A very soggy, grey and gloomy start to Rio, which made the English in our group a little homesick (especially when Louisa spotted the C&A on the high street)! Despite the weather, we were determined to cram in as much of Rio as possible in the 1.5 days that we had, and so we set off in our rainjackets, ponchos and umbrellas for a stroll on Copacabana beach (where we were staying). After all the fuss that Barry Manilow made about Copacabana, we all had tremend...

The historical center of Salvador is very quaint, with most of the interesting sites located in Cidade Alta (Upper City) - not that we were allowed to venture anywhere else as it was too dangerous to walk outside of this area. We have an excellent view of Pelirinhou from our pousada, with its multi-coloured buildings and mutliple church towers. Scott, Angelica and I attended a candomblé ceremony (which is an Afro-Brazilian religion with African roots) at a terre...

My goodness - what luxury - a plane trip!!!! We only had an afternoon in this historic town, and it was beautiful, if not the safest place. Once again, we were warned off by the locals (some uniformed personnel - but I don't think they were the police) when they saw us approaching the beach. They gestured to us 'mugging' and one of them said Drugs, and they directed us back to the historical center. I am not one to ignore the locals so we turned back and headed b...

Praia de Pipa is a pleasant little beach village.... although I am feeling a little beached out having travelled from 1 beach to another over the last 2 weeks, and am looking forward to a change of scene - hard life, isn't it? I finally took a break from vegetating in my hammock yesterday morning ... and went for a 2 mile run on the beach, followed by yoga and a swim, and paid the price later - I was feeling sore all over! We had a little toga party at the po...

We went on a buggy ride to the northern beaches of Natal - it was so much fun! It was a shame I did not manage to capture a video of our ride (mainly because I only had 2 hands and they were both clinging on for dear life) as we took some sharp bends on some of the dune hills, and as we plunged headlong down a few of the sand dune walls. We were all preparing to bail as all of us were convinced the buggy would be doing backflips down the dunes. Better than any th...