I had a late flight into Rio from Lima, and spent the night there before catching a bus and then a ferry to Ilha Grande to meet Jo and Charlotte who had caught a flight out before me, and also managed to get a direct flight, which I couldn't do being on my round the world ticket.

I met a really nice danish couple - Amanda and Marcus - who are living in Rio for 4 months studying music - he's a drummer and she's a singer. They gave me the low down on Rio and Brazil on the ferry over to Ilha Grande. Not to generalise, but to sum it up - Rio is safish - don't do stupid tourist stuff, don't carry valuables on you and know where you're going. The women are very protective over their boyfriends and husbands and very competitive and see other women as threats, especially foreign women. The men are big players. But otherwise people are very friendly, and interested in foreigners and very proud of Brazil.

We had decided to spend 5 days in ilha Grande so that we could just chill out after having spent the last month moving at least every 2 or 3 days. The weather wasn't great and we didn't have much sun, but we went on a boat trip to some beaches, and had 2 days on the beaches in Ilha Grande. We discovered a great little beach bar that did beach BBQs and made amazing strawberry mojitos and caiprinhas, so we were all set. Every evening at 6pm, it would be white wine, cards and admiring the sunset if there was one. Because it's off tourist season, Ilha Grande itself was pretty quiet, but we met some South African guys from Rhodes the one night (the world is so small!) and we met up with Amanda and Marcus another night.

From Ilha Grande we headed to Parraty, a beautiful little colonial town with white buildings and cobbled streets, and a lot bigger than Ilha Grande. It doesn't have beaches really, but we went down to a beautiful little surf town a half an hour away called Trindade for a night, and the beaches were beautiful down there. In Parraty we discovered an amazing Balinese style spa, where we completely spoiled ourselves with massages, saunas, facials and time in the Japanese hot tub. Travelling is very tough and hard, so we thought we deserved it:-)

We had one very funny night out in Parraty, we'd gone out and we were in a bar, and a Brazillian guy was talking to Charlotte, telling her she was the most beautiful girl in the whole world, and then I think it must have got lost in translation, but he asked her if he could ' excrement his kisses on her' - not really the most effective pick up line ever! And then Jo was talking to another girl, who apparently wanted to improve her English, but then ended up trying to set Jo up with her dad! Unbelievable!

On our last night we ended up meeting two really nice guys from Canada - Nathan and Jesse and ended up spending all night with them and going to the beach. Before we knew it, it was 5am and our bus was leaving from Parraty at 5.20! So we missed the bus:-( and had to catch the 9.20 bus to Rio - we had just gone out for a quiet night out, and of course they never end up that way!

We stayed at the Rio bamboo hostel in Copacabana, and my friend Alex (old housemate) was going to be in Rio at the same time as me, as she was out visiting her brother Ben who lives in Rio. The day after we arrived in Rio, Nathan and Jesse also turned up at our hostel, and Charlotte's friend Jen also arrived from London, so we had a big group of us.

We only had 3 days in Rio, and the weather was slightly better than Ilha Grande - but not what we were expecting from Brazil! We went to Ipanema and Copcabana and the sugar loaf, and a little Bohemian area called Santa Theresa. Nights out were fun, although we weren't there on Friday for a street carnival party in the Lapa area sadly:-( Rio is different from what I was expecting, it's very green and lush and laid back, and the beaches are beautiful and there are so many of them. But the city is huge and sprawling and it's not that easy to get around. The people are also not that friendly - well I didn't find them that friendly, which is weird because all the Brazilians I have met outside of Brazil have been lovely and probably the friendliest, most easy going people I've met. Also, and this is not a bad thing, but the women are pretty big and not bikini beautiful! I would feel far more self conscious on a beach in South Africa, New Zealand or Australia. But they don't care, and their confidence is very sexy - but they do wear very small bikinis! The men on the other hand generally have beautiful bodies and spend A LOT of time working out.

From Rio, we left the boys behind and went off to Buzios with Alex, Ben and his girlfriend for the weekend. It's apparently the beach Bridgette Bardot made famous in a Bond movie, and the beaches were probably the most beautiful we'd seen and the town was really nice. It was also the first place we had great weather - yay!! We rented a beach buggy and drover around the town causing the kind of mayhem that only a female driver with 3 female backseat drivers can cause. We stayed at a lovely hostel too - much nicer and cheaper than anything in Rio. We had an amazing pool, BBQ, Wii, big flat screen TV, new bedrooms and bathrooms and the nicest people running - it's the Yellow Stripe Hostel if anyone is going to Buzios.

From Buzios we had a 36 hour trip to Iguazu Falls, where we'd be for 2 days before Jo and I were heading off to Buenos Aires and Charlotte and Jen were heading off to Cordoba and Mendoza. When we got to Iguazu - who should be there but Jesse and Nathan - so more catching up with the boys.