Hello! This is us. Mlungu Brett and Mlungu Darren. We're updating you, for the first time, live. For over 8 months our blog has been written post-fact and at times more than a month late. But to coincide with our last Mlungu Trek post from outside of South Africa, and as we sit here in our hostel waiting to start our trek down to Sao Paulo and back to Johannesburg, Jo'burg, Jozi, we write to you, live, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Rio started off as a bit of a shock. Through out our time in South America we've been told about how amazing Rio is from other travellers. This really set the bar and level of expectation very high. Almost too high. We arrived to some mediocre weather and an even more mediocre hostel. Hostelling in Rio is far behind the curve. The hostels themselves are very old school and basically pile as many people in as they can with minimal and basic facilities. We couldn't even consider a hotel as the high demand and low supply of rooms makes prices exorbitant. Interestingly, though, despite the quality of hostels, there is a camaraderie between them and quite a tight community where the hostels all seem to offer the same events, tours and parties.

Rio, was off to a bad start. And the safety element wasn't helping.

With favelas all around and the warnings to becareful of where you're going, what you're doing, and how you're doing it didn't help us settle into the city with ease.

So far, this isn't sounding like the best place in the world. But as we spent more time here and we started to figure out our way around and became more comfortable in our surroundings, then, like a creeper, we found ourselves really liking this dance-all-night, beach-all-day city. We still haven't figured out when people sleep here.

The stretch of beaches from Copacabana through Ipanema and onto Leblon look as good (or better) as they do in magazines and tv shows. Then there are the locals and biquinis that sun soak here. These beaches and their mountainous surroundings, island views and high rise backgrounds are definitely the soul of the city. They're what you first start to love here and set Rio apart in this world.

And then there's the cultural and sight seeing offerings. The Lapa stairs are a rose in a very manky part of town. The many high ground and mountain top options for brilliant panoramic views of the city.

The favelas. The different suburbs. There's no shortage of things to do. We went up to the ridiculously busy Christ statue but never made it to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain. Instead we went hang gliding in San Conrado yesterday which literally gave us a bird's eye view of the city. This was an awesome and unforgettable experience. And who knows, maybe we'll get to Sugar Loaf today, before we leave...but we doubt it.

On the flip side of the city's sights are it sounds and parties.

Copacabana parties, Ipanema bars and clubs, parties on boats, funk in favelas (never made it to this one), samba parties, street carnivals in Lapa. Starting with our local bar Emporium in Ipanema where almost nightly the people flow out onto the streets we tried to sample as much as we could of this cities incredible nightlife. Our co-mlungus, Steve and Rael, headed back to London half way through our Rio stay but we still made sure that we drank their share of caiparinhas for them.

This city really grows on you. It has great energy and people and although we still prefer Buenos Aires as our favourite city of South America, we have definitely learnt to love Rio. Hopefully we'll be back here soon for Carnival and for the 2014 Soccer World Cup.

So, that's us. Done. Finished. Finito. Almost 8 and a half months around the world through America, the UK, Europe, Asia and South America and our next and final stop of Mlungu Trek is home. Yip, homeward bound for Johannesburg. This isn't our last post though as we'll do one more when we're back. But for now…and as always…

Trek on...Brett and Darren

P.S. Check out the final list of where we've been staying and how we've been getting around in our blog posts from Johannesburg

Also check out our video channel on YouTube (cause we now technologicious like that):

http://www.youtube.com/user/MlunguTrek/videos?view=pl