we are now on an island called ilha grande, its quite big but not built up at all with only a very small area inhabited and has no cars on it, its so cute and pretty. bumped into 2 people from rio here already. we are staying in a little hut which has a hammock out the front. great for naps! v nice. v hot. we are with our gap tour group now and they are really quite boring. yesterday getting the boat to this island, julie and i were the only ones who sat on the front of the boat and appreciated the scenery and sunshine. we lay there for a bit then for maybe an hour we listened to julies ipod and sang and tried to dance, falling over lots, it was really fun and we were laughing and jumping about and no one else from the group came to join us at all despite being able to see how much fun we were having. but are lots of other travellers here so its ok. rio was great too, saw the sunset from sugar loaf mountain and went up to see christ the redeemer also, on the first day. we also sat for some time on copacabana and ipanema beaches which were incredible and not at all as busy as this picture shows (will put some of our pictures on here soon). the waves were huge, it was really breath taking. on the second day we went on a boat trip and had a BBQ on it and lots of drink and the other people we met were really fun. lots of irish guys who generally tend to be really funny. julie convinced one to climb on to the boats roof to jump off into the sea and his leg went right throught the roof! lol. all good fun apart from a short spell of sea sickness from me! tomorrow we are getting a boat to the other side of this island to go to one of the top 5 beaches in brazil! and then we leave the island the day after. right we are off to go hire little canoes now! hope everyone is well, please message us! missing u all, whish u were here! xxx