Feeling a bit travelled out by now Brazil is limited to 2 stops! Rio Baby and Ihla Grande, main purpose of visit, relax and of course get a tan for coming home. We stayed in Rio for 10 days, so I won't bore you with all of the details, just the main highlights.....

* Football match, Flamengos V's Santo Andre at Maracana stadium. Flamengo's are Brazils most supported team 70% of the population love them, consequently the crowd action was alot more entertaining than the match itself (the standard of football was poor).

* Funk Party in a Favella Club (Favella is basically a slum area), if you go to Rio don't bother, it was very them and us, tourists were given wrist bands and fenced off like pigs in a pen and told that if they danced with a bloke he would expect a tip at the end of the night, as if!!!

* Boat Party, brilliant fun! 7 hours of loud music and drinking on board a party boat, or should have been, the electric went off at about 4am so we spent a further 3 hours docked at the side of the port in the dark making the most of the 1/2 price cocktails for the inconvenience. What inconvenience???

* Shopping for Haviana's at 3 pounds a pair you can't go wrong!!

* Copacobana beach - whitie tighties (as we aptly named them, blokes wearing white speedos effectively, doesn't leave a lot to the imagination) and women doing the same with g-string bikini's and bits of material covering their boobs, some were stunning, most really should learn to put more clothes on! I felt positively overdressed...Made for great people watching though and some fab "real rio" photo opps.

* Massive Street Party in Lapa, Friday nights. Popular with the locals and tourists, they basically just gather all night in the streets for a great big party, beer stalls, dancing, food stalls - Fab. Loads of people. If you go, be careful, ideal ground for robberies as Sharon found out when her party camera got nicked from right under our noses, I had a dodgy moment where a group of kids swarmed around me to steal whatever I had, luckily a bigger local had better ideas and literally picked me and Kate up and ran with us whilst shouting at the kids I assume to " go away!"

* Night out down the lake with Natalie, Chris and Stacey, paying 5 reals for live music in our bar whilst enjoying chocolate brownies and beer. Very chilled and relaxing.

* Literally treating Che Legarto (a hostel) as our home even after checking out and moving elsewhere as they were full. Jorge the barman has to get a special mention for making the hostel and copious amounts of Capriahanas. Kate and Chris get a mention here for our 70p per head group dinners.

* Meeting up with Steve again and wishing him a safe return home, he brought the rain with him though so we weren't that grateful to see him :-)

* DVD and picnic day due to bad weather, we included Steve!

* A day out in Cento, don't bother it's skanky we were all glad to get back to Copacabana.

* 1/2 day city tour.... Lapa Steps (really colourful and we met the artist that built them), Football Stadium (famous footprints), The Street where the Carnival is held (very random, a staging area for TV really, grey concrete not very appealing, holds 90,000 people, gives you a whole new take on festival in Rio), and finally of course, Christ the Redeemer. This was definitely the highlight we were up here for sunset and the views of the beach and the city were sensational. Weird to think that I felt the most unsafe in a city where Christ looks down on everyone!!

and onwards to our beach resort of Ilha Grande, our last destination