Firstly, I?d just like to point out that I know I?m going on a bit, and writing nearly every day, so I don?t expect you all to read every word I write! (except you Mum and Dad, I expect you to hang on to my every word!). I?m probably getting more fun from writing it than you all from reading it, as I?ll have lots of nice memories to look back on! Spent thursday on a nice little boat trip around the many islands in Paraty Bay. Not quite what we?d expected,...

An important lesson was learnt today - rubber flip flops are apparently NOT suitable footwear for walking through the Brazilian rainforest. Its good advice - trust me! Today has been an amazing day - we went on the waterfalls tour from Paraty. It was mildly concerning at the beginning when we realised we had two guides for just the 3 of us, and that neither of them spoke English, but its amazing how far you can get with Spanish, a few words of Portugues an...

Hello again from sweaty Paraty! We are now officially the hottest we have ever been - am having fond flashbacks of freezing England! Its a really nice town, but sooooo hot! Apparently it was 38 degrees yesterday, and it must be about 100% humidity. We have to have all the windows and doors closed to prevent the bugs that are feasting upon us from getting in, so hardly slept a wink last night, although that may also have been partly due to the slightly stra...

Finally - we're proper travellers! We've actually moved from one destination to another, that wasn't part of the scheduled ticket! We're feeling terribly brave..... It all started when we decided to venture out to a Carnaval rehearsal at the Sambodrome, which is basically just a 700m long paved road with big bleachers at each side. We knew it was going on and thought it would be a good way of getting an idea what Carnaval was like without the hassle of th...

It has been a very exciting weekend here in Rio de Janeiro! Yesterday (Saturday) we did the sightseeing tour, and it was absolutely fantastic. We'd decided to take a guided tour for reasons of safety (and maybe a little bit of laziness) and it was really worth the money. We had an excellent guide called Vao who did the tour in both English and Spanish, so best of both worlds for me! He took us to the Cathedral, the big football stadium and the Sambodrome, as ...