So the time has come to write our final blog entry!

I'll start where I left off- Buzios. We awoke the next day still feeling a little worse for wear. We headed down to the beach and had a walk along the water front after laying in the sunshine for the whole day. We both had a read of our books and enjoyed the day relaxing. I had fallen in love with this beautiful small town, it's cobbled streets, cute shops and friendly faces made me feel right at home. We headed back to the hostel and showered to go meet the Scots we toured with in Peru, they had rented a plush apartment down the road from us. During the day we had picked up some wine and beers and planned to take along the wine we had purchased at the Argentinian winery. We had a lovely enjoyable BBQ giggling, eating and drinking all evening and left for our hostel around 2am.

The next day once again I didn't feel well but we got ready and headed off to enjoy the sunshine and the beach. We caught a mini van from the top of the road to the famous Geriba beach. It was gorgeous. Really big but unfortunately very windy. Ed had a dip in the surfers paradise waters and around 5pm we left for the supermarket and a mini van back. Ed made dinner this night yum! We spent the rest of the evening relaxing in a comfy hammock we found and socialising with room mates.

On the 17th we got up filled up on the free breakfast and headed for a long walk to the beaches on the edge of the peninsular, which were only reachable by foot. The secluded beaches were stunning we had a lovely day sunning it up and swimming in the calmer sea. We fell asleep on the quite beach and were awoken as the sea reached us and soaked me! We had an enjoyable walk home and showered to head out to the infamous by kg restaurant. It wasn't as great as others had raved but we stocked up on food and made our way back, we were meant to be meeting the Scots again for drinks but I think I had eaten either something funny or swallowed some of the brown water that was coming out of the tap and had fallen ill. We spent the evening again in our comfy hammock, we had been bitten a lot in Buzios, ouch! We ended up talking to two Israelis which was interesting and later headed to bed.

We had breakfast the next morning, packed our bags and caught the 4 hour bus back to Rio. Thankfully this time we didn't feel as sick. We saw the Scots at the bus station off to Ilha Grande where we planned to be in 2 days but we still had to see the rest of Rio. We caught a public bus into the centre and checked into our new cute hostel in Botafogo a more affluent area in the capital. Once we arrived we dropped our bags off and headed towards Christ the Redeemer by public bus. We had heard the weather was due to drastically change and as it was bright sunshine we rushed to get Christ the Redeemer in. It was amazing views at the top after an enjoyable train journey up the mountain. We enjoyed the views but disliked the amount of tourists around and after capturing our pictures we decided to take the train back down. We hopped on the public bus home and in usual form missed our stop so spent an extra hour and a half on the bus having a tour of the city before hopping off for home haha. We hadn't eaten all day so decided to indulge in a Burger King which didn't touch the sides for Ed so we had a visit to KFC before heading back. We spent the evening watching a film and playing with the hostels extremely cute puppy and as expected late that evening a down poor of rain reached Rio.

The next morning we had breakfast got ready and had a walk around the city. Some had informed us of a local favela so Ed and I took a walk which was slightly daunting so we kept back and took pictures from a far. We were amazed by the cable car that transported people from top to the bottom as they are located on such steep mountains. After we took a walk down to the water and around the local shopping mall before doing some grocery shopping and headed back late afternoon. We were a little short for cash at this point so we cooked dinner and chilled out in the hostel. We spent the evening again playing with the puppy and then headed up to pack and get an early night as we had to get up early.

On the 20th we got up and headed to the bus station by taxi after waiting around for the public bus that never turned up. We hopped on our bus which didn't take long and we arrived in Angra where you get the ferry over to the island off the coast- Ilha Grande. We met a French couple and grabbed a taxi with them. We walked to the pier and had to wait an hour and a half for the ferry. Whilst waiting we caught up with blog writing and got to know the lovely French couple. The ferry was a little choppy but the hour and a half journey went rather quick. We arrived at the only small town on the island and had to walk along the beach to get to our hostel. It was beautiful! We waved goodbye to the French couple and settled into the new hostel. It was gorgeous on the sea front. We headed out to explore and realised how tiny the island was. We spotted a bakery that had a never ending queue and we were hungry so thought we would enjoy dinner there so joined the queue and tucked into yummy hot sandwiches and pastries woopsy. It was cheaper than going to the super market and cooking ourselves! We spotted the French couple and had a catch up which was nice. After we ate we went for a walk and also spotted 3 American boys we had met in NZ, so strange. We headed to bed after catching up on wifi, all the travelling had knocked it out of us.

Today we were up early and enjoyed breakfast on the decking looking out onto the water it was gorgeous. We got ready and headed to the other side of the island to the world famous Lopez Mendez beach which is meant to be one of the best in the world. The hike was 8-10km and took us 2 hours and it was tough-especially in flip flops haha. We trekked through rainforest and across 3 beaches until we finally reached the beautiful beach. We walked right to the end and spent the day alone it was fantastic. On the way back we saw our friends we had travelled Argentina with and had a catch up and then by this time it was too late to walk back so we got a speed boat back which was really fun. We headed back to the same bakery and enjoyed dinner and then grabbed some beers from the shop. We headed back to the hostel to shower and relax before heading out again down the beach to have a few beers on a blanket. We headed back late and fell asleep our long walk had tired us out.

