Day 51: Rio de Janeiro

Waking up after our late night shenanigans in Lapa the plan for the day was to visit Christ the Redeemer. Priorities though: we were heading back to Ireland and Scotland respectively where sunshine and heat are in short supply, so firstly we HAD to head to the beach. And maybe have a caipi or two. It was a beautiful day (as are seemingly all days in Brazil) so we decided to walk; first along Ipanema and then through the seaside district to get to the famous Copacabana beach. As we walked we passed lovely swimwear shops, and I took a notion, that now, at the end of my trip, was the right time to invest in a new bikini. I tried on a few very nice (and a few very skimpy) bikinis, before deciding on one that was super quality, and was really great value as it was on sale. I asked the girl to remove the labels as I was going to wear it immediately, which she did swiftly with a big sharp scissors. At the till she rung up the amount. R$400… ehhhhhhhhh…. What?! I had picked a bikini off the sale rail for R$140 (about €40) and when asking for a different size in the changing room, she handed me a full price bikini… which I simply didn't have the cash to pay for! MORTO! So, backing out of the shop empty handed and red-faced, we slunk back into the glaring sun to face down my humiliation… Misunderstandings are a humorous part of travelling, right?!

We arrived at Copacabana beach, camping at Posto 5, where Fede, our previous guide had said he was planning to go for the day. There Lynn and I just lolled in the sun drinking Caipis and getting in and out of the sea. We whiled away the afternoon and then decided to head back so we could squeeze in a visit to Christ the Redeemer. As we were leaving, we bumped into Eva and Daniel again! It's a funny thing, human behaviour. Even in one of the world's largest cities, people can still follow the same predictable patterns and "bump" into each other!

We were walking back towards our hotel, when we 'bumped' into more people; this time, Nat and Kat who I'd been on the G-Tour with so there were lots of big hugs and screams. We caught up with the gang briefly before continuing on - it was getting late. Sure enough, by the time we returned to the hostel, when we voiced our plans to head to see Christ we were told, "oh, you can't go there now! It's too late". Whoops! Instead, we made our way towards the sugar loaf to watch the sun go down over the city. It was beautiful.

Up there and on the way back down we bumped into yet more fellow travellers - all seemingly on the exact same itinerary! In an Uber, we headed back to the hostel for a nap before heading out for dinner with the girls from my G-Tour who were staying in Copacobana aka Dodge-Central. After a big feed, and from the late night before, we were fairly pooped, so we just headed back to the hostel. And this is how our last night in Brazil was spent… So bad ass.