Can you believe I am almost in my 11th month of travelling and have only 2 weeks to go???!!! Well I am now in Brasil and having an absolutley fantastic time! Since flying from Santiago in Chile I spent my first week in a district of Brasil called Botofogo which has its own beach (although not very nice) but is a 20 minute walk from Copacobana beach. Copacobana beach is not the nicest but is adjacent to Ipanema beach which is the place to be..all the beautiful poeple hang out, lots of fakes boobs, teeny weeny bikinis and a very nice beach to be on..always packed with Brasilians and holiday makers alike.....it is a great place to watch the world go by, check out the fit guys playing football (the nations favourite!) and get lots of hassle on the beach from the vendors selling everything from grilled cheese, to sweaty prawns which I wouldnt touch with a bargepole unless I wanted to spend the next month on the loo.... no ta! Well Brasil is everything I expected and much more..! The people in Rio certainly know how to party, there is no lack of bars, clubs and places to hang out..things dont get going until about midnight and people stay out until all hours of the morning...long after the sun comes up! One Caipirinha...(the local tipple) is enough to knock you off your feet so I have tried to steer clear as best a s possible! Unfortunatley on one of my nights out in Rio I had my handbag stolen from out of my hand and it was ina packed club so before I even realised what had happened I had no bag, no money and most importantly my beloved camera was inside....I had about 150 images on there and not to mention it was worth 500 quid so had to spend the next day down the cop shop explaining my situation for insurance purposes..luckily my friend speaks fluent Portugese..... I am actually very suprised how safe it feels to be in Brasil, despite the language barrier where it is rare for anyone to speak English I have found the people very warm and accomodating but it is very frustrating not knowing any Portugesee. I took a organised tour to two Favelas in Rio..Favelas (slums) are featured in the film City of God to those of you that are familiar and there are over 600 Favelas in Rio alone..which accounts for 1/3 of the population and they live in great poverty but appear to be so happy. The Favelas are run by Drug Barons and are very safe and they approve of the organised tours coming to the Favelas as some of the money goes towards educational needs for the children in the community and we visited one of the schools so it was good to see the kids learning and not on the streets. It was also nice to see them for myself and to dispell the negative inamges that the Media seem to create about the kids and people in the favelas that they are all trigger happy criminals, they are just people trying to get by like everyone else but with not much money and no support from the greedy Government. The cross between rich and poor in Brasil is very apparent with the rich body beautiful Brasilians and the poor who earn about 4 dollars a day and live in the slums. The one advantage the people in the Favelas have is the amazing views they have over the city as all of the favelas are in the mountains but you could never go there alone at night. I went to the top of sugar Loaf mountain on a cable car and the views all around were stunning, Jesus Christ looks over the city with his arms outstretched and I am yet to go up and pay him a visit when I return to Rio. In my hostel I met with 4 other travellers, two English guys Sim and James, an Austrian girl (Linna)and a Brasilian (Zema)who is travelling and originally from a town called Campo Grande which is about 5 hours from the Pantanal (the largest inland wetlands in the world) he offered to take us there as it is supposed to be amazing and an 18 hour drive so we all agreed to hire a car and go ona road trip to the Pantanal for one week......(road trip in Brasil is one thing I never thought I would do) its strange how things change when you are travelling and how spontaniously things happen! Anyways instead of it taking 18 hours straight we split the journey up into 3 days to get here as our first day we were on the road for 16 hours due to the really bad traffic and going a bit slower at 120 KPH ..yes slower!! I have never been so scared in my whole life and honestley thoguht I was not going to survive on those treacherous roads , the Brasilians drive like lunatics and that is not an exaggeration and our Brasilaina friend Zema was driving like a loon too!!! I am now almost grey by the way. He has freinds all over and two sets of different friends kindly put us up on two individual occasions so we had to crash on couches etc but it was wicked fun and this road trip is definetley one to remember and I am so glad I came we have had a wicked laugh!!!! Our second day we were on the road for 12 hours and then next day for 8. We have been in a town called Bonito for 4 days now and it is gorgeous here, lots of Indian cowboys and it is the entry town to the Pantanal which is where we went yesterday... To get to the Pantanal we had to drive 3 hours on a dirt track in our little hire car starting at 5am....! When we finally got to the lodge we had breakfast and then went out on a jeep in search of wildlife..we saw all sorts massive rodents, alligators, toucans...you name it..I woudl have liked to have gone deeper into the pantanal as you get to see (if you are lucky or unlucky if its hungry) jaguars!! Anteaters and also mosquitos the size of your eye ball (not so nice) but alas time is not really in our favour so one day in the wetland had to suffice. In the afternoon we were taken out on a boat to see alligators and I saw about 10 times more than I did on the everglades, we went Piranha fishing and I caught one...yeahhhh, most of us did in fact as they just loved the raw beef we had on the end of our lines! We then fed it to the hungry alligators...it was such a cool day and great to see the Pantanal in all its glory. Oh and then we had Piranha soup which tasted like warm sea water. We are now back in Bonito and its our last night together and it will be sad to say goodbye to my fellow road trippers as its been a blast..only 3 of them are going back to Rio in the car, I am flying from Campo Grande to Recife which is in the North East on 17th..(would have been 50 hours on a bus!!) then I head to Salvador and from there get a flight to Rio on the 26th and spend 3 days in Rio before I head back to London.....I am not ready to come home at all....but I suppose its time to I am looking forward to seeing everyone! The North east of Brasil is meant to be much hotter than the South so will have to prepare myself for that as its already hot enough here! I cant wait to see the beaches surrounding Recife they look amazing and for those of you that know Gavin I will be going to see him on sunday 19th. On about the 21st I will get a 17 hour bus to Salvador and spend about 5 days there for some samba and lots of partying before I come home, then 3 more days in Rio to catch up with friends and top up my tan.. Anyways peeps this may be my last update on here which makes me kind of sad because its all coming to an end but I just have to look forward to whatever awaits me around the corner and keep these memories of all the brilliant people I have met and all of the beautiful things I have seen and done and I am really fortunate to have been able to do them and this is the best thing I have ever done..!sniffle sniffle See you all soon! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX