Hello Folks, and welcome to Rio de Janeiro! We arrived here at about lunchtime on wednesday, via a 3 hour delay and a new plane at Heathrow, and a quick stopover in Sao Paulo. Decided to get a taxi into the city cos you do hear some pretty suspect things about buses in this city! Its an amazing drive in from the airport - you go through miles and miles of favelas, houses built higgeldy-piggeldy all over, including rather precariously up steep hillsides. Then you go through a long tunnel, and when you come out its like you're in a different city, its looks totally different. The actual centre of Rio is not recommended for visitors, especially three extremely pale English girls who stick out like a sore thumb, so we chose to stay in Ipanema, which is recommended as the safest area. Its so different, high rise buildings along the sea front, quite and exotically leafy streets just a few roads back from the beach. We had booked a hostel online for the first 3 nights, but, when we eventually found it (we hadn't got the full address and our poor taxi driver had to help us find it!), it turned out to be pretty grim - absolutely miniscule room with 3 bunk beds in, no window and about 2 square feet of floor space. We had to stay there the first night as we'd booked, but we quickly made the decision to leave, and are now ensconced in a much nicer hostel, with a bigger room (although more people in it, still much more spacious) and its own little bar and kitchen for the guests - we've quickly realised that our budget wíll not stretch to meals out and have sussed out the local supermarket! Since we arrived we haven't done a great deal - the first two days were really overcast and cloudy, although still warm of course. We wandered the beach and the lake and even checked out the botanical gardens, but I don't think our hearts were really in it until today, when we woke up to beautiful blue skies and a scorching sun. It feels much more like a holiday now, and we're determined to make the most of it! We're doing both Ipanema and Copacabana (at the Copa, Copacabaaaaanaaa...) beaches today, and we've got tomorrow earmarked for a day's sightseeing on a guided tour - the hostel staff told us its a much safer way, so we'll just be doing everything in one day! Still, that leaves us time for the fantastically named Hippie Market on sunday, and perhaps another wander of the beach to take some photos to make you all jealous! I think we're starting to get into the swing of things now - had our first Caipirinhas last night so really feel like I'm in Brazil now! We managed to end up in a lesbian bar on our first night which was educational, but we've sussed out some nice places near our new hostel - all the tables were full by the time we arrived at one of them last night, so its obviously the place to be! We'll get there a bit earlier tonight I think......! I had a quick look at the weather in England, and I gather its delightful, so I'm sure I don't need to mention that its 36 degrees and beautiful here...... Hope all is well for you all at home, keep me up to date! Caroline x