03/02/09 4.30pm

A lot has happened in the last few days so definitely time for a new blog!

On Friday night we decided to go out with our new friends from the hostel and ventured into Lapa (again!). We had a few caipirinhas in the hostel beforehand and some other strange cocktails (Brazlians have a strange obsession with condensed milk and they seem to put it in everything! So the cocktails were really sweet and sickly!) We weren´t really all that sure about going to Lapa again as we had found it to be a very dodgy area when we stayed there, but as there was 13 of us we thought it was worth another look. There was some kind of street party going on which happens every Friday night. People just buy drinks from the little kiosks on the side of the road and wander up and down the streets. There was a lot of people and we had a really good time, chatting to the other travellers and getting tips etc from them! Some of the braver ones went into a club type place on the side of the street, but it looked way too dodgy as it looked like it was just constructed for that particular night and not too safe so 5 of us decided against it and taxi´d it back to the hostel.

On Saturday we left Botafogo and all our new friends and travelled on the ferry to Niteroi to meet up with Helen and Fabio and their friends. They put us up for the night for which we are very grateful....muito obrigada amigas!! We had a fab time! They cooked food on the BBQ and we drank muito muito caipirinhas!! Hence we were all very drunk indeed and had fun in the pool and sauna in the early hours! We met loads more of Fabio and Helen´s friends.....lovely people and very welcoming. They find it difficult to pronouce our names so we are now getting used to our new names of Hob and Hooche!

On Sunday ....with very bad hangovers!......Fabio´s sister, her fiance and Helen took us to the bus station so we could get a bus to Buzios where we are still staying. Its about a 3 hour bus ride from Rio. We got a bit lost when the bus dropped us off as the driver didnt know where the hostel was and dropped us too far from where the directions told us to get off. We wandered into a neaby cafe to ask for directions - although they couldnt understand English and we cant understand all that much Portuguese, we managed somehow to communicate with the few words and phrases we know and they were amazingly friendly and helpful....we were so used to the people in Rio not liking the tourists much that it was unexpected....they phoned the hostel to find out where they were, then rang a taxi for us and the lady owner even recommended some sunblock for me as I am ´muito branco´!! We were so grateful to them that we might have to go back for a meal one night before we leave Buzios.....

Buzios is a really beautiful place and the people are really friendly, much more so than in Rio. The beach is gorgeous and we had a couple of hours there today...with our new Brazilian friend John...who doesnt speak much English at all...conversations therefore very interesting! ;-) Although we are doing very well at understanding more now and can usually get the gist of what he is saying, and learning new words every day so we will be fluent in Portuguese when we eventually leave Brazil!

Yesterday we got the bus into Centro and booked onto a boat trip which was nice - took us around a few little islands and had free drinks. We ventured back into Centro last night which is very European - lots of little boutiques, restaurants, bars, icecream shops etc etc. Prices are a bit high with it being more touristy....we were a bit shocked last night when we bought 2 caipirinhas for R$10 each and the bill came to R$32.....they added on service charge which was expected but also R$10 in total for the live music! What a cheek!

Enough for now - time running out. Cant seem to get photos on here at all still, so more on Facebook shortly......