Oh my goodness....I just spent an hour writing such a long blog and then it messed up. How frustrating but unfortunately I can feel that as it isn´t the first then this isn´t the last time I´ll be writing that! As always it was funnier and better before but I will try my best- it is now 1.50am and I am pretty tired- we need to get up early in the morning (well 8- that´s early to us now) as we´re going to head to the harbour and try and get a boat to Ihla Gra...

Thought we would write a little blog even though there is nothing much to report to let you know we're still alive! The reason there's not much to report is because it's been rainy and this means lots of mooching. Yesterday we walked for miles around town and checked out the jam packed local Market where everyone stared at us a lot. It was good though- Habainas flip flops are £3 although I can't wear any at the moment as my feet are rubbed raw from walking so fa...

What an amazing day! We arranged to meet up with a friend of a friend called Marcio. He arrived in a taxi driven by a friend of his and we were dropped off in the centre of town. First of all he took us to see a set of steps that an artist had taken over as his own and completely covered with mosaic tiles. He changes the tile constantly and there were some brilliant ones- good old Princess Diana put in an appearance and people now bring him tiles from all ove...

Ok this is the second time I have written all this as it messed up...it was funnier and better the first time so you´ll have to imagine that....! Oh yeah and a gunshot went off whilst I was writing it which I noted but it might not happen again so I´ll just tell you that bit now... Anyway deep breath and I´ll try again.... Although it is really hot in the day (26 degrees) it is quite chilly in the evenings so Charles was woken in the middle of the night by me...

From Jem.......... So I cannot believe that we are finally here..... I am sitting on a terrace in our hostel looking over the whole of Rio and listening to the birds eating the apple tree right next to me....It´s starting to sink in that this is what life is going to be like for the next year!Yesterday´s departure from the UK was in true Jem and Charles style- we were up until 5.30am on trying to pack and then forgot to set an alarm so were luckily woken up by...