Wonderlust

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

This is the journey we're planning - the dates are more of a rough guide than an accurate plan, as we've still got book and change some of the flights.

I had a surprise 30th birthday party on Saturday (I had an early birthday with my folks in January and now this and my birthday's not until June, so doing quite well drawing out the celebrations). My friends arranged a fanstastic surprise consisting of meals and drinks in 5 different houses around Aldershot, pin the clothes on a giant polystyrene Sue, a song to the tune of she's coming round the mountain and a wonderful memory and photo book which everyone contributed to. Thanks guys - it's given me a hundred happy memories to take with me on my travels. x

After finally letting our house out to a lovely couple with a child on the way and a dog who may well decide to eat our neighbours, we have moved to the now world famous narrow boat the Hieronymus Bosche ( I’ll need to check the spelling on that one) on the River Wey in Surrey. The move to the boat was mostly without problems and adjusting to living in such an environment has been swift. I, however, am about two inches too tall for barge living and unable to stand up straight. This is not a problem for me because I’m not averse to lounging around on my arse when inside for long periods.
One of the nicer aspects of living on a river is the strange friendship we have acquired with a pair of swans that have taken to visiting us for a midnight snack. Over the last few weeks they have been turning up earlier but still have the capacity to scare us witless every time we look out the window only to be confronted by two ghostly white pointed faces, pressed against the window staring back at us The male normally rocks up first closely followed by his partner ready to snatch a quick crumb from our hands off the bow of the boat. The female still hisses at me on every visit and the male will “quack” and snort at me with regularity. This came as a surprise as they are supposed to be Mute Swans. Sue gets no such reaction. They seem to be happier to see her than they are me. No change from every day life then.
They may well be more exciting sides to living on a boat than two swans coming to visit but we are still working fulltime so little distractions like that are welcome as we wait in antisipation for the big push to see the rest of the world. As I write this we are less than three weeks before we fly to adventure. We buy our anti-malarial drugs and some travellers cheques tomorrow.
Under three weeks to gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo