After New Year's Eve in Rio we spent another week or so really getting to know the City. We did lots of sightseeing… We sat on many different beaches. We hired bikes and spent a day cycling along the coast and around the beautiful city lake. We visited the very pretty and relaxing botanical gardens. We saw the great views from Christ the Redeemer (although it was so busy we had to get there first thing and queue for more than 2 hours, then had to fight past/ through people as EVERYONE did the big spread arms thing while having their photos taken!). We went to Pao d'Azucar - sugar loaf mountain - for sunset, although unfortunately some cloud lingered at the top and our view was blocked by the fog, but we headed to the slightly lower "dog faced" mountain and had great views of the city. We watched the sunset from Arpoadar (between Copacabana and Ipanema beaches) after a perfect day of sunbathing and people watching. We went out for a night of live Bossa Nova music at a bar opposite where two slightly fruity gentlemen once wrote the classic "Girl from Ipanema", and got to listen to that song three times!

We even took a tour of Rio's biggest favella, Rocinha. It was OK but in our view the tour crossed the thin line into being slightly intrusive into the people's way of life and low income levels, rather than being in any way a cultural experience. Maybe our voyeurism just wasn't fully satisfied, as the favelas we visited didn't seem so poor. After this we went up a mountain and did some hang gliding (see photos and video on facebook). It was so cool! Michelle is contemplating another new career…

We had been warned that people often suffered withdrawals from leaving Rio, and this was certainly true for us. It was sad to leave such a sublime city, partly because everywhere you look the view is so incredible, and partly because the Cariocas (Rio people) seemed to live with such pride and delight in the world around them. We don't know if beautiful places attract the beautiful people, or if people just adapt themselves to live like their surroundings… who knows? A few examples: so much of the graffiti is not offensive, but artistic; after the sun had set on Arpoador it got a round of applause from the few hundred or so gathered people. It was as if the sun was somehow on equal terms with the Cariocas in the never ending quest for beautiful things, and it deserved to be thanked for doing its bit!; we saw seriously disabled Cariocas wearing board shorts, tattooed, tanned and every bit as proud and cool as their neighbours; and we met foreigners and locals alike who loved to revel in the wonders of life. We only spent 10 days in Rio, and I am sure devils lurk deeper within, but it really is a sensational place… We will certainly go back.

From Rio we headed west along a beautiful lush green, mountainous and rocky coast, to a small colonial town called Paraty, which had lots of paradise islands and beaches to visit. We only had a few days here (some sympathy please?) so on the first day we took a boat trip to visit 5 of the islands and the blue lagoon. It was great, with crystal clear waters and lots of tropical fish swimming around. Inland from Paraty there were some waterfalls, and we went and found a perfect spot to swim. It had a natural huge slab of rock that had been smoothed by the continuing flow of the waterfall creating a natural waterslide. It was great, climbing up and then rushing down and being dumped into the river at the bottom! The local kids had perfected a very cool but completely crazy method to surf (standing up) on the rock, we skipped trying it this time tho.

We then went to Sao Paulo. We had been fortunate to meet some kind and friendly people on the beach in Maragogi (whilst we were doing our best to look lost at someone speaking to us in Portuguese), Sao Paulo was their home city and we had planned to meet up. Karina and her mum, Sonia, were kind enough to offer to show us around and arranged to pick us up at the bus station and go for dinner in the evening… little did they know then that we'd end up staying the week in their house! We had a great evening in a cool restaurant (tipped to have pizza better than Italy…) It was delicious and we also got to meet Karina's charismatic husband, Giba. After the restaurant we headed back to our hostel which was pretty much a nightclub… hence we ended up hitting the rum until 3am, if you can't beat them, join them!

The next morning Karina said that we could stay with Sonia at her home. She had fixed Karina's old room for us, which was sooooo generous and super sweet! That day we also did some sight seeing and went to the Ibirapuera park. We did more sightseeing the next day walking round the entire old city. On the following day we headed to Avenida Paulista and checked out the MASP (modern art museum) which was pretty cool. We had planned to leave this night and get the bus to Florianopolis, however, Rich had a last minute change of heart before we booked tickets and suggested we stay a day longer. Karina and Sonia both seemed fine with this… although maybe they were being kind! We felt bad putting them on the spot but as the lovely hosts they were they didn't mind "not at all"… so we planned a trip to Santos, home of Pele's football club Santos FC, a large port, a beach and some grape and vodka slush drinks! We headed off early with Karina and Giba and spent the whole day in Santos checking out the football stadium, which was awesome, the aquarium and relaxing at some great bars with cold beers and delicious seafood! When we were at the football, Giovanni was being unleashed as a new player and Giba (a big Santos fan) got to shake hands with the Santos chairman, it was really cool! It was an awesome day out and we had so much fun that we again missed the bus to Florianopolis that we had actually booked and paid for… we decided to stay longer yet again!!

The rest of the week we relaxed with our new friends, ate well in some of Sao Paulo's great restaurants, did more sightseeing, played scrabble with Sonia, played with the two gorgeous dogs Pacoca and Pessoa, did some shopping and generally had a good time. On the day we finally had to leave we went to watch a football game at Palmeiras, who were playing Mogi Mirais (5-1 to Palmeiras). It was not a great game (the opposition were not good and brought literally about 3 fans!), but we really enjoyed it anyway, watching the fans of Palmeiras and seeing the stadium was enough for us. If leaving Rio was hard, leaving Sao Paulo turned out - unexpectedly - to be worse, as we had to say goodbye to good friends. We look forward very much to seeing Karina, Sonia, Giba and Karla in London whenever they can make it!

We then traveled out of Brazil. We went via Florianopolis, another very pleasant beach resort, but after two months in Brazil it was time for us to leave, not least for money reasons as Brazil is not that cheap to travel, and we headed for Uruguay. Both of us were thoroughly captivated by Brazil, all of it that we saw, and we will definitely be back. In the end, Jimmy Cliff said it best when he wrote his song apparently about his time in Brazil, "Wonderful World, Beautiful People", hard to beat that…