well, where do i start??!!
having a great time!!!!! its so hot here!! 32 degrees! the beach here is
amazing - really white, wide sands - the waves are absolutely huge!! bought
lots of pink clothes!! woowoo!! and really cheap - like 5 pounds!

went to the carnival last night and it was so cool - the costumes are so
amazing (i dont know how they dont faint in the heat tho). each school lasts
for about an hour and there are over 1000 people in each school. they just
dance constantly the whole time, and the people watching dance non-stop the
whole night!! dont know how they can do it! and they can sure dance! we have
never seen girls shimmy so well! we think it must be a genetic thing!! they
all also seem to have huge bums!! and all wear hardly anything at all!
(thong bikini bottoms and tiny bikini tops!) anyway, back to the
carnival!...there are 8 schools each night - we managed to watch 4 of them
which took us until 4am. our feet were hurting from all the dancing so we
had to leave! the floats are amazing - never seen anything like it - they
must put so much work into them.

the atmosphere is so amazing - everyone is just so happy and friendly. there
are street parties all the time with bands playing and u can just go and
join in - its just a really fun place to be. of course there are quite a lot
of homeless people, and i have heard a couple of bad stories today - while
ive been writing this some guy just came in and said he just got mugged at
gunpoint-scary. its a shame because most of the people are so nice and
friendly. there men are a little bit too extrovert though!!

we have had a couple of scary moments!!...we decided to get a bus into
another part of town and suddenly the bus turned off the road we were on and
started heading up the worlds biggest favela (shanty town)!!!!! just an hour
earlier i had read "whatver happens-do not enter a favela!" we couldnt get
off because we would have been right in the middle of it, so we just stayed
on! we were the only ones left on the bus and the bus driver and ticket
collector started giving us strange looks (as if to say what are these
foreigners doing!). eventually the ticket lady said something to us in
portugese - and so i pointed at where we wanted to go on a map. they stopped
the bus, held our hands, literally ran us onto a bus coming down the hill in
the opposite direction and shoved us on!! was really scary at the time, but
quite funny now - luckily the lady was so nice or i dont know where we would
be now!!!

another scary moment was when we walked the wrong way and suddenly the
streets just turned into a really dodgy area. a group of young kids started
following us for about 5 mins - they kept grabbing us and wouldnt leave us
alone. in the end gemma pushed one out the way and we jumped in a taxi! its
really sad when u think about it beacuse they couldnt have been any older
than 12 and one of them even had a baby with them.

we have been having loads of fun tho - met loads of people in our hostel
(mostly ozzies of course!)
we have seen the main touristy things - like the big statue of christ, had a
shower under a natural waterfall and urca (which is like 2 cable car rides
up a big rock/mountain thing) - the views from up there are amazing. we
stayed up there for 3 hours just looking at the city. its such a beautiful
place - great beaches with green mountains in the background. its quite a
dirty place tho - we always need a shower when we get in. its really strange
- they do have bins but no one seems to use them! after the street parties i
have never seen so much rubbish - it is literally knee deep! and they just
spit everywhere and sneeze and cough without covering their mouths which is
a bit disgusting! but seems to be quite normal for them! but yeah apart from
the rubbish - its a really pretty place!

we leave here on saturday and are then heading to iguassa falls which will
definately be good. then buenos aires after that.
will email again soon. keep in touch.
lots of love