David: Quick blog for yesterday...

Went on a tour of Rio. We drove around collecting people before heading off to the Tijuca Forest. This is the largest urban forest in the world would ya believe!!! In the forest we visited a waterfall that used to provide water for the centre of Rio but now it just runs through to Ipanema beach.

After this we drove on to the statue of Christ the Redeemer. The views from here were absolutely fabulous. You could see every inch of Rio (more or less). The day before the statue was so cloudy you couldnt even see his arms from standing underneath, but we have perfect visibility of the fella... quite impressive.. took 9 years to build and he came from all over, the arms and head are from french france (so now!)

We then made our way down into Santa Teresa neighbourhood where we stopped for some lunch.. we ate local food... cant remember the name of it (beans and pork stew for me and chicken with okra and polenta for reg). It was a good eat!! Santa teresa is one of the oldest areas of Rio. The locals were trying to hide from the spanish and french invaders so they moved up the mountains to hide (to cut a long story short). Now its full of hippys!

Off then down to the Lapa area where we saw the Lapa steps, featured in the Pharell and Snoop Dog video of Beautiful.... also in the Incredible Hulk (the good Hulk movie). The guy who put it all together is basically crazy and does the whole thing as a hobby, its highly impressive to look at, and even more impressive when you see he is clearly a deranged old man! At the top of the steps the local gangs steal tourists (the whole tourist) so we didnt go up there!

After that it was back to the hostel.... at this point its important for me to add a note about tonto our driver. He was a short stop of a man, about 5 foot by 5 foot. He was really friendly and seemed to know everyone. Possibly the best thing about him though is his sixth sense when it comes to driving. Reg was a bit frightened at first, but she got into it after. He, like many Rio drivers, seem to be able to sense when a gap is opening ahead and weave in and out of 4-5 lanes of traffic to get there. He could overtake cars on a one lane, one way street, and pass 3-4 cars doing so. It never seemed dangerous to me, just very efficient!!!! In brazil, it seems that if u are in the right hand lane, and want to turn left, even if there are 3 lanes and lots of cars in between, you just mirror manouvre (brazilian spelling)

Well now, that wasnt quick at all, and ive left out loads.. like this. Someone nearly stepped in poo on the tour, the driver told us it is called coko in portugese (slang for s***). Very similar to coco (coconut) and cocoa (chocolate). So we are never ordering hot chocolate ever ever ever ever ever....

More to follow about the match we saw last night... laters