YES THAT'S RIGHT!  WE WENT BACK!!! 

We just couldn't help ourselves!!!  With five days left to spare before our flight to La Paz in Bolivia (where we were due to start a tour), we thought there would be no better way to round off our time in Brazil, than by going back to where it all started!  Besides, we were flying out of Sao Paulo and we DEFINITELY didn't want to spend any more time there!! 

This time we stayed in a hostel near Ipanema beach, the next one along from Copacabana, and with a much hipper and younger crowd.  The hostel was one of about six hostels all on a tiny little street off of a main road, separated by only a small iron gate.  There were only four residential houses on the street and so it made for a great party vibe, as people from all of the hostels were able to hang out and socialise together in the street and common areas. 

We passed the five days relaxing on the beach and partying our nights away in various bars, not forgetting our beloved Friday night back in the streets of Lapa drinking fruity cocktails!  The mix of people was much better in this hostel, with some French, South African and Austrian people, so we all got along well and going out in big groups made a nice change from just the two of us wandering around churches and colonial buildings!!  It was nice to just soak up the atmosphere one last time and I think that Rio is definitely one of our favourite places.  On one day Rakhee had strange food poisoning - strange because we had both been eating the same things- but after resting for the day and not eating very much, she managed dinner in a Japanese restaurant and was right as rain the next morning!!  We considered going to another beach town, Paraty, for a few days before we left, but when it came down to it, we just couldn't tear ourselves away from the sun, sea and sand of Rio.  By then, it felt just like home!  You can imagine then, that it was with much sadness that we finally left Rio, on a bus bound for Sao Paulo, where we caught yet another bus directly to the airport. 

After a chilled out few days, neither of us was prepared for what happened at the airport?  We had booked our flights whilst traveling in Patagonia over a month before, but when we turned up at the airport our flight was cancelled.  There were no check-in desks open with any information, and even after going round the back to all the airline offices, no one was answering the door or the telephone!  Unable to get hold of any LAB (Bolivian airline) staff, we were feeling a bit stuck, since we had to be in Bolivia to start our tour the next day!!  FINALLY we saw a member of staff, who told us that all flights had been grounded for the next 70 days as the airline was experiencing 'problems', and that we would just have to contact them to get our money back !!!  What struck us most, was why the airline was still selling tickets when it knew none of the flights would take off!!  After getting over the shock, she told us that AeroSur (another airline) had flights that flew the same routes for about the same price, leaving at around the same time.  We rushed over to the AeroSur desk, where the two lovely girls held the check-in open just for us, so that we could buy tickets and check-in our bags - all of which was done in under 5 minutes, since the flight was due to leave in 15 minutes time!!  We raced through passport control and baggage check and managed to catch our plane, all without really processing what had happened!!  We just about made our connecting flight in Santa Cruz, since the antinarcotics team INSISTED in rifling through both of our bags for almost 15 minutes, but once on board, we settled into our seats and prepared for the next phase of our journey, Bolivia?.