Rio De Janeiro - 4th May 2005

"At the Copa... Copacabana..." "The Girl From Ipanema...." " Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand..." Oh yes, been singing my liccle heart out because.... I'm in Rio baby! Yeah! Whooooo! Grrrrrr! Etc, etc... OMG, this place is just sensational. Been here just three days and already completely intoxicated by the place. Easily the most beautiful city I have ever been to, although something tells me that I will be making that statement rather a lot over the next 12 months... The flight was suprisingly bearable for a 14-hour slog. Though that might be something to do with several sherries before take off and a good six hours sleep... Spent the waking hours of the flight arguing with Bob as to whether the wild-haired woman in the next cabin was actually Ruby Wax (cue debate about whether a B-list celeb would be travelling economy in ANY instance, let alone on an epic long-haul...). Anyhoo, it transpires it WAS Ruby Wax, and then the remainder of the journey was spent devising a tactic to get her photo. Bob was adamant we waited until baggage reclaim... so obviously I considered that to be FAR to sensible and the minute the doors opened I legged it off the plane like a ferret and threw myself at her before we´d even reached paaport control. Bob was still on the plane, bless him... So, the prized photo was achieved and will be appearing here very soon. Funniest thing was, she got carted off at passporrt control due to a problem with her passport, so Bob had to go without! I´ve always said it pays to be impatient and now we have proof...

Well, back to Rio - WOW. Have spent the last three days walking (yes, you heard correctly) - must´ve done at least 15 miles yesterday. Walked the full length of Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, around some lake named after a famous Brazilian (I know, as a proper traveller I should learn the names of these things but God this is week one, give me a break...) and then all the way to Pao De Acucar (get me - that´s Portugese for Sugarloaf Mountain). Which was, simply, STUNNING. You have to go up two mountains to get to the summit, and on the first peak we decided to splurge and take a helicopter tour. It was amazing, all around Rio by air. Then to the summit itself, and the view was so beautiful we stayed up there for hours just to watch the sunset (with a few beers, naturally - incidentally the big beer here is, wait for it... Skol!! Jesus, I didn´t even stoop that low when I was a destitute student...). Speaking of Jesus, today we visited Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) which in real-speak is the huge statue of Jesus that looks over the entire city, 710m up. Again, simply stunning. I won´t try and describe ~ I´ll post the píccies when I get to Buones Aires. All 500 of them - you LUCKY people! So, tomorrow we leave Rio for the 8pm bus and take a six hour journey to Soa Paolo for a 7am flight to Buenes Aires - better give Barry Manilow a rest and start brushing up on the Evita soundtrack...

Big hugs

John xx

PS) I haven´t even mentioned the totty here because if I even started I would NEVER be able to stop. It is SUPREME... Although it does make me never want to take my top off again... ;-)