After five weeks in Peru we finally left on Thursday. During our final days in Cuzco we did a bit of shopping, I had a lovely massage, we used the net and watched the new Pixar film Wall E which was good, although the quality of the DVD was bad.

Our journey to Rio was a long and complicated one. Even though the journey actually involved just seven hours of flying, it took 27 hours because of all the waiting around we had to do at various airports. First we flew from Cuzco to Lima, where we then had to wait nine hours. Amazingly though they had a Starbucks at the airport, the first we´d seen in five weeks, so we dived in there pretty quickly. There was a bit of commotion around some guys wandering round the airport, and we guessed they were footballers. We took pictures so hopefully someone at home will be able to identify them for us.

We finally left Lima airport, and five hours later landed in Sao Paolo. We slept throughout the flight and the view out of the window before we landed was remarkably different to that we´d had when we left Peru. It was green and hilly rather than dry and mountainous, and actually reminded me of England.

When we went to check into our flight to Rio, thankfully TAM bumped us forward a couple of flights. Rather than having to wait another nine hours, we only had to wait five for our flight to Rio. I was really uneasy on the TAM flight, I think it was because I couldn´t see out of the window, and because I didn´t trust the airline, knowing nothing about them. The flight was only about half an hour long though thankfully, so I didn´t have long to worry about it.

After arriving in Rio we got a taxi to our hostel, then crashed out for a few hours before showering and heading out for dinner. We had a yummy sushi dinner (we´ve had sushi in every country now!) before heading back to get the night´s sleep we desperately needed.

No such luck. The other guests at our hostel had an all-night bender and kept us up most of the night with music and very loud conversations right outside our room. Rubbish. When we did eventually get to sleep we slept until 11am which annoyingly meant we missed breakfast. We got ourselves up and out and headed for Copocabana beach, where we had an early lunch. We then met up with John and Rachel from our Inca Trail trek, and spent the afternoon drinking with them by the beach, watching a beach football match and the rest of Rio go by. Later on we headed back to Santa Teresa with them for dinner, eating at a yummy traditional Brazilian restaurant. We then headed back to our hostel for another drink, but unfortunately my stomach decided I´d had enough alcohol for one day and I was sick. Joy! I managed to drag myself out the bathroom long enough to say ´Bye´ to John and Rachel though. Sorry about that guys!

Today we made breakfast and then headed to a shopping mall that is supposed to be the biggest in South America. We arrived there at midday, only to find out that the shops wouldn´t be open until 3pm, and we had to leave at 3pm to call home. Very annoying but never mind. A few shops opened earlier and we did enough window shopping to know we probably wouldn´t have bought anything much anyway.

We just made our final call home, with the usual technical difficulties, and we´re both really looking forward to going home now. It´s great to go away, but it´s so much better to go home. I´ll blog our final few days away once we´re back in Blighty.

Lauz xxx