We arrived late at night on Thursday 23 March. We were trying CouchSurfing for the first time, so weren't too sure what to expect. Our hosts Roderigo and Marilia stay in an awesome apartment with a large living space stylishly decorated (he is an architect and she is an art teacher.) We even had our own room! They welcomed us warmly, and immediately offered us a hot shower and a basket for our laundry - exactly what we both wanted after a whole days travelling. W...

After Rio we made our way to an Island about halfway between Rio and Sao Paulo called Ilha Grande. We arrived late at night on Sunday 19 Feb and checked into our accommodation - Studio Beach Hostel. We were in a 6 bed dorm, but it was split over 2 levels so didn't seem crowded at all. We met two cool couples there - one from Chile and one from Germany. We all got on really well and hope to meet up again with both of them later in our trip. Monday we slept in a ...

Carnival is not what we were expecting at all - it was actually a bit random. We went to two parades, on the Friday afternoon/evening in Lapa, and on the Saturday afternoon/evening in Ipanema. We thought the parades were going to be these huge, mile long processions with hundreds of dancers and musicians etc. Instead, it is mostly just people walking/standing around drinking beers. On Friday we were trying to get to a parade in Santa Theresa, but because of th...

Ok, so we`re a few days into our time in Brazil and I have started to notice a couple of things - there are a lot of dogs here, a lot of tattoos and and A LOT of bums on show. But, I have figured it out: I rate that the Brazilian government issues each person with a dog and ONE swiming costume as a child and they are instructed to wear it for their whole lives. As a child the bum coverage is not a problem but, as you grow this does result in a little more on sho...

It turns out the bus network in Rio is pretty good - about a quarter of all vehicles on the roads are busses. There is a regular shuttle leaving from the airport that does a loop through all the main neighbourhoods, which we caught to our hostel in Botafogo (we had quickly booked a nights accomodation from an internet kiosk at the airport.) We ended up missing our stop and had to backtrack about 45 minutes on foot :-/ The hostel (Rio Nature) was simple, but nic...