So much for the previous blog entry being the last! There's proving to be a lot to pack into the remaining few weeks. Wytze & Joska's flight was delayed leaving Rio because of a violent thunderstorm and they flew into more storms in Europe. The day after they left we flew to Campinas in Sao Paulo state as Patrick was going to be teaching a course at the university in Rio Claro this week. Rio Claro doesn't have a lot going for it but fortunately Dimas had arr...

It's strange to think that this may be our last blog entry as there's now less than 3 weeks before we return to the UK for Christmas. We had a great time back in Europe in October and enjoyed catching up with friends and family in Scotland, Holland and France while Patrick was teaching students in Edinburgh and Madrid. Within a week of our return to Rio, Will and his girlfriend Alice arrived. It was lovely having them here and overall they got good weather, t...

Patrick's cousin Caroline and her husband Mike arrived in Brazil a week ago - without their luggage. Perhaps not surprisingly, this being Brazil, working out how to track it down proved difficult but luckily it arrived at our flat 2 days later, 12 hours before we were due to set off for Foz do Iguaçu. They had had a bit of time to check out our local area and even managed to persuade Patrick to catch the cablecar to Pao d'Acucar (Sugarloaf) with them. An advan...

Not a huge amount to report in this blog as we haven't done any exciting travelling but if we leave too long a gap between blogs, it's hard to remember what we have been doing so here's a short one. Patrick's been on a couple of courses/conferences here in Rio, one with a field trip to the red lagoon that he got quite inspired about and this week he's on a conference run by the Brazilian Geophysical Society. I think he feels encouraged by how many people he kno...

We left Rio the day after the Pope arrived, bringing with him numerous fresh-faced young pilgrims adorned with yellow JMJ backpacks and uncharacteristically cool weather. Things didn't warm up much when we changed flights in Sao Paulo where, at 8 degrees, people were dressed in boots and winter coats. We began to wonder if we'd totally miscalculated with our lack of warm clothing. It is winter in Brazil after all. Cuiabá, our final destination, which is very c...