Alison: We initially planned to get the bus from Foz do Iguacu to Rio so that we could feel the achievement of only using buses to travel South America but when we were struggling to find a decent bus and when we then found out that it was cheaper to fly on the day we wanted to go, it was a no brainer! We flew to Rio with a short pit stop in Sau Paulo and the whole journey took around 5 and a half hours - it was 24 hours on the bus! The journey was very smooth apart from the landing into Rio. I'm not a nervous flyer and it usually takes a serious amount of turbulence to rattle me but I was very scared. Rio has two main airports and we were flying into the centrally located domestic one called Santos Dumont. I didn't realise that the airport is situated right next to the sea. When we were descending into Rio we circled over the water and suddenly took a very sharp downwards turn. The wing was getting closer and closer to the water and my heart started to race. I seriously thought we were going in for a dip. At the last minute the plane levelled out and relief swept over me but there still wasn't any land beneath us. Suddenly the land appeared but then we did a huge lurch down and hit the runway with a bump. Then came the braking......it was so strong that my bag flew out from under my seat and straight under the seat in front of me. It was the first time my seatbelt had actually come in handy on a flight. We slowed down in record time and I was just thinking that there was no way I was giving that landing a round of applause when I saw the reason it was so harsh.....the runway was about to run out! We were pretty close to being in the sea! I have since looked on You Tube at landings which have been filmed so don't take my word for it....have a look at these!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs5LeHBN3WE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fla-fo-QGxI

On our first 2 days in Rio we organised to do a couple of tours with a tour guide that had been recommended to us by Nigel's friend. The first day we did a general tour of the main attractions. First up was Christ the Redeemer which is the very famous huge Christ found on the top of a hill 700m above the ground. It is 38m tall and can be seen from most parts of the city. There is a train that runs up to the statue through the Tijuca Forest which is the second largest urban forest in the world. When you get up to the top, the views of Rio are amazing and the size of the Christ statue is overwhelming. It's huge! Although there are time slots for going up to avoid overcrowding, it was still really busy and everybody is after the same photo of themselves stood in front of the statue with their arms out so it was impossible to get a good picture. After checking out the views and the chapel underneath the statue, we headed back down and were lucky enough to see some wild monkeys in the forest. We've only ever seen wild monkeys a handful of times so it was strange to see them so centrally located!

Next up was a trip to downtown Rio. The first place we went was the Escadaria Selaron which is Rio's most famous staircase. The steps are hidden down an alleyway and the reason they are so well known is that there are 215 of them and they are covered in over 2000 tiles and mosaics. They are very beautiful to look at but the most amazing thing for me is that before the steps were decorated, the alley was a very dodgy place full of prostitutes and druggies. Then one day, a Chilean guy called Selaron moved to the area and decided to give the place a bit of a makeover. He spent between 1990 and 2012 decorating the steps and creating mosaics on them and he did this all out of his own money. He was very well known in Rio and our guide had even spoken to him on several occasions whilst he worked. Apparently he was on the steps every day adding new tiles that tourists had brought for him from their own countries and repairing sections. There are tiles from 120 countries on there. There was even a huge Welsh tile - that made Nigel happy! Unfortunately, Selaron came to a bit of a sad end as he was found dead one morning on the steps and he had been burnt. Some people believe that he was murdered but most think he commit suicide. He had said in the past that he would only be able to die when the work was complete and some people believe that he had finally finished and so ended his life. We'll never know! The tiles were very impressive and because they are only on the front of the steps, when you climb to the top and look back, the stairs just look like boring concrete steps. It's weird as from the bottom, they are far from boring!

Next we headed for a traditional Brazilian lunch of Feijoada and guarana, and then we took a look at the aqueduct in Lapa, the grand Municipal Theatre, and the very unusual cone shaped main cathedral before heading for Sugar Loaf Mountain. Sugar Loaf Mountain forms part of the famous skyline in Brazil. It is 396m high and to get up there you take a cable car first to a smaller hill and then up to the top of the mountain. The views from up here were again spectacular. You can see the airport from the mountain so we were able to watch other planes make that scary descent down to the runway!

Nigel: The next day we went on a tour of the Rocinha favela which is the largest favela in Brazil. This favela is not one of the government approved ones for tourists to visit because there is still occasional trouble there and it has a 24 hour police presence but our guides brother lives in the favela and is a respected tour guide there so it was safe for us to go.....thats what she told us anyway. When we first arrived we were a little apprehensive. The bus wound up through the favela housing and when we got as high as we could on the bus, it was time to get off and meet our guide. He was a very nice guy and you could tell he was a very liked person in the neighbourhood....we stuck to him like glue! The favela was a pretty crowded place with lots of winding alleyways and nooks and crannies. Although it wasn't scary when we were there, I wouldn't fancy wandering around by myself! After the favela, we hopped on a bus to Ipanema for a stroll. We walked all the way along both Ipanema and Copacabana beach and they were just as nice as we had heard. Soft white sand and blue sea. The beaches were really packed but that is probably to be expected given that Rio is such a huge city and although a crowded beach is usually probably a negative, in this case, it added to the atmosphere and made them really cool places to hang out.

We also went to the Maracana football stadium which is where the World Cup final was held in 2014. Although it is large stadium, its capacity has been reduced since the last World Cup final which was held there...199,000 people.

On our final day we paid one last visit to Copacabana and then relaxed in our B&B. The taxi ride to the airport was a bit of a scary one. It was supposed to take 40minutes to get there but our driver managed to make it in 20! We weren't sure whether we would make it to the airport alive. We had planned to leave Brazil on a high and have a slap up meal at the airport but after wandering around departures looking for the shops and restaurants, we realised that the services comprised of a small duty free, a gift shop and a rubbish café. Maybe it was more fitting that our last meal in South America would be an empanada and a beer! Getting onto the plane spelled the end of another travelling chapter and it was with heavy (but excited to be going home) hearts that we said goodbye South America and good bye to our travels.....for now at least!!!!