Hey everyone!

We're still having an amazing time here in Rio, it's our last night here tonight (Tues 12th Feb) and we're moving on to Parati tomorrow with our long tour, so we just thought we'd update you with what we've been doing!

On Sunday we spent the morning by the pool and the afternoon exploring a bit before the big event on Sunday night: the Sambadrome parade!! The Sambadrome is like a very long runway, almost like an open top stadium, where thousands of people sit along the sides on tiered seating and the samba schools of Brazil take turns to perform in front of judges before a winner is chosen. We had tickets and it was absolutely fab! Thousands of dancers perform and each school had elaborate floats with huge moving parts and beautiful hand made costumes. The people on the floats even had to be lifted out by crane! No words can describe the enormity of the event, you would have to come and see it yourself! We got there at 8pm, it started at 9pm and there are 6 samba schools who performed for 90 minutes each. This meant that the parade didn't finish until 5am!! The first 3 schools were the best so after that we spent the rest of the night chatting to people around us. We met loads of Aussies who were great fun as we could talk to them about our plans in Oz, and it was good to meet other travellers and hear their experiences. We even met two girls from southend!

After the parade we went to Copacabana beach and went swimming in the sea at sunrise! We were the only ones there, which is something not many people can say as thousands of people visit Copacabana each day! The water was warm even at that time in the morning. In the heat of the day it's been reaching 40 degrees!

After a little nap we had a tour of Rocinha, the biggest favela (slum) in Brazil. This was really interesting as we saw how the people live and also met lots of people from all over the world who were on the tour. It was something we wouldntve risked doing on our own. We went to an artists workshop, a bakery and the local children performed a samba on the drums for us. It was interesting to hear how the favela used to be controlled by drug lords, and how the government have made it much safer by installing cctv now shoot outs are a rare event. As we walked down through the favela, we were shown how small changes made by the government had vastly improved their lives, although there were still hazards such as landslides which can be a threat.

Today (Tuesday) after a poor nights sleep due to the all night party right outside our window, we made the best of a bad situation as the bus for our city tour didnt turn up (typical latin american organisation) after waiting 2 hours, we decided to get our money back and do our own tour with our new found Australian and Chinese friends. We visited Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf mountain and the Lapa Steps (steps made of tiles by artists from all over the world pretty sure there are ones from Britain but we couldn't find them, closest we got was one with the Rolling Stones on)

Have just met the rest of the people on our rio to la Paz tour at the welcome meeting and meal, not looking forward to the 6am start tomorrow but can't wait to reach Parati and get to know everyone better. We're camping for at least the next 2 weeks, if not 3 so not sure when we'll be able to blog next but it will be ASAP!!

Lots of love
Katie and Colette
Xxx