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So we arrived safely in Sao Paulo after a very long, hot, tiring flight, where thankfully my friend Branco picked us up! We spent three days in Sao Paulo staying with my friend Marcos and his family who were so welcoming and friendly. On Friday his sister took us sight-seeing and drove us around the city, we went for lunch and this lovely Arabic restaurant and then wandered round the shops and the park. Friday night we went out, despite the travelling exhaustion, with Marcos and Branco and my other friend Estela. We had the best ribs I've ever tasted, the meat literally fell off the bone! We also tried this traditional Brazilian liquer called Cachaça, it was strong and pretty rank but it did the job! The boys told us that there is a popular saying in Brazil when it comes to drinking, which is "when in hell, hug the devil", haha! Then went to this little Brazilian club which had a band playing which was really cool, and we were also the first Scottish girls to ever have gone there apparently!
On Saturday we went for a hungover lunch at the market in Sao Paulo, where we had the biggest sandwich known to mankind! We then went to a fruit stall and the man got very excited that we were from Scotland so let us try all these fancy exotic fruits... some were amazing and others were just bizarre! In the evening we went to a football game, Sao Paulo FC vs Axii (I think...!) which was really good fun and SP won 2-0 so Marcos was happy!
On Sunday we went to explore the Japenese neighbourhood (apparently SP has the biggest Japanese community outside Japan) which was cool, we just walked round the market and had a drink. We then went back to Marcos' where his parents had made us a huge lunch which was really tasty. We ate soo much in SP!! That evening we went out for chopp (light Brazilian beer) at this cute little bar with Marcos and Branco.
We left SP early on Monday morning, in the pouring rain - not impressed! It rained the whole way to Rio de Janeiro but the views were still great. We're currently in Rio and staying at a nice hostel called Mango Tree, it's really sociable and a good laugh. First day was cloudy so Chris and I went on a mammoth walk around the lake and then went to the Botanic Gardens which were beautiful, and we saw our first wild monkeys!! We walked for about 7 hours so were exhausted at night and just chilled at the hostel then went for dinner with some English girls we met and a girl from Glasgow (who actually knows people that Chris and I know... small world!). Next day was a cloudy, lazy day which consisted of walking to the end of the beach and sitting on a bench for 2 hours (I seemed to have pulled some sort of muscle on our mega-trek the day before - great start! - so the laziness was much appreciated!) then just chatted at the hostel with everyone and went out to a pub for a few drinks at night. Today the sun came out so we took the opportunity to go and see Christ the Redeemer while it was sunny, but his head was still in the clouds so the views weren't quite as good as they could have been, although it was still spectacular. Our taxi driver, Antonio, was great and stopped to show us more monkeys and an iguana, as well as more great views. This afternoon we went to the beach but the clouds had returned, so tomorrow we're praying for a full sunny day and will hopefully do the Sugar Loaf mountain at sunset.
Loving the trip so far, and very excited to meet our tour group on Sunday!
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