First stop Rio

Hi all

Well we're here in Rio on our second day. We got our hopes up for the plane ride, as we were offered £450 each and a night in a hotel at Heathrow to fly the following day as they'd overbooked the flight. Naturally we volunteered. We had to wait until 45 mins before check in to see if we were going to be flying or not. 20 mins before the flight we were told that we weren't needed as standby's and would be flying and so had to dash to make our plane.

Anyway after the 14 hour flight we managed to get the right bus from the airport to where we wanted to go, the driver even shouted our stop to us so we knew where to get off, although nearly missed getting off as I'd put my seatbelt on and couldn't find the clip to get it off. He dropped us off on the side of a busy road, which by chance happened to be just round the corner from the guest house we were looking for. So all going quite smoothly so far - the main mishap so far involved creme eggs, the sun and our Brazillian currency!

We're staying in Catate, just outside of central Rio, it's lovely. We're in Copacabana today and have just spent the morning on the beach - lots of beautiful people as you'd expect, but also lots of not quite so beautifuls, so didn't feel too intimidated! I think we're going to head to Sugar Loaf mountain to try and do the cable car trip around sunset today.

We're trying hard to pick up some Portuguese, but not finding it that easy - most of our communication is via pointing and gesturing as not many people speak English. The food does seem to be mainly meat based or lots of Pizza with more cheese than pizza.

It's hot and humid, but nice breezes from the sea.

Really interesting mix of people. Therefore we don't stand out as tourists too much apart from us being much less tanned than the locals.

Delicious Amazonian berries made into a drink. Looks a bit like chocolate milkshake.

Will try and upload some photos soon.

Sue and Dan. x