Touch down in Rio!

Considering the flight was roughly 12 hours long it went pretty quickly...chatted to the young couple next to me and made friends with two guys from London. A rather rocky descent trying to fill out forms made me feel queezy to say the least but eventually we landed- turned out we had arrived to a city in darkness! A freak power cut had left South Brasil and Paraguy with no electricity so we weren´t going anywhere fast. Once inside the airport it was hot, stuffy and filling up with bodies- two hours later having 'chilled' on the marble floor in the pitch black i made it trough customs. I managed to find the dude with the 'KATE LYONS- WELCOME' sign and having picked up a few tag alongs who´s transfers weren´t so reliable we set off. Eventually when i made it to my room (thank god for that LED torch) i passed out knackerd for the whole of 4 hours....

Woke up at 6...the power cut had meant no air-con and i had been up feeling VERY sick during the night. At 9.30 'Matt' picked myself and 2 others up for our tour round Rio...straigt off we headed to Cocovado to see the Christ Redeemer. I thought driving in London was bad but Rio is just mental! Especially as i think Matt felt the need to live out his formula 1 childhood dream in his VW camper, i almost messed my pants whilst overtaking on bendy cliff top roads...as we park up he remarks 'my driving is bad but i make up for it in my parking'... We also went to Santa Teresa...a beautiful neighbourhood just up in the mountains (also where i am staying tonight) with lots of little shops and cafes, Lapa- the famous brightly coloured tiled steps and finally i climbed Sugarloaf mountain in my flip flops! Once at the top we decided not to get the cable car accross as the mountain was surrounded my thick cloud so we wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway. Instead we watched the clip from James Bond where their fighting on Sugarloaf and chilled out on the masive benches taking in the view.