So after the initial drama in Sao Paolo and replying to the million texts from home asking if we were killed in the mudslides in Rio even though we were on a plane the entire time the floods were happening, we settled into our pleasant hostel in Rio located about a hundred metres from