LHR-GIG - Day 0 (the flight doesn't count) - 29/09/2012 (Saturday)
4:30am.... BEEEP BEEEP BEEEEEEEEP! Always a good start to the day! Finished the last few things we forgot and then were out the door by half 5. Richard kindly offered to take us to the airport.

After queuing in the wrong line for a few minutes we were moved on to another check in desk by a very rude woman. She might not have been rude but everyone sounds rude at 6am. We had some how managed to check into our flight to Madrid but couldn't check in for the 2nd flight. The lady at terminal 5 told us we would get our next boarding pass at flight connections in Madrid. After security Sarah insisted I got a pint and breakfast so who was I to argue.

Nothing really to say about our flight to Madrid. Once we arrived guess what... No flight connection signs and hence no where to pick up our next boarding pass. After wondering aimlessly thorough the terminal feeling a little like Tom Hanks in that awful airport based film (think its called terminal) we managed to find an information desk. The woman was shocked we didn't have a boarding pass but was able to print us one.

Nothing really to report on our flight to Rio other than after your 4th film you start to get bit restless. Oh I almost forgot about the "dog". No idea if it was a real dog but for the first half of lithe flight all we could hear was whimpering that could only be coming from a dog. Maybe it was a small child looking for attention but either way it should have been down in the cargo bay.

Once we landed in Rio we had to wait almost an hour to clear immigration. They only had 2 desks open for the foreigners coming from 2 flights. They had loads open for the locals. They will have to buck there ideas up before 2016!! Grabbed a cab to the hotel, didn't see a lot as it was pitch black by now. Got to the hotel and went straight to bed.

Rio - Day 1 - 30/09/2012 (Sunday)
4:30am.... BEEEP BEEEP BEEEEEEEEP! Nope... That isn't a copy and paste error, at half 4 the alarm clock in the room went off. The people in the room before kindly left it on for us. I couldn't find the off button so it kind of got ripped out from the wall. It was then almost impossible to get back to sleep. I tried to get some water out the mini bar but it wouldn't open but I managed to spill a bit over the floor. After giving up I put it back in the fridge. When we finally did get up I walked by the fridge and there was water all over the floor. I soon discovered that I had not put the lid back on the water and it leaked everywhere. That's a very expensive bottle of floor water.

As we went to leave the room Sarah discovered more water, this time on the floor by the door. It was coming from the air conditioner so decided to leave it.

We walked the 50 foot to Copacabana beach and were blown away by how nice it was. Lovely white sand and huge crashing waves. Our plan was to get a cab to Sugar loaf mountain but after walking almost the entire length if the beach we walked the rest of the way. We jumped on the first cable car and then quickly onto the second. I was blown away by how great the scenery was. There was something build on every available space for as far as the eye could see. The only rest bite from buildings were where the random mountains stick out from no where. We had a wander round the top and then the middle base station before heading back to earth.

We jumped in a cab and headed to the train station to take us up to the Christ the Redeemer statue. When we got there it said there was an hour wait before we could go up. Not wanting to miss this we got in the queue. Someone pushed in front of us and got the last ticket for that train so we had to wait another 20 minutes. After the wait we jumped on our train and set off. It was so steep! We had some how picked seats facing backwards and we had to really hold on in places to stop us falling off the seats. 20 minutes later we were at the top and had a wander around. The views were even more stunning than Sugar Loaf, the only problem it was so packed it took forever to move around. We took in the view and got the required tourist shots of us holding our arms out and then stood in the hour long queue to get the train back down again holding on for dear life. (However don't forget I like to exaggerate).

Once down we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel. We went up to our room and the keys didn't work. Thinking nothing of it we went to reception to get new keys and they told us that they had fixed the earlier mentioned leak but now we had a hole in the ceiling but they were willing to upgrade us to a superior room. Thinking nothing of it we packed up and stuff and walked into a room that was smaller, had a smaller bed but the only superior thing about it was you could see the beach through one of the windows! Amazing! Lol

We soon headed out in the hunt for dinner. We managed to find the one place that was packed and had no one who could speak English. After finally getting our drink order at the bar they showed us to a table and handed up Portuguese menus. Sarah did a damn good job of translating until after about 15 minutes I asked for an English menu. To give Sarah credit she'd got most of it right. I didn't have a clue lol. Through out dinner we kept hearing someone shot 'chopp'. I soon translated that as it meant beer so I had to partake in a few of them.

After dinner the jet lag kicked in so we went back to our superior room which was right by the lifts and had to put up with noisy people coming out the lift every few minutes.

Rio - Day 2 - 01/10/2012 (Monday)
Woo no half 4 wake up!! Instead we got up a decent time and headed down to Ipanema beach to check it out. We walked for a few miles along the white sand beach and then looped back round and headed back to the hotel to check out. We grabbed our stuff and jumped into a taxi to head to our next hotel where we pick up our tour. All I am going to say is that the quality of this hotel was not what we have become accustom to. I'll leave it at that as we knew they would be cheap hotels and this might have been one of the better ones lol.

After checking in we headed to the metro station to head into Central. We had a bit of a walk around but it was a bit rough and we couldn't really find what we were looking for so we headed back to the hotel. It was still quite early so we grabbed our beach stuff and headed to the beach. Spent a couple of hours laying in the sun, reading and watching the world go by.

Once the sun started to go down we headed back to the hotel and meet up with our group. It was quite a large group. 15 people in total. I've got no chance of learning everyone's names. Even those that are coming all the way to Lima over the next 10 weeks. Sarah seems to have learnt everyone's straight away.

After our welcome meeting we headed out as a group to get something to eat and to get to know each other. The group is dominated by Aussy's. 5 of them are together so I feel a bit sorry for the 6th. Apart from that we have a bit of a mixture. 2 people from Holland, 1 Irish, 1 kiwi, 1 Norwegian, 1 American and another English. (Can you tell I don't know anyone's name yet!)

Rio - Day 3 - 02/10/2012 (Tuesday)
Woke up a bit later than planned so just had time to pack and grab some breakfast before jumping on the bus to the next place...