After our relaxing days in Floripa we were now off to Rio for sightseeing, dining and people-watching. The flight went well and the apartment we had booked through Airbnb was absolutely perfect and located just between Ipanema and Copacabana - the two most famous beaches in Rio.

We did everything you do as a full on tourist: we went up to the huge Christ statue which gives you a 360 view of the entire city - we took the train up and hiked back down which was the right way to do it we realized when climbing down steep winding path meeting exhausted people on their way up.

Back at the bottom we went to the beach for a couple of hours and played a fun beach volley match against some Israeli backpackers (FYI we won J). In the evening, we ate dinner at a great restaurant and ended up listening to some oldies playing live music at a local bar - all in all a very good first day in Rio. The second day we started of at the beach playing volley again - after all Andreas had carried our ball and pump all the way from Denmark for two months without having used it. In the afternoon we went to Sugarloaf Mountain to see the sunset but when we got to the top a storm arrived with us and we had to hurry back down. Back at the bottom (you take a cable car back and forth) the rain had stopped a bit and we decided to go back to the top - also we realized that we hadn't been all the way to sugar loaf but only to the middle station - all the more reason to go back up. Finally, back at the top the storm had now really taken off, the rain was pouring down and lightning was everywhere. We hurried back to the bottom with all the rest of the daring tourists who had waited till the last minute to descend and were standing on the streets completely soaked trying to get a taxi. - together with 50 other people After 20 minutes standing in the rain Andreas finally pulled over a taxi and we were on our way back to the hotel to get a nice warm shower - it was now 9pm and we were starving so we went to a very nice restaurant close by and went to bed early. The last day in Rio we went to see a soccer match (I can't remember the teams names but they were number 1 and 2 in the league), which was really fun and entertaining even for someone who is not a huge soccer fan. The fans were so excited and it was a close match so we had a great time. On our way to the stadium we wanted to do some sightseeing in downtown Rio but you quickly realize that once you leave the touristy areas like Copacabana you see some of the bad sides of Rio: Poor, homeless people on every street corner. We didn't feel safe at all so not much sightseeing here. Rio is a strange city like that; Favelas, dodgy areas and the touristiest beaches in the world.

Our flight for the big US of A left at 7AM the next morning (Monday the 9th of March) so we ended the night early with a beer saying goodbye to the continent of South America that had treated us so well for the past 2 months. But now we were also quite ready for a country with a language that we speak, Starbucks coffee and high-speed Internet J

The trip from Rio to LA ended up being the longest trip ever as we had to land in Brasilia due to technical issues after 2 hours in the air. We were supposed to fly Rio-Bogota-San Salvador-LA, but we were told that our new flight to Bogota was not going to leave Brasilia until 4AM the next morning - this was at 2pm in the afternoon!! Good thing that we have good insurance! We checked into a very nice hotel in Brasilia, ordered room service, had GTs on the balcony and enjoyed that a flight delay for once actually was not that inconvenient. Even though we now were more than ready to arrive in the US!

And finally - after 40 hours of travelling we arrived in LA - with our suitcases even though one was damaged - oh well!

To be continued…