Rio Copa Hotel Rio de Janeiro

... south american equivalent of the uefa cup final in the maracana, which was absolutely amazing! Even in the minibus we took there had a greeat atmosphere, with a couple of brazilians sharing their beers with the rest of the bus and teachng us chants. Me and rhys became massive liverpool fans in an attempt to fit in, and used our detailed knowledge of the player Lucas (sp) to look cool. Stadium is massive, loads of ...

... of man-made creation and of nature, of wealth and poverty - it's such a place of extremes and contradictions that go beyond usual class contradictions of big cities (whether it's seeing a homeless person sleeping across the street from Trump Tower in Manhattan or having L.A.'s Bonaventure hotel for presidents and kings steps from Skid Row). We, of course, got lots of pictures from this vantage point as we squeezed through the throngs of ...

... is 80% funded by these flavella tours. Our guide tells us about the educational system stressing that Brazil’s development is not at a level where access is a huge issue but where quality of education is a concern.

Joel and I think the flavella tour provides a good insight into another side of Rio…and another reality which not only has its problems but also has a vibrancy and energy about it.

A girl on the tour tells us ...

... and wondered why we were even bothering to go, it was just gonna be a load of gringos trying to get a taste of the favella and just ending up with some gimicky tourist trap. When we got there though it wasn't all bad. Ladies in first, then the tourists with VIP passes. We even got to take a couple of beers in with us. Mind you we had paid enough to get in!! It was pretty empty when we went in. Got ushered u to the VIP area ...

... stalls (like cheese on sticks!). And after a lot of wandering (Paula wanted to choose the perfect one) we chose a club and danced the whole night away, with a few more caipirinhas to help through the embarrassment! So, the next few days we´re saying goodbye to Susan and then Jo and us three are heading off to Ilha Grande since Rio is far to expensive for us to spend any significant amount of time!

... to the beach and excellent transport links all over the city. It was fascinating to watch the young, beautiful and wealthy in Ipanema walking their rare breed dogs, the guys walking down the main street with no shirts on showing off their tanned muscular bodies and of course the beautiful women in tight lycra jogging!! Rio is such an interesting place, I'd really like to spend more time here but I must push on. I'll be back one day, don't know how and when, but never ...

Left WOB on sunday and moved to villa carioca in Botafogo. really nice hostel and great staff but when i got here none of the other guests were friendly at all. Thankfully some new vaguely chatty ones have arrived now but the originals were really antisocial as well. they came in and turned the light on, had a chat on their phones and to their friends whilst i was trying to sleep and this was at midnight so not even ridiculously early! however that evening we went to see ...

... mountain, the delay meant that we missed a big chunk of clear skies :(

We did get a great view over the Maracana stadium though.



After the photos we made our way back through the photographers on their backs, with their buddies/wives/kids with arms stretched out ...