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 Grande. Anyway that´s the end of the story so I´ll start at the beginning...Excuse the typos I´m in a rush!

The reason that we haven´t blogged properly for a while is partly because we´ve been having a good time and been out late but also until yesterday it was still raining and in Rio that means more relaxing really! On Friday it was absolutely tipping down- I mean properly tropical rain like someone is tipping buckets of water over you´re head. We braved it and went down the hill into town to look round the market and shops. Charles bought an electric beard trimmer from a guy in the street for 4 quid (there´s no pound sign!) and was feeling very pleased with himself . After getting thoroughly sodden we decided to get the very pitcuesresque in the sun tram across the old aquaduct up to our hostel in Santa Theresa. It is a must do and in all the guide books but mostly we wanted to get up the big hill and were being lazy!

We went to the station (still tipping down) and there was a queue of about 150 people. We joined it and it was moving pretty fast with a tram coming every 10 minutes or so. After about 20 minutes we got to the very front and I was getting all excited about which seat I was going to sit in to get the best view. For some unknown reason we then stood there for an hour until the next tram cluttered into view, unexplained and apparently normal for all those waiting. We ran to get on it but although they hadn´t minded waiting the Carioca´s (locals) hate the rain and weren´t going to risk their chances waiting for the next one. I ended up with 2 old ladies on my lap (I couldn´t have given them my seat if I wanted to as I was jammed in and besides I think they made themselves very comfortable indeed on top of me) and Charles had another lady and rain pouring down half of him!

I´m no engineer but the fact it could only move a few meters and then juddered to a stop may have indicated that it was a little overfilled. At this second though another tram pulled into the station and everyone on our tram including the driver decided that the one we had spent 15 minutes playing twister in was broken. Everyone ran at full speed (including us- we wanted to get home) onto that tram and we tried again. This time it went for 3 metres, the lights turned off, the dirver got off we restarted and went another 3 meters. It´s amazing that all your instincts tell you to get off none of the 6 people between us and the door seemed to get the message! Anyway 2 and a half hours after arriving at the station about 500m from our hostel at the bottom of the hill we arrived at the top wet through and called it a day!

Saturday was another rainy day. We met Marcio and he took us to his friend´s flat to watch his football team play a local rival on tv. You couldn´t pay me to watch the football in the UK but his froend´s enthuisiasm certainly gave us a taste for Brazil´s passion for the sport! It was cool to meet his friends and another one of them took us to see where he lived in the grounds of what used to be an amazing private house- it was beautiful. As we walked back home we stopped off for some samba in Marcio´s local square and it was great to see all the locals young and old socialising and playing music together. Everyone had brought their own tambourine or shaker and were singing and dancing along!

Yesterday was fantastic. The weather was good again and so we decided to go to the sugar loaf mountain. There is a cable car that goes up the first hill and then a second that goes across from one hill up to the other. We walked into the car park at the bottom and Marcio´s tour began....´The first lift is for tourist Gringos- we´ll go this way´and off he shot into the jungle and up the first hill. ´Come on Come on I thought you said you were going to do Macchu Picchu´ he has a good point- we have some work to do. Anyway it was a big long climb but was fantastic. When we got to the top we walked along through the jungle to the bottom of the sugar loaf rock. Marcio climbed up to a ledge about 10 metres up, I climbed up halfway but was quite scared of what was effectively a sheer 400m drop....Charles went up to the ledge with Marcio and the view was amazing!

We then walked past monkeys and back to the tourists where we got the cable car up to the Sugar Loaf peak. It was beautiful and the view stunning but I would say to anyone visiting Rio that they should come up here first before going up to Christ as that is much higher and somehow makes the sugar loaf seem less breathtaking once you´ve seen it. The walk was lovely though and we ran back down through the jungle to get the bus to the botanical garden.

The botanical gaden used to belong to the King of Portugal who emmigrated to Brazil but is now full of Carioca´s enjoying it with their families. It is a lovely place to visit with an orchid house, cacti garden, Bromelias and lovely garden areas to walk in. Off course I had worn flip flops s my feet were mashed up after the jungle- walking was not such a joy but I couldn´t have been in better surroundings to take my mind off the pain of 6 blisters!

From there we headed to Ipanema beach. We should really have been at Point 9 to spend sunset with the hippies but it was pretty cloudy and we stopped for some yummy cod fish balls and Filet mignon skewers! We walked down the beach and through the market and then got on another bus to our hostel. Well we thought so `By the way the bus doesn´t stop where we need it to´ Marcio informs us- `but don´t worry I will ask him.´ The bus driver didn´t seem too pleased to stop the bus for us in the middle of the highway but Marcio´s charm won him through and off we hopped back to ours for Pizza. (I had aubergine and curry powder- a weird but strangely good combination- they also have banana and cinnamon that noone would get with me)

So back to today...Charles´ new electric razor broke after using it for the first time on half his beard- much dissapointment! On to another mooching day round town- we went to Marcio´s friend´s restaurant for a great lunch where you pay by the kilo and it was yummy then wandered round. This evening we went to Marcio´s house and met his family, including a very beautiful amazingly young 90 year old Grandmother so we´ve had a lovely time!

As I said at the beginning tomorrow morning we have an early start to go to the port and see if we can get a fisherman´s boat over to Ihla Grande which is an Island 150km offshore that is supposed to be beautiful. If we make it we will stay there until Friday when we some back for the Samba party at the Favela. On Sunday we leave Rio and get a flight down to Iguazu falls...I´m not sure when we will next have internet but will write and upload photos asap. Lots of Love Xx