30/01/09 19:18 At last we got ourselves onto a sight-seeing trip organised through the hostel in Botafogo. We visited Corcovado mountain and the Christ the Redeemer statue, the Catedral Metropolitana, Tijuca Forest, Santa Teresa, Maracana stadium, Sambodromo where the Rio carnival takes place and finally Pao de Acucar (Sugar Loaf Mountain). It was a boiling hot day to start with, around 36 degrees when we were at the top of Corcovado, but true to fashion it is...

26/01/2009 - 13.20 What an eventful day we had yesterday! We met up with Helen Thompson, who is living here with her boyfriend Fabio. We met Fabio and a friend of his called Eric too. They took us on a scary train ride which was honestly like a ride from Alton Towers! One cart, held 50 people but there were no seats left for us so we had to cling onto the side of the cart whilst standing on a very thin ledge as wide as our foot! It went over very high bridge...

23/01/09 - 6.35 pm Well people we´ve arrived! Flights were ok and on time. A stewardess mentioned some bags handn´t made the flight from Heathrow due to a mix up at Terminal 5. That made Rob feel really ill and he was sick about 5 times on the plane (moreso to do with tiredness and nasty plane food)! Luckily our bags arrived safely and we were quickly on our way to our hotel in Lapa. Hotel = not the best and dont think they actually had our reservation, b...