Day 1: Two cathedrals, a trolley bus and a tea room...

Well, I arrived in Rio at 9pm on Monday tonight and, after the long and painful passport control, security process, got myself a taxi to the hostel. The taxi driver I chose, in transpired, was clinically insane. I thought at one point that this was going to be the shortest round the world trip in history as he attempted yet another daring overtaking manouever in the rain.

However, I did somehow make it to the hostel and was greeted like an old friend by Tracey, the friendly Aussie owner. I was shown to my dorm and promptly met one of my roommates, Deborah, who invited me to join her on a day out the following day. I accepted and went straight to bed as I was starting to wobble.

The next morning, after a pretty good night's sleep all things considered, I woke up, had some breakfast and met up with Deborah for our excursion into Central Rio. We headed out on the metro to Carioca, the metro station right in the middle of the downtown Rio area. From there we headed to the modern Cathedral which, it has to be said, is an absolute eyesore from the outside. It's a lot more interesting on the inside but really, you can't make up for its hideous facade (pictures to follow).

After that we went to catch the trolley bus up to Santa Teresa which is an old colonial neighbourhood high on a hill over downtown. Now, the trolley bus was fantastic, but an experience. You can pay the 60 Centivos (roughly 25p) of travel for free hanging off the side. A number of lunatics opted for the latter. The streets were narrow and it was particularly dicey when we went over a very high, narrow, viaduct. Thankfully there were no casulaties and we survived to meet a friend of Deborah's called Henrietta (from Berlin) and a friend of her's from Salvador, Brazil, who's name escapes me. We wandered the winding streets of Santa Teresa, marvelled at the old, run down colonial buildings and oohed and aahed at the fantastic view over Rio.

Then we headed back down into town down a long flight of steps which has been decorated with tiles by a local-based Chilean artist since 1990 and is a spectacular site. Once at the bottom, we hit another, more traditional cathedral. Again it wasn't winning any awards for its external appearance but it was beautiful inside and a marked contrast to the modern one we'd visited earlier in the day. After this, noticably flagging, we headed for a grand old tea room for fruit juice and lovely little pastries before heading back to the hostel.

After a brief relaxing period I went out for a pizza and a beer with Deborah. The pizza was terrible, essentially glorified cheese on toast as they don't seem to use a tomato sauce, but the beer was great and slipped down very nicely indeed. Deborah then headed off to some dodgy Samba club with Henrietta and the un-named Brazilian whilst I went to a local bar to watch a team of Brazilian children take apart the USA in an apparently senior friendly after which I headed back to the hostel and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

A brilliantly busy first day in Rio.

Don't worry, I'll keep future updates a touch more succint!