Cruise Day 15, 6 December - Port Day / Rio de Janeiro - My oh my! We never thought we'd visit Rio so were pretty excited - like a bagful of kittens (but in a good way!) So much so we got up a bit early and went to the top deck to witness the ship's arrival in Rio. Beautiful overcast day, calm waters and sliding into port with views of Christ the Redeemer in one direction and Sugarloaf Mountain in the other. Just beautiful. We had breakfast and eventually joined our coach - we had seemingly won the excursion lottery for our 'Landscapes of Rio' outing to visit both Sugarloaf and Christ and also a stop at Brazil's famous Copacabana beach. The prize? An English only tour. Then, just as we were about to leave the bus terminal, we had 6 from the Spanish last-minute-excursion buyers club join us. Damn. Damn it all.

Great guide, opinionated on the state of Brazil's politics (aren't they all) - but did actually speak superb English (and, unfortunately, Spanish) and gave us information about Brazil and Rio (rarer than you might think for a tour guide). The day was co-ordinated incredibly well all told. The guides were all being wrangled from a distance with on the ground staff buying the train and cable car tickets in advance so that when the coach turns up, we get onto our scheduled trip - to avoid all 2000 odd passengers turning up at the train or cable car at the same time.

We started our day at Sugarloaf Mountain which we hadn't investigated at all - one of the luxuries of chucking a bit of mony at a ship excursion. It. Was. Outstanding. A tuly happy experience and not just one cable car - but two trips in both directions with a stop at the mid-level station. The views over Copa beach were incredible and if anything, Rio's harbour reminded us of Halong Bay in Vietnam with granite outcroppings dotted over the bay. Fun fact. Visiting Rio means we have ticked two items off two lists - seeing Christ the Redeemer means we've seen 6 of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World (only Chichen Itza in Mexico is left… something for another day). And Rio Harbour is one more off the list of 7 Wonders of the Natural World (3 left on that list - Northern Lights, Mt Everest and Paricutin, Mexico).

Returning to Sugarloaf Mountain, the rain started gently while we were up there, but the visibility was fine and clear at that point. Then, and it wasn't even the Spanish, a Russian and his mate decided they were bored and that they wanted to head down sooner. So instead of meeting at the allocated time (which gave 20 minutes at the top), they jumped on a cable car and trundled back to the base station. The only catch was they didn't tell anyone - so the other 25 of the group got to stand in the rain for 40 minutes while the guides had fits and searched for the missing gits. They eventually gave up and we all went down together, sans-Russians - only to find them at the base station. If only looks could kill. Suffice to say he didn't make any new friends on the excursion. But they're doing that at the international level these days, so nothing new there. Next stop. a trip across town via the big tunnel to get to the Christ the Redeemer railway station.

The rain had definitely set in as our little red train made the 20 minute climb through the city's lush, green forest to reach the 'nearly the top' point, then it was an elevator ride with a bunch of coughy and spluttery tourists - which was fine. It was the duffer with body odour and horrendously bad breath, wearing a stinking golf shirt that was the icing on the cake. We burst out of the lift like horses through a gate and breathed fresh air like it was going out of fashion. We were now officially at the 'almost at the top' point and it was now just a short escalator ride to the top. We were there! Standing at the feet of this incredible Art Deco masterpiece erected in the 1920s. Smaller than we expected when seen from a distance, even from Sugarloaf. Massive when viewed from the feet of the statue. Apparently during its construction the society ladies of Rio would inscribe the names of the townspeople on the back of the final layer of stone - soapstone from memory. So 100 years down the line those little bits of written history still stand watch over the city. The statue is the official gate to Rio and looks out over the water to Sugarloaf Mountain. Phenomenal visit altogether and we had spare time so walked down the stairs to the train stop which was relaxing (and good for breathing purposes). Back on the train, down through the forest, onto the coach and off we went to Copa (Copacabana… the hottest spot north of Havana…) Strictly speaking the Barry Manilow song is about a bar called Copacabana as of course, we are well south of Havana down here!

We're not fans of heat and blazing sun so we were loving the cool raininess of the day and had already had the best of it with great visibility for our early visit to Sugarloaf. The famous beach was nigh on empty, a rarity as it only rains for 60 odd days a year in Rio. We wiggled our toes in the sand, took some photos and enjoyed ourselves while the sad sack 'dissolve in water' types sat on the coach. Even got some free public wifi and checked the emails, sent some WhatsApps etc during the 15 minute beach stop. We enjoyed every single minute of it - nothing passive about it. Aggressively keeping the damn Russians waiting at this point. Eventually we were back to the ship and making our way tortoise-like through X-ray machines and body scans for the privilege of reboarding. No rush in the end as there was a supply delivery issue and the ship left several hours later than scheduled. C'est la vie. Rio was unquestionably the highlight port visit of the entire cruise.

Cruise Day 16, 7 December - Sea Day and, as night follows day, packing day. Yay. Made a decent fist of it, allocated a couple of outfits for the next couple of days, and felt pretty happy altogether. Tonight's show was absolutely, dead set, outstanding. We had a world champion accordion player who made that instrument sing and alongside a drummer and guitarist, they performed with 2 outstanding masters of Tango - giving us a superb tango show with wonderul music without the inconvenience of a) paying and b) leaving our BA apartment. Clapped ourselves silly. People actually started to leave after the final number only for them to do an encore which blew the previous performance out of the water. Outstanding.

Cruise Day 17, 8 December - Sea Day / Tonight's show was a bloke called Sury Boltman - live, all the way from South Africa! We were ready to dislike him based on all the talking up by Mr Chatty the compere (no wonder my languages are improving… almost three weeks of having everything done in 6 languages. It sinks in. Or sends you dotty. Jury's out). But incredible and even fireworks on stage at the end - a fitting end to a spectacular show. We had spent the day walking, putting the final touches on the packing, and had our first, honest to goodness 'WOW!' sunset. We'd had a chat with the head of the hotel department about our wonderful cabin attendant and waiter and, completely unrelated, enjoyed a bottle of champagne and a platter of gourmet sweet nibbly things in the cabin because we're all round sweethearts. We therefore spent the day somewhat tiddly. Amazing effect when you've barely touched alcohol over 18 days. As if the sunset and loads of fond farewells to new friends weren't enough, a thoroughly overexcited Italian bloke interrupted us at one point to tell us about the full moon. It was actually pretty darn exciting. We returned to the cabin, labelled our bags, put them outside the cabin (took a photo for posterity) and eventually went to bed. We suspect the photo shop will stop selling 'All you can Photo' packages going forward. We've not sorted through them all but estimate 3 kg of photos. Not a commodity usually measured in kilograms. They went in the bags last.

Cruise Day 18, Friday 9 December - Costa Cluster day - AKA Disembarkation Day (or more correctly, debarkation - but I've given up that fight).

It was a huge three weeks making the transatlantic crossing and the day of arrival in BA passed in a haze of chaos, soaked in humidity and roasted to perfection under the blazing Argentinian sun. We vacated our cabin at 8 am and had a last and leisurely breakfast before trundling down to the gangway at 10.30 am for our 'group' departure.

The theory is when you arrive in the modern, airconditioned port arrivals hall, with facilities to change money and get a local SIM card, your checked bags will be sitting tidily waiting for you to roll effortlessly across glistening tiled floors to where a plethora of honest taxi drivers await your business in spotlessly clean, airconditioned vehicles.

McFly! McFly - Wake up McFly!!! You're dreaming again.

Heat and sweat by the buckets was the order of the day. Eventually 36 degrees but with the humidity 'felt like' low forties. The theory is, the bags for the 10.30 am departure people should be in the collection hall on the dock by the time we get there. Well that didn't work. We were standing with some other English speakers we'd met and it ended up in fisticuffs when a particularly stroppy nonna wanted to climb through the barriers since she could see her bag as they were getting offloaded. The bloke who told her no and to wait her patience like everyone else (and there were hundreds of us), ended up getting smacked in the chest repeatedly. So that took a while. We were positively dripping in the baggage hall. It had a roof at least - but not a lot else in the way of walls, air con or fans. We eventually had access, found our 4 bags and made our way out the maze expecting a passport stamp at the very least. Nope. Not a dickey bird. Had the choice of queuing in the sun in order to be robbed by a taxi driver or paying through the nose for a private car and waiting 20 minutes in the shade. Private car won hands down. Next thing was the port didn't have wifi and the phone number for the Airbnb host didn't work. We'd said we'd probably get to the apartment at 11-11.30 am. A touch optimistic. All told it was closer to 12.30 pm when we rolled up at the address. Despite being overcharged for the privilege of a private car, we were at least waiting in the shade, chatting with nice people and the car was very well airconditioned on the eventual ride - and he helped with the luggage. And for €30 so he should and better than being ripped off in the wild. We met our host's daughter, got a contact for the all important blue market money changer and discovered we have, for the next 5 weeks, the most comfortable bed we've ever had in an AirBnb. Happy Days.

After a long rest, bit of unpacking and enjoying the freezing air-conditioning, the sun finally went down and we tootled out to hunt dinner, get groceries and get the lay of the land. Right in the middle of the quarter final of Argentina and somebody. Sheesh. Weren't we popular. And we had to pay on credit card as we were too knackered to even think about getting the money man over on a public holiday to change our Euro into Argentinian pesos. We can confirm categorically that the new law stating that credit card transactions can be processed at the unofficial blue rate and not at the rip-off official rate is definitely not in force. The official rate sucks. On top of the weakness of the Australian dollar / South Pacific peso, it sucks a lot. Tomorrow? Get in touch with the Cambista (moneychanger). Literally our numero uno prioridad por mañana.