21st feb 2012. Last full day in Rio. The crowds have died down and although most of it looks like a bomb site I'm beginning to settle. It's a shame because a lot of the city has some large colonial style buildings but unfortunately they are in a very poor state. Couple that with the street rubbish and it's not a pretty sight. Anyway after brekkie we headed off to the metro. This time to Botafogo. Still quite a few sad looking people in fancy dress around but no...

20th Feb 2012. We will get to Sugar Loaf mountain....promise. However today was a necessary evil. On Wednesday we are leaving Rio to take the bus to Ouro Preto.We did try to book this on line but the Brazil bus web site is only in Portugese and will only accept payment with a Brazilian bank credit card. So we had to go to the bus station to buy the tickets. As it's carnival time we figured we should do it a couple of days in advance......oh how right we were !! ...

19th Feb 2012. After a good nights sleep we decided to head out. A slight change of plan as we were headed to the Christo Redentor statue which is the iconic symbol of Rio. Seasoned sight seers will know that some things are easy and some aren't. At the metro we bought an 'interface express' ticket. This allows you on the bus and tube. So on to the tube for a few stops, then on to the bus to the base of the mountain.....easy. We spotted the cable train station ...

18th Feb 2012. Last night we went out locally. We had a chicken dinner in a restaurant near the square. Then we walked the local area and joined in with the party. Down to Rio Branco for a local bloco which had us dancing along in the crowd. It was fun and although busy it felt safe. This morning we had planned to go to Sugar Loaf mountain. It was now 9am and breakfast was over. We walked out into the street and OMG I have never seen so many people. Carnival ha...

17th Feb 2012 Let the blogs commence............ After a succession of leaving do's we had our last two nights in Blighty with Kev and San. It was a little oasis before the big day. Kev dropped us at the airport and we checked in smoothly. A small breakfast followed by a pint and we were ready to fly. Our aircraft was a Boeing 777 with no annoying passengers . Our captain was James Hill. Funny how they never call themselves Jim !!! 12 hours is a long time on ...