I touched down in London Heathrow which a felt very very strange. It had been cheaper and easier for me to book South America on a completely different ticket to South America, leading to me having a 5 hour transfer in London before heading off to Brazil. This also meant that Liv was able to book onto the same flight as me to Rio, which was great!

My mum met me as I arrived in Heathrow and we went for a lovely breakfast at Carluccio's - such a treat to have smoked salmon! My dad then also turned up so we all had a coffee and chatted which was nice. It made me so happy to see Liv and we had tons of catching up to do - and an entire 11 hour flight do to so. I said goodbye to my mum and dad and hello to two months in south and Central America with my best friend.

We arrived in Rio and checked in a Books Hostel which was so nice, probably one of the best hostels I'd ever stayed in. It seemed really social and homely and we looked forward to having a night out in Lapa the next day. We headed to bed with an early start planned for the following morning to explore Rio!