On the 22nd we got up early again and walked to the beach which had black sand, this was cool. We were going to venture to the waterfall but decided to trek again to the otherside of the island this time to a beautiful beach called Dois Rios. It was again a tough walk and took us 2 hours but it was worth it as we were meeting our lovely Scottish friends. It was amazing I think nicer than the beach the day before. We lay and lapped up the sun and sea before meeting our friends. They had run here which would have been tough our feet were very sore! They ran back and we made our way walking, it was the only way! On the way back we happened to see our French friends and had a laugh on the way back. We then decided to go to the bakery again for dinner with them it was like usually yummy!! We were a little scared on the walk home as we could hear the screaming monkeys so finished off walking at a fast pace haha!! We swapped contact details and waved them off and headed back to the hostel to shower and relax. We could hardly walk, we hobbled back along the beach it must have been a funny sight. We got ready and met the Scots back at the beach and we sat till 2am drinking and saying our final farewells. It was sad! We were so happy to have met them both and had an excellent time every time we were in their company, definitely friends we hope to see again.

On the 23rd we were up early to have breakfast, check out and get the first ferry back to the main land to catch a bus to Paraty. It was such a hot day today we were sweating walking with our back packs and I didn't like the idea of sitting on a bus for a few hours but we caught the fast bus so we could get there quicker. We both fell asleep on the bus and a lovely lady woke us up which was kind of her. We checked into our Paraty hostel and changed into our swimmers and walked down to the nearest beach. It wasn't that great so didn't get into the water but laid and enjoyed the last rays of sunshine. We had a walk around a few little gift shops and then headed back to the supermarket to grab our dinner-pizza. It was yummy and we spent the rest of the evening socialising in the hostel and later watched a film before bed.

As we were now very low on cash there's not much we could do. Today was said to be the last day of hot weather for a while so we got up had breakfast and headed to Trinidade beach which was a public bus drive away. It was gorgeous but by the time we had got there it had already started to go cloudy. We enjoyed a few hours lying on the beach and then decided to get the bus home. The waves were huge! On the way back from the bus stop we grabbed super noodles from the shop (not so yum!) and headed back to eat. We spent the evening watching telly and being boring.

It was raining on the 25th and that meant there was nothing to do. So we sat for the best part of the day on wifi, Ed had a subway and we wandered around the cobbled streets of the historical centre. We wandered in and out of small stores and grabbed a few souvenirs. Once again we indulged in noodles haha. After dinner we cleared out our travels bags and got talking to two lovely Brazilian girls in our room. I gave them each a dress of mine as I was only going to chuck them away which they were extremely chuffed with. My converse had definitely seen better days with them now being creamy brown instead of white. We then made our way downstairs to again socialise and played fuse ball with a few people which was great however definitely not my best sport haha. We sat up talking for a while and then headed to bed.

The 26th we had breakfast and checked out we headed to the bus station to catch the 6 hour bus to São Paulo. I heard some terrible news back home about a school friend that had sadly passed away so was feeling very sad for all my friends and wish I was with them. However we were sad to say bye to the beach and sad our trip was nearly over :(! We arrived in São Paulo and caught the metro to the centre and walked a few blocks before arriving at the apartment block. The doorman let us in and we made our way to the 8th floor and finally put our bags down around dinner time to relax. We let everybody know we had arrived safe and spoke to Carolina and Bianca as they were who we were staying with here in São Paulo. Ed and I went to the supermarket and purchased some more noodles and spent the night watching films and quickly got to sleep. It was strange as the apartment was so quite and a cosy double bed helped us sleep amazingly.

For the last days of our travels we spent walking around São Paulo enjoying a range of different markets grabbing our last souvenirs and enjoying the last days of Brazilians winter sunshine. We tucked into lots of different Brazilian specials including Mortadella which was an extremely meaty sandwich (google it!). The two lovely Brazilian girls we stayed with are Ed's sisters friends and we were so lucky and thank them so much for our stay as we were so tired and poor towards the end. We tucked into super noodles more then you'll ever want to imagine but most of all we reminisced on the fantastic year we have had together. On our last day we walked around Parque Ibirapuera for 4 hours to help tire us out for our final flight. It's amazing how fast time can fly by when you're having fun. It wasn't long and we had boarded and were finally heading for London.

It was amazing to see our friends and family after so long. We were stunned to see the banners, balloons and cakes upon our arrival and so thankful. When you're away from those you love and care about the most that is when you realise how much they truly mean to you!! My favourite moment was surprising my nan, It had been far too long and as she is my biggest blog fan so I had to give her a mention ;)!

11 months and 11 countries later and admittedly a huge task of writing a blog for the whole entire trip. I hope I haven't bored you too much with our food 'yum yum' or our moments of joy and laughter 'haha'.
It really has been the time of my life and it wouldn't have been the same without my right arm-Ed!

I can't say I have enjoyed the task of writing our adventures it has felt like homework but I know in years to come this will be invaluable to us.
Until next time....