Greetings from Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro.

Its been over a fortnight now since we left so high time for an update, particularly as I have so much time on my hands right now, for reasons which will become clear later on....

The first and most immediate lesson betold on us was to turn up late for check-in. I was there on time thanks to my parents, and then predictably waited for dave. We arrived at the check-in desk to be told that airlines regularly overbook their flights by 10% and as a result, BA were expecting to have to turn people away. So we were made a conditional offer of 500 euros cash (as well as overnight hotel and food) to fly the following evening. Unfortunately, an hour went past and people didn't show, so we were told to board the flight anyway with no extra cash. Although it was probably worth it, given our upgrade to world traveller plus, meaning more leg room. Boarded the airplane to find Steve Rider falling asleep in Club Class. And Flavio Briatore glugging down OJ. Then the penny clicked... it was the brazilian grand prix this coming weekend!

We arrived in Sao Paulo early in the morning. Whilst at first the most simple tasks can be very daunting (in this case buying a ticket and finding the bus into Sao Paulo) we have since become pretty good at using basic portuguese and hand gestures to indicate to Brazilian's what we´re looking for. Sao Paulo is a commercial city with huge skyscrapers, best seen from the Banespa Tower. The other highlight was the Museu de Art de Sao Paulo, which was described as the most important gallery in the southern hemisphere. As usual, I preferred the modern paintings. But really that was about it, Sao Paulo isn't really geared up for tourists and because of the grand prix, there was a severe lack of available hotel rooms. So after two days, we caught the 1.5 hour bus ride to Santos, and the coastline.

And what a coastline it is, the best in the world said our argentinian hostel barman. Fine golden sands with varying degrees of blue stretching for thousands of miles all the way up to northern brazil. What this means is that the locals don't really get excited about the beach, because there is just so much of it, and so its not busy at all. Our first night in Santos consisted of negotiating with hotel owners (with hand signals and pens - the universal language of course being numbers!) and heading to Giv Club. I´d vaguely heard of Gui Burretto via Bedrock so we decided to give him a try. We ended up meeting a few locals and dancing till 6am - a good evening. Apparently there are three times more women than men in Brazil. Over the next few days we visited the Coffee Museum, took the tram around the old historical centre (which originally came from Scotland!) and visited the Santos football stadium - where Robinho found fame.

The next day we caught the bus along the coast. Managed to get as far as Ubatuba - which as the guidebook describes is the Brazilian capital of surfing. The main beaches were superb and I wish we´d stayed another night but the mission was to get to Paraty - famed for its stunning beaches. We stopped off at a bus station to change buses, just as the Brazilian Grand Prix was drawing to a close. I saw Hamilton overtake on the last bend to win the world championship - legendary.

Off the bus at Paraty and a brazilian family hostel owner beckons us into his place. It wasn´t bad for 8pounds per night for a private room! Although thats as cheap as weve paid so far. We walked down to Praia di Jabaquara beach and then back again. Next day was the schooner tour of various beaches and islands around Paraty. Next day we decamped down to Jabaquara to stay in a room overlooking the beach. Seemed like a great idea until we found gaps in the walls meaning mosquitos at night aswell as the sound of lizards crawling across the roof! The following morning I thought I was dehydrated and achy but initially put it down to a bad night. We decided to head to Rio - a 5 hour bus journey with leg stools, I slept most of the way.

My budget for brazil is 16pounds/day without travel costs. That meant up until now the search for the cheapest room, meal, method of travel, everytime we arrived in a new place had become intriguing and a fun game. Most days we kept to the budget, but the bus travel had overcooked the other days, so not doing too badly I think. So we debated the merits of taxi versus bus. I think I´m the sort of person who would dive in for the experience, but there is a definitely a value in getting taxis against mostly (un)known safety on a new citys public transport. Dave is slightly more cautious and more concerned for his absolute health and safety, so we seem to work fairly well together in that respect. This time we chose the bus... which worked out fine and was a real treat to drive through the centre of rio. We chose to stay at Copacabana and arrived at a slightly more expensive hotel for one night, then moved down to acheaper hostel the following night. Second day we decided to do the sugar loaf. This is a set of cable cars taking you up to two massive mountains/rocks by the coastline. The views were truely amazing and its the best thing we´ve done so far. I guess people who originally settled in rio didn´t realise it was going to grow so big, so the city is basically a set of districts, spread mostly around the coast and around the hugely vegetated mountains. The next day we took a tram tour around historical centre (Lapa) - it was another ancient contraption, stuffed full with people literally hanging off the sides. Then we found a live gig on top of a hill so chilled out and had a beer for a few hours, what turned out to be my last for a fortnight.

Many of the books I´d read talked about culture shock at the begining of travelling, but I´ve never had to experience an operation with anaesthetic before. If you are squermish I suggest you miss out the next paragraph.

The pain in my bladder and back hadn´t receded and had gotten worse. The morning of the sugar loaf we had been to the doctors and he´d prescribed painkillers- and identified the pains in my back to be my kidneys. And then no pain - everything seemed fine until the evening. So we went back to the doctors and they said it was a kidney stone, that would probably pass (as do in most young people). I was told to keep taking painkillers and drink loads of water. The next night I started throwing up and couldn´t keep anything down at all. So come the morning it was time for hospital. A girl from the hostel kindly came along and did the portuguese translation which was brilliant and sped up things immensely. I went into A&E and they put a drip in my hand. They tried in vain to force fluid through my body to expel this stone but after a day it became clear that my ureter (tube from kidney to bladder) had become infected and so the stone was trapped and never going to come out on its own now! That meant an operation. So the next evening I was coming off the sedative, to find a tube eminating from my manhood! It came off the following morning but was not a pleasant experience I can tell you! They had removed the stone and everything was fine. But they had left a plastic tube to aid my ureter healing over the next week - antibiotics for 10 days. Then it had to be removed a week later. The hospital was private and in pretty decent knick - the staff were friendly (at least the few who spoke english) and the insurance agreed to pay out when they arrived in the office on monday morning. I stayed in a private room with roomservice. In the end it was all fine, above average painful, rather unfortunate and stressful but it should all be ok now.

So it became clear that I needed to stay in rio for another week - which was one of the worst parts about it. I spoke to Tom from the hospital bed as he had arrived in Lima the evening before. I would have to miss our pre-booked Inca Trail four day hike to Maccu Piccu. It´s not the end of the world though and I´ll still see it next week - I currently fly to Cusco in 3 days.

Since the operation I´ve been doing a lot of resting and sleeping. I´m not great at taking tablets so forcing down huge antibiotic Cipro tablets, with copious amounts of yoghurt, has become fairly tedious. Dave flew to meet Tom on Thursday. I´ve been out and about in the last few days though. Caught the rather disappointing new Bond film on friday (with portuguese substitles) went to Ipanema beach for sunset on saturday evening and then went to Lapa, where they dance on the busy streets outside small bars in an ancient part of town. Yesterday I went to the Macarena Stadium for a football match - which has a capacity of 200k people although it wasn´t full. The Rio home team Flamengos beat Palmeiras 5-2 so the atmosphere was fantastic, intense, sometimes friendly and sometimes intimidating. I´ve only ever experienced the Anfield Kop to rival the crowd at the Macarena. Today it has rained alot and I´ve been spending most of time time setting up and writing this blog!

Suprisingly we hadn´t really been bugged or encouraged by locals in the street to buy their stuff or go with them. But in Rio theres been quite a few young black lads who pester you like mad for any small change.

Theres plenty of internet cafes in places we´ve been so far so the internet seems the best bet. I´m a new fan of Skype, for speaking to you all. I can recieve texts but sending them is expensive so either don´t expect a reply, or better use internet means for non-urgent messages. More photos will be added when I can get hold of Dave´s camera.

If you´ve taken the time to read this whole entry - big respect! I will endeavour to send you a postcard during my trip so please forward your address to this message board or my email. I have the op tomorrow at midday and will apparently be discharged tomorrow afternoon - so nothing to be too concerned about. Will try and write again during the evening. Ciao for now.