We ended up leaving Colombia as we arrived, by boat, though of a rather different type! This time our transport was a ferry which would chug down the Amazon river for four days to end up in Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian Amazon state. What was rather unique about this boat though was that it consisted of two large empty decks (and just a few cabins) which once everyone had boarded were converted into a mass hammock camp - and that was your accommodation for four days!

So the day we boarded the boat we went to the local market to buy our hammocks and rope (the boat doesn't provide hammocks, you have to bring your own), some snacks for the journey, and somehow managed to be one of the first in line to board the boat which was ideal for sourcing a prime hammock location (not near the toilets nor the kitchen but by a column where we could tie our backpacks up). The boarding area at the dock was mostly full of Brazilians with the odd other backpacker/foreigner, and it was hilarious seeing what some people were bringing on board: huge plasma-screen TVs, fridges, dogs, piles and piles of luggage as if they were moving house…it all made our backpacks look like tiny hand luggage.

Boarding the boat was far more civilised than we expected - we had heard horror stories of punch-ups in the queue in the scrum to get on board/a good hammock spot, and that the female customs officials were particularly stringent and some women travellers had even had their private parts searched for drugs etc….anyway it was nothing like that, everyone was very friendly and courteous and certainly no intrusive body searches, thank god! There were even some of the ship's crew on hand to help secure your hammock (so hopefully no falling down in it again for me) and by the time the boat left at midday we had already been comfortably swinging in our hammocks for an hour or so, and very happy with the prospect of the enforced laziness of the next four days.

We are quite good at dealing with enforced laziness as it turns out…we spent most our time snoozing in the hammocks, reading, diary-writing, playing Scrabble, people-watching, eating when hungry, but mostly swinging in our hammocks! When the weather was good (it switched between hot and sunny to grey and rainy) we sat out on deck, watching the Amazon rainforest go by, and on two of the days we were treated to a stunning double rainbow, an entire semi-circle over the jungle tree line. The boat ticket also included three basic meals a day in the little canteen, however we tended to pick and choose which meals we had as we didn't really feel just sitting in a hammock all day warranted three meals a day! Upstairs on the upper deck there was also a prayer room, a little kiosk selling drinks and fast food, a TV area, and even a 'salão de belleza' (beauty salon). All this accompanied to the sound of thumping Brazilian music which was spewed out by the upper deck's massive sound system - music in Brazil seems to be played about 100 decibels higher than in Colombia.

The bathrooms and showers were surprisingly decent, so all in all it was very comfortable and we loved travelling this way: like on the Trans-Mongolian railway trip, it was surprising how easily you could fill your day, watching the Amazon forest pass you by, listening to the hum of the engine and the waves hitting the side of the boat, women gossiping in their hammocks, kids playing and crying around you, chatting to our neighbours - it was all one big colourful community of hammock dwellers, and as you will see from our pictures, all at very close quarters! It was very relaxing, amazing value at just 200 Brazilian reis (equivalent to £50), and just a great way to traverse from Brazil to Colombia (if you are not in a rush).

There is not much to say about our few days in Manaus, as it rained heavily most of the time and so we didn't see much - apart from one dry afternoon when we made a quick dash around town, seeing some colourful parts of town and the Teatro Amazonas - an opera house in the heart of the city and one of its more impressive buildings. From Manaus we had booked a flight to Rio de Janeiro - our 4-hour flight reenforcing how vast Brazil is - where we would spend five days before our onward flight to South Africa, our time in Latin America fast coming to a close.

I'd loved Rio on previous visits and our stay there this time lived up to expectations and more - it was wonderful spending time there again and being reminded what a great city it is. It is however a lot more expensive and what with a lot of the favelas (slums) being a lot safer these days (sounds a good thing but I don't think that crime/the dangerous gangs go away they just move to other places) staying in the favelas has become quite a popular, and economical option, so we opted to stay in the Vidigal favela, a bit further along the coast from the famous (and more affluent) neighbourhoods of Ipanema and Leblon. The bus from the airport dropped us off at the bottom of the favela and from there it was a steep ride up by motorbike taxi to the backpackers hostel - the climb up was so steep that I didn't know what to hold on to, the driver, my backpack or my (strapless) helmet as all felt like they would fall off at any moment. The hostel was run by the very friendly Bruno and Fernanda, and all the other guests were British 'gap yahs' who were staying there for a few weeks or months while volunteering at various favela projects. While it was more like staying in a student house (I think we managed to find the cheapest room in all of Rio!) it did have great views, and hanging around with a bunch of 19 year-olds didn't make us feel too old, even though we know they probably thought we were like, 'well old',….. and it actually felt safer there than in the more central parts of Rio. There there seemed to be a real sense of community, everyone was so friendly, and walking around at night felt absolutely fine - which is certainly not what you feel elsewhere.

We were blessed with mostly lovely, sunny weather so we mixed some beach time with seeing some of the main sights: walking through downtown Rio which is much nicer than I remember, full of grand old buildings, churches and convents; exploring the boho neighbourhood of Santa Teresa; attempting to get the cable car up to Christ the Redeemer, getting thwarted by cloud cover, going up to the top of Sugarloaf mountain instead. But so much of 'carioca' (Rio natives) life is about the beach, and its impossible not get involved in it, whether it is playing in the waves in the sea, dodging the number of walkers/joggers/rollerbladers on the 'activity lane' between the main road and the beach, watching people of all ages playing football on the sand, and of course admiring all the 'beautiful people' (mostly found strutting around the beach in not very much). I remember last time I was in Rio, my travel buddy Lucy and I were so embarrassed by the size of our granny-pants bikinis (normal-sized anywhere else) compared to the Brazilian-style shoelaces that most of the women wear, that we went out and bought ourselves 'local' bikinis - which was great for maximising the tan but totally inappropriate for anywhere else other than Brazil. I think the 'itsy bitsy teeny weeny' bikini was perhaps why catching a bit of a women's volleyball match may have been Simon's highlight of our time in Rio…cannot think why though, as Brazilian women are just so ugly, I don't know how they have the audacity to leave their home every morning.

And then there's football…practically a religion in Brazil, and with the forthcoming World Cup it was never more apparent that people there live, breathe and sleep football! You hear of people playing before work, after work, and then even training from 1am to avoid the heat of the day and squeeze in as much as they can. One night we bought tickets to see the semi-final match of the Rio Derby, Vasco de Gama versus Fluminense, held at the famous Maracanã stadium, which is where many World Cup games will be held, including the opening ceremony. Brazilians really know how to party and no more so than at a football game, and their passion is so infectious that we were soon sitting on the edge of our seats and shouting for our chosen team (Fluminense, which sounded like the equivalent of Chelsea FC i.e. with lots of money) as if we'd been following them all our lives as opposed to just asking a few people that day who we should support and going with the majority.

Rio is such a great city - its inhabitants really know how to live and have a good time, its topography is just amazing and everyone is generally really friendly. We felt surprisingly safe wandering around (during the day anyway) despite reports about rising crime, maybe we were lulled in to a false sense of security because there are always so many people around, or maybe we were just lucky / didn't look wealthy enough to be targeted! If anyone reading this is visiting here during the World Cup, I am very jealous, it will be such a phenomenal party…we just got a very small taster of it. What we cannot quite believe is that even our favela student house has already been booked up, and our tiny $15 room will be going for $100 during the World Cup…I think once you see the picture of it, it will make you gasp as much as it made us when we heard that!