Picture this: You're standing on top of a mountain, over 500 meters above ground. You're at the edge of the cliff and below, you see a beautiful golf course spread over thousands of square meters. Beyond that, a long stretch of white sandy beach and then, it's the ocean. Your heart is pounding, your mind conflicted - jump or not to jump? You literally have a few seconds to decide - whether to run full speed towards the edge of the cliff into nothi...

Most people don't need to watch Disney's animated film of the same name (the one with the annoying, samba-ing parrot) to know that Rio is famous for its beaches, colourful people (and apparently birds) and of course, the Carnaval. But what they didn't tell us in the film is that there's a right time for all this. And the middle of July - Brazil's winter - is not it. During this time of the year - as we found out the hard way - the weather c...

No, it's not a cuss word in Portuguese. It's the name of the rustic little place that we're staying in while in Rio. We booked the place the day before we arrived in Rio, so you can imagine that we were a little pressured into finding a roof over our heads and had no expectations. Later, we realized we're already planning well ahead than "normal" but that's another story.Leaving our hotel in Sao Paulo at 6.30 am, we decided to take a gamble ...