Hello from Rio.

Sorry the blog has had nothing on it for so long, but we have been tryin to fill our times with as much as we can in ``Rio´´ and ´´Ilha grande´´. both very different places but both great places to be.

For the first 5 days of Brazil we spent our time mainly in Ipanema, a district similar to Copa Cobana. After our first day the weather was great and we saw the ´´christ´´ statue along with a cool district called ´´lapa´´ with the stairs from our photos. as well as seeing all themain sites in Rio we played alot of football volleyball, jogged on the beach and chilled. it was a surreal couple of days. the nightlife was good and we met quite a few canadians amongst others along the way.

the travellers in Brazil are mainly from Spanish speaking countries so it was a challenge but nice to see pèople from all over the place.

Many people had told us about Ilha grande, an island 3 hours from Rio so we thought we would give it a try. we got there on a beautiful day and it pretty much stayed that way the whole 5 days we were there, 2 more days than planned. it is a beautiful place, took all our breaths away to be honest, all you can hear is the shore. stayed at a cheap pousada with a really nice local family, they were really nice. one day on beach`, ´lopes mendes´ we trecked 2 hours each way there and back, we got a good sweat on. rob, ferg and I were doing kickups between us when a load of local brazilian guys came over and asked if they could join in, skills were flying everywhere. they later challenged us to a game of beach football, eng Vs Bra, after some getting used to, we ended up comfortably beating the brazilians alongside a few othe english boys . it was a great laugh, and satisfying that were beat the brazilians on their patch.

on the wednesday we came back to Rio in a new hostel. alot of dutch french people there. we went to the ´´maracana´´ stadium on the thursday, and went to a Lapa ´´street party´´ and very Brazilian club after which had great live samba playing, at leats we think it was samba. on saturday we got challenged to play a street football match against the dutch guys, the cement pitch sat underneath the glowing statue of ´´christ´´ up above on the mountain. it was class, and we beat them convincingly, 4 against 3, they couldnt handle our quick attacking play. ha.

We all enjoyed Brazil, it was a very vibrant and colourful city just as we imagined it would be.

next stop is Lima, peru on the way to the inca trail.

obrigado Brazil

Martyn