Rio - Foz We were up fairly early today and after showering and packing were ready to go to the bus station by 11. This proved blissfully uneventful as we were expecting trouble getting on the tube with our backpacks if it was too busy, the only factor was the heat, it was another scorching hot day and we walked from the house to the metro (1km) and then from the metro to the bus station (3km) in it and as such were tired and thirsty by the time we got there. ...

Beaches Another sunny day today and a perfect opportunity to go visit a couple of the beaches. We caught the metro once more and took it right to the end of the line which is only about 200 yards from Ipanema beach. We arrived to find that despite being a Thursday there were still plenty of people about although we suspect that on weekends you can't move for people. We walked down to the sea where we quickly discovered that it's not a warm as Miami!! We walked...

When we got up in the morning, the sun was shining and there was barely a cloud in the sky so we decided not to waste the opportunity and today we headed out to climb the hill on top of which the enormous statue of Christ the Redeemer sits. For some unknown reason, the first day we were in Rio I had asked Andy which hill 'Matey' sat atop as there was too much cloud to see him and the name kind of stuck! So heading off to see Matey we took the metro to a station w...

We slept in rather later than we wanted to today so it was gone midday before we finally caught the metro into the centre of Rio. Once we arrived and got our bearings we started our tour by looking at park dedicated to Ghandi which contained a very impressive looking fountain, which was turned off. We then took a stroll up one of the main streets in Rio, Avenue Rio Branco, which must be about 50m wide and is lined with trees, making it quite a pretty place to wa...

We were up and checking our bags in at 6 to board our onward flight at 7 which was very short at only 50 minutes and before long we could see the city of Rio De Janeiro stretching out below us. We landed at just after 8 and after the usual drama of baggage collection and trying to find out how to get to the place we are staying we managed to get on a bus with our bags, only to find you have to go through a kind of turnstile thingy and our bags wouldnt fit through...