dive so we (Alan, Tom and me) got chatting to the other 5 people we were to be diving with. One of the girls we met was from Manchester and when we got in the water I tested my buoyancy and needed more weight, so I asked her to pass me down a couple of half kilo ...