Carnival, Carnival!!! Dave and I are recovering from about 5 days of Rio street parties which go on till the early hours. It's been absolutely amazing here, we love Rio! Before arriving in Rio, we did a 4 day tour of the Pantanal, a vast area of swampland the size of France situated near the border with Bolivia. Our tour group were cool and we saw all manner of animals - capybara, piranha, caimen, the rare blue macaws, anteaters, lots and lots of cows, and other birds and mammals I no longer remember the name of. We went piranha fishing, did a bit of swimming with them and the caimen too, we also went horse riding at the fazenda (farm) we stayed at. All in all another amazing tour. Rio was a 30 hour bus journey from the Pantanal area, but it has been worth it!! Had the opportunity here to meet up again with lots of friends from our Pantanal tour, our Inca trek and even Jez and Gehan from back at Warwick!! Had an awesome time with them all. Tomorrow the plan is to go to Ilha Grande for a few days, should be nice and peaceful there after the crazyness of Rio at Carnival time. Ciao for now x