Summary:
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Airport:
Galeao International Airport (GIG)

Currency:
Brazilian Reais

Highlights:
Celebrating on Copacabana, sunset on Inpanema, samba in Lapa, Corcovado and Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf, football madness at Maracana.

Our Adventure Summarised:
There's a reason why Rio is called 'cidade maravilhosa (marvelous city) - it just has so much to offer! They say you go to Rio and either love it or hate it but we definitely all fell into the 'love' category. I'm sure that had a lot to do with the fact that we had a beautiful apartment right on the beach in Copacabana - but it was also just the natural striking beauty and the people that we fell in love with. The city is filled with gorgeous mountains and surrounded by water in every seeming direction. And the people just have such a passion about them - which really shows in their samba and ability to celebrate.

We set off from London on 1 Oct in very weary states (some more weary than others - um, Venetia) following our big send-off the night before in the form of a combined farewell party for all of us and 30th birthday party for Shaun. I think our friends were hating us for organizing such a big event on a school night but it was great to see all of them as we only had a 1-night stopover in London.

We arrived late into Rio on Thursday night and were glad to see our driver waiting to meet us at the airport (you can see the budgeting has started already!). We're still trying to work out why Shaun specifically was handed a business card for tattoos from a strange-looking man but that's a whole other story...

Our apartment in Copacabana was unbelievable - awesome view over the whole of Copacabana Beach. But its position offered something even better which we discovered the next day - it was right next to the big Olympic bid party. So the Friday turned out to be the biggest unplanned party as we celebrated right along with the rest of Rio when they were announced the winners for the Olympic bid in 2016. This took the form of a big stage, people all over the beach samba-ing (not sure if that's a word?!) and just the general feel of a New Years Eve party!

The party continued into Saturday as it was Shaun's 30th birthday. As it was his day, we let him choose what he wanted for breakfast. Not sure why we even had to ask - steak, chips and champagne it was! This set the tone for the day as we enjoyed the rest of the day playing tourist and then went out in Lapa that night - the part of town famous for all of its samba clubs.

We ticked all the major attractions off our list - Corcovado where we saw Christ the Redeemer, Santa Teresa (bohemian part of town) and then the cable car up Sugar Loaf Mountain. We drove past the favelas (slums) also. The statue is incredible - the French really outdid themselves with this gift! And the views over the city from Corcovado and Sugar Loaf are mindblowing.

Then we lucked out again in terms of unplanned timing on Sunday as we got tickets to one of the biggest football games in Brazil - the Flamengo-Fluminese (Fla-Flu) derby (two local Rio sides) at the iconic Maracanã Stadium. Shaun could probably add more on the brilliant football played but we all got into it so much - hard not to when you have 90,000 people around you singing songs and jumping up and down for not only 90 minutes during the game but also a good few hours beforehand. I have never witnessed atmosphere like that at any other sporting event! Flamengo won 2-0 which was a good thing since we were surrounded by Flamengo supporters.

We were sad to say goodbye to Rio but in Al's words, looking forward to some major chilling in Buzios after that!

We will post the latest news from Buzios shortly...

Ciao,
Leise + Lara