Yesterday we took the bus to a beach resort town 2.5 hours north of Rio. It's a peninsula surrounded by beaches. We met up with Rebecca and had some dinner and did some shopping around town. We were on weather watch again this morning after breakfast we decided the sky was too cloudy for a boat tour so we decided to spend the day on one of the local beaches. We laid in the sun and after some lunch in a beachside cafe we tried our hand at standup paddle boarding....

Yesterday we spent all day wandering the Ipanema Beach. You can literally get anything you want at the beach,chairs, umbrellas, drinks served to you,jewellery, ice cream, sarongs, dresses, bikinis you name it they have it! After spending all day in the sun we sat and drank some piña coladas and watched the sun set before meeting Sophie for dinner at a Brazilian BBQ. Let's just say in one sitting no person should ever eat that much meat....but it was delicious! T...

We were on cloud watch all morning and with a blue sky we decided today was the day to head to Corcovado and Sugar Loaf. Sophie put us in touch with a friend of a friend of hers who is travelling around Brazil by herself. The three of us spent the day seeing the sights. First stop, Christ the Redeemer on top of Corcovado. It's amazing there and hard to believe after seeing something in pictures all your life when you're actually standing next to it. Incredible!...

Last night ended with Karen and I joining in on a jam session in the town square. Karen is a natural at the triangle, I on the other hand need some help with the shaker thingy, apparently I just wasn't shaking it right! This morning we wandered along the beach had some lunch in a cafe on the sand and caught the boat back to the mainland and headed to Rio. We met Karen's friend Sophie for dinner tonight at a restaurant along Ipanema beach. She's recently moved t...

What do you do on an island off the coast of Brazil? Take a boat and hike 20 minutes to one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, Lopes Mendes. It was a cloudy day, but we still made the most of it and I think we made some good progress on our tans! We are heading out tomorrow to Rio, if the sun is shining we will spend most of the day here if not we will head back on an earlier boat. It's going to be a busy few days sightseeing, luckily we are planning to...