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Ola!
After a rather long bus journey (22 hours to be precise!) we arrived in Rio de Janeiro and made our way to the hostel which was near Ipanema Beach. We headed straight out onto the beach to start work on our tans! In the evening we met up with John, Charlotte and Clare, 3 Travellers volunteers who we'd met in Buenos Aires, as they were over in Rio for a weeks holiday. We sampled a traditional Brazilian drink called a caipirinha which was nice but rather strong - lets just say you dont want more than one of them!! We had dinner in a restaurant near the hostel and it was where the song 'The Girl from Ipanema'was written! On Saturday we planned a full day of sight-seeing and so started off by making our way over to the Christ Redeemer statue. We had to get a rather rickety train up the mountain which was made entertaining by a large group of singers/dancers/drummers who were obviously on some kind of tour. The day had started off sunny but by the time we reached the top of the mountain we realised we were actually in a cloud, making it impossible to see any views of Rio, in fact we couldn't even see the statue! We had a cup of tea in the cafe hoping that the cloud would pass but it was still there after half an hour. We got a glimpse of the statue for about 5 seconds as the cloud parted momentarily and managed to get a quick snap but apart from that the trip was a bit of a disappointment! Especially since we'd paid quite a bit to get up there in the first place. So after that we decided to abandon our plans to see Sugar Loaf Mountain and just had a lazy afternoon in the hostel. For dinner, we went to a restaurant over in Copacabana which served traditional Brazilian food. It was quite a quirky little place but we had a nice meal.
Sunday we got up early as we'd planned to go on a favela trip, however there weren't enough places available so instead we went for a walk along the beach to Copacabana and sunbathed for a bit. After lunch we went to the Ipanema market which had some rather cool jewellery and other interesting things. In the evening we went out for our last meal with Charlotte and Clare to a really nice restaurant which served delicious fish.
On Monday we left Rio and headed down the coast. We're currently relaxing on a very beautiful island just off the mainland called Ilha Grande. Yesterday we took a boat to Brazil's most beautiful beach, Lopez Mendes, and spent the day chilling out there. We intend to spend one more day here enjoying the sun and eating rather nice food in the evenings! On Friday we'll be heading further down the coast to a little town called Paraty for a couple of days before heading back to Rio.
Hope you are all well, we'll be seeing you all very soon - 10 days till we get home woo!!
Lots of love
Becki and Jen xx xx xx
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