Rio de Janiero… most people think this is the capital of Brazil!!! but it is not it is Brasilia! Flashing lights, high rise buildings and wonderful white sandy beaches… well yeah, sort of! We arrived in Copacabana which is the main beach resort of Rio, i think there is a song about it do you know it? We arrived safely after a long boat and bus ride, which took longer than getting to Ilha Grande and we had paid extra for an Express service! Oh well we walked the main strip to find our hostel Mellow Yellow. We had heard good things about this place and with my birthday coming up we wanted a party hostel to celebrate in. We managed to get spaces for all of us but Becki and i had to sleep in a 15 bed doom. We all dumped our bags as we were starving hungry and rushed to the Mac Donalds as we had all eyed it up on the bus in. We just had to pop pass an ATM on the way, easy!

Um no… after trying a number of different ATM´s with no luck we decided to go back to the hostel and look on line, yup Fraud. I had about £350 taken from mine but poor old Becki had in total around £5,500 taken. We thought we had made it out of carnival without any problems, nope they were just playing a bigger game.

It wasn´t the Money we were both upset about loosing it was the Fact that 3 out of our 4 cards had now been canceled and we needed cash! We called our banks and arranged fraud investigations on our accounts and luckily my back up card worked and mum topped it up for us. That night both Becki and i were feeling extremely low so we got some food and headed to bed for an early night.

We decided we weren´t going to let the criminals win and mess up or trip so we took local transport with George and Cat to the Christ statute. I wasn't that keen on going myself especially after the money indecent and it was more culture but mother Courtney convinced me otherwise so i went.

We arrived at the bottom of the train station and took out Becki´s camera to take a picture of the train to find ¨Lense error¨ yes it never rains when it pours! Her brand new top of the range camera had broken and I didn´t have mine, but luckily the girls weren´t that interested in taking pictures so i was allowed to snap away to my hearts content.

We boarded the train which took about 15 minuets to the top. On the way up we could see distorted views of Rio through the trees and a mixture of poor and posh houses on the side of the railway. We made it to the top ready to push our way to the front ( we had been warned that it was very touristy.) we were meet with a few souvenir shops and a walk way ahead. We followed the path where we could see wonderful breath taking panoramic views. On one side it was the city and on the other was the long stretch of beautiful white sandy beaches. We continued up the path eager to see the climax… and there he was, in all his glory from the back! We rushed around to the front, swerving in and out of all the people to see his FACE. It was massive, 17 meters tall and 750 meters above sea level. You could even make out his facial features but our friends were right, there were millions of us! Hot sweaty, excited gringos all wanting their golden picture. We did alright though i think we manged to get a few shots on our own but as the Christ was in such a small area and the volume of people around it was a hard task.

We stayed for about an hour and a half then took the train back down. This time we were greeted with samba music but we were experts from carnival and they weren´t very good! The rest of the afternoon was used talking to banks, looking for presents and getting ready for my birthday!

That night we all got dressed up, girly style, played the classic drinking game ring of fire and headed out to town. We danced all night and most of the men in the club tried to teach us samba but only Becki and Cat could get it, then just before we were about to leave we ran into Tom, Victoria and Harry from Salvador, so we partied with them until morning.

The next day we just chilled out around the hostel and socked ourselves in the hot tub and made a well balanced meal of smiles and chicken nuggets, yum! It sounds like a real waste of a day thinking back but the weather was horrible and we still had bank games to play so in the end it was a good day. That night we played lots of cards as it was going to be Cats last night with us so we were all a bit sad, most of all George! We had an early night so we would be ready to check out and move to our other hostel!

We had to change hostels half way through as Mellow Yellow had ran out of space so we booked Stone on a Beach on line to make sure we had space. The next day we rocked up to find they too were over booked however, the owner had booked us into another hotel and was willing to pay the differences in price for us, result!

We walked to our third hostel of the day and checked in. We said our sad good byes to cat but we knew it wouldn´t be for long as we would see her again in Melbourne in about two months. That afternoon we had booked ourselves onto a Favela tour of one of Rios biggest slums. We had spoken to some ozzie guys who went the day before and the loved it, and I knew I would to,it's Hana's kinda culture!

We got picked in vans and taken about 15 minuets out of the city where there was a large fly over and the van suddenly stopped and chucked us out. The van couldn't stay around the entrance to long as locals may have thought we were undercover police. We were ushered to a corner of what just looked like a regular market with a well built white guy shout no photos! Our tour guide was the owner of "Don't be a Gringo, be a local" the owner of the only company who did this tour and was very knowledgeable. We were told there where two main rules, when he said no photos, he meant it and don't get left behind as it was like a maze inside. We all agreed with huge smiles but looking slightly white!

The favela we were entering was ran and controlled by a 23 year old drug lord and had an agreement if we don't shoot the drug dealer (with our camera's obviously, they wont with their gun's!) that seemed fair. The drug lord earnt around half a million dollars an month and lived just outside of his favela in a huge house. We were told that the drug dealers had all ages working for them, children, teenagers, adults and grandparents, it was kinda a rule you either work with them or against them. The childrens jobs were to be police look outs and eron runners, if the police were spotted the children would let of a warning fire work then three more in a row to signal to the people of the favelas there were police around. Flags were continually let off so everyone knew the situations so guns, drugs and other weapons could be hid. We were told that the police came about every three months and there was a possibility they could come today which could cause a problem!

Our guide told us about the life of the people living in the favelas, if you were in the drugs trade and you made it to 30 your were a big boss as the life expectancy was 28 years old. The Government owned the buildings in the favelas and the people rented them from them for 500 reals a year which is about £175. To control the size of the favelas the government had built roads and walls around so it couldn't expend, so people had taken to building up and most houses were of about 3-5 stories high. Most of the buildings were mad out of brick a few had windows but most just had wholes in the wall to let light in. The streets were tiny, I would say they were wide enough for only two grown adults to pass and most had head high piled rubbish, with rats, dirt and water running down them. I chose to wear shoes that day thank god!

Our plan was to catch motor bikes to the top of the favela and we would walk down, see the different levels. We walked about 20 meters and we were surrounded by millions of motor bikes with again a massive age range driving them. So most of the drivers looked no older than 13 years. We were told it was a competition between drivers who had the best looking passenger and I was pointed at and said blond yes me, so I was chosen for that and Becki for her height. Girls were encouraged to hold the driver round the waist and men were only allowed to hold onto the back of the bikes, ok that was normal, however their driving wasn't! It was one of the most scariest 5 minuets of my life, the competition wasn't only for the passengers it was who would get to the top first. We were going 80 KM an hour up windly roads, full of children, dogs, other passengers and two way traffic. Oneone occasion my knee hit another cars wind mirror, I also remembering at one point to just close my eyes as what will be will be! It was ok thought we all made it up there safely but with a few people looking extremely green.

We walked down a few streets and we all started to relax as we were told that the drug lord took it as a complement that gringos would go to is favela as it meant it was safe and he was doing his job well. We were taken to a roof top house where we could see for miles, and the degree of rich poor divide was easily seen. We were told that the biggest favelas (250,000 people) was next to the most expensive area to living in Rio, and that the drug lord earned $1.5 million dollars a month as it had the biggest drug sales, what does that say? The Ozzie guys had told us about this thing called a microwave and me being me I asked about it. There are strict rules that there would be no petty crime in or around the favelas as they did not want thieves to run into the favelas to hide from the police, bring the police into the favela. If you are caught doing this the penalty was from loosing a hand to death. The police offered 50,000 reals for information on drug lords, however if you were caught giving deals to the police you would get the microwave. People who go to the police would be taken to the top of the favela and enclosed in a tower of tyres and set alight for everyone to see. It was used as a warning to people, this would happen about once a week.

We were then taken to a locals art gallery, were I fell in love with some art. We were told that either most people turned into drug dealers or went into the arts. Lots of musician, footballers and artist came from the favelas. The art was all impressionist and how the artist felt about their lives in the favelas. The piece I liked was of the Brazilian flag with gun shots and red hand prints on. I originally liked a massive painting but could not afford this one so the artist painted me another smaller one which I would get in three days at my hostel, I was excited!!!

We then went to a local bakery where Becki had her new found love "double leche" donuts. Double Leche is like thick creamy caramel and you have it for breakfast on toast. We then walked a few more meters and we were met with gang members, but these were young boys of between 10-15 years old, some had piercings and most had big thick jewelery. You could tell the line of command by the amount of gold they wore! But they weren't there to rob us they were there to play for us. The used bins, oil cans and the boss had a drum and played some wonderful street samba. We all cheered and gave them some tips to find just around the corner there were a group of about 6 children aged between 2-5 years old, using bottle, pans and the ground. They were very cute but really bad! We were told not to give them too much as they will just fight between themselves and by sweets.

We were taken to one of the places that our money went from the tour price. It was a small two story building which aimed to help struggling families and disadvantaged women. They offered free basic health care, extra school tuition for children, arts and crafts and day care facilities. Unfortunately it was friday and the children weren't at school. Our tour was coming to an end and as we walked to where the bus dropped us off I caught a glips of a blinged up young man on a very posh motor bike who had a huge black gun on one side and a black balaclava on the other side hanging out of his pocket. We then walked over the bridge so we could take a closer look at the new sports and performing arts facilities. They were all brand new and it looked really out of place next to the poor dirty favelas. We finished our tour with a few more facts, that most families start with the mother being in her early teens, houses having about ten people in and the average wage earnt is about 450 reals a month. Employees from favela are treated really badly by many employers and are taken advantage of. Our last fact was that one of the walls we had seen on the tour that had lots of holes in was very recent from a police and gang fight. Three gang members had been found and one was shot dead. The police manage to restrain the other two by gun fire and made them carry their dead friend down the street as revenge. The worst thing about the story was the gun fire went though three different walls which meant through a families house killing an innocent grandma and grand daughter.

That night we decided to have a pre birthday party, get to know the new girls in our dorm and cheer up George party as Cat had left. We cooked noodles, drank a few pre drinks and all headed to the famous Lapar street party. We arrived at the street to be greeted by thousands of locals and tourists who were spilling out of the club doors. We have a sneaky tequila shot and headed into a club. We lasted about twenty minuets before we all got too hot so we headed outside to sit on the green. We were soon adopted by a group of wired looking but equally wonderful Brazilian people. They were a mixture of people who had a range of English but we all got on like a house on fire and spent the whole night talking.

The next day was my birthday, whoop whoop. We woke up late missing breakfast, but Becki and George went to go and buy some bits and I cooked us a feast. I opened my cute presents from Becki and called home. We then spent the day walking the beach and deciding what to do next. The only thing that came to our mind was to party, so for my third and final birthday night Becki, George and I went out and danced the night away.

The next day we were told about a hippie market so we took the subway to see for ourselves. The market was a bit of a disappointment but we found the nicest of the Rio beaches and went for a nice long walk. That evening it was time for George to fly home, so we gave her a few gifts to bring back to England and said our good byes. That night we just slept ready for our 25 hour bus journey to Puerto Igauaz.