Ola, We arrived in Brazil on the 7th and managed to find our hotel while struggling with packs. The hotel just behind Copcobana beach was very basic but clean. Having said that the area itself is quite scruffy. We wandered around the city on our first day and took 2 cable cars up Sugar Loaf Mt, which was fun, although our view was soon obscured by thick cloud. A familiar theme of our brief stay in Rio! The rain chucked it down on our first night and we fell asleep at 7.30pm, so no partying! The next day we took ourselves on our own walking tour around the city, made it up to St Theresa's via a dodgy streetcar. It was fantastic up there, like stepping back in time but then.... the rain came down again! The awful weather also meant that we have not managed to get up to the Cristo Redentor statue. On our night we went to Ipenema for dinner - a lovely area, much nicer than Copacobana. Sadly, Rio has been a bit of a damp squib weather wise but never mind, we will back here on 4 months time and it has still been an interesting visit.