Hi everyone, Grant and I met our group on Wednesday in Rio. There are 17 people on the tour of all ages and backgrounds, which is really interesting. On Thursday we set of in the morning and we had a 2 hour bus ride then a 1 hour boat over to Ilha Grande, a small Brazilian island (so small there are no cash machines on the island!). We got to stay in a small wooden cabin, with a hammock at the front door. In the afternoon on Thursday we lay in the sun for a wh...

Hi everyone, Tuesday Grant and I went to copacabana beach again. This time it was really busy as it was a public holiday. Half an hour after we got there the sun went behind a cloud and did not come back out. Still very hot though. After the beach we came back and made some fajitas and watched some of the english channels on the tv. Today we have gathered up our bags and are heading to meet the group in another hotel in Rio before starting our 17 day trip tomor...

Despite what Grant says, back to the real reason we are in Rio - the Carnival! We started yesterday with a day at the zoo. It was nice seeing all the animals, but I think they were all a little hot as they were all lying in the shade sleeping! We left for Carnival at 7.30 and made it on time for it starting at 9pm. There were 6 schools performing last night and each school takes over 1 hour to complete their parade. We stayed for 5 of the 6 schools and this t...

The real reason for being in Brazil happended on Saturday afternoon, quite simply football! The housekeeper got us tickets for the game early on saturday for the white section at the Maracana, the white section is for the tourists although it was full of Flamengo nutters. The Maracana holds 90,000 thousand and was about half full. The game finished 3-1 to the away team Resende who are a lower division team so it was a bit of a semi final cup upset. Pretty livel...

Hello, Yesterday Grant and I stayed in for a while out of the sun and relaxed, it really does get too hot! In the afternoon we wlaked across the road to the Maracana football stadium and did the tour. Grant enjoyed this thoroughly and it really is a huge stadium. They hold concerts there as well as football matches. When they were building the stadium in 1950 they ran out of money, so there is a whole section of seats that people got to buy. They were the sam...