Hello from Rio de Janeiro, the first stop on our world trip!

Arriving in Rio was amazing. The city is vast and surrounded by mountains, with favelas crammed together around the outside. After feeling a bit intimidated and homesick at first I ended up loving Rio.

We stayed in Botafogo, not the best area but it was quite central and our hostel was ok. On our first afternoon we walked around the city and got the cable car up to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain in time to see the sunset behind Christ the Redeemer. We saw our first monkey up there, music was playing and there were ladies dancing in the cafe, it was a great atmosphere. After that we headed to Copacabana and wandered along the beach watching the kids play football on the floodlit sand, the best team was Liverpool FC!

We spent the rest of our time in Rio seeing the different areas of the city. We had amazing juices in the central district and got a rickety wooden street car up to Santa Teresa where we had our first Caipirinhas in a bar at the top of the cobbled streets. In the evening we walked around Lapa and heard music playing on every corner.

We spent a day in Tijuca national park walking along the trails, got chased by a quarti racoon and had amazing steak in the centre of the forest. We spent a day on Ipanema beach, the weather was lovely and the beach was buzzing with sunbathers, volleyball players and people calling out trying to sell food and clothes - we were the whitest people there! We had a night out in Ipanema as well and then got the cog train up Corcovado to see Christ the Redeemer on our last day. When we got there he was covered in cloud but for a brief moment the clouds cleared and we got an amazing view of the impressive statue, and some cheesy photos as well!

We both had a great time in Rio, it´s a fantastic city!

Love Vicky xxx