Hi everyone! We are now in Rio, having travelled here a little earlier than planned. We wanted to arrive before the 15 Tucan trucks descended here and snapped up all the good tickets to Carnival events! We have a trip planned for this afternoon to visit the Christ the Redeemer Statue and Sugarloaf Mountain. On Saturday we managed to score tickets for a costume ball that is held at one of the famous hotels here, Hotel Gloria. We will hopefuly be able to see the costumes of the Samba schools up a little closer than we will on the Sunday when we are going to the Sambadrome. The Sambadrome is where each of the 14 Samba schools parade over two days for the precious place of first Samba school in the competition. We also plan to take in a few street parties and to listen to bands whilst sunning ourselves on Copacabana beach, tough, I know. We'll post our photos and tell you all about it soon. Ciao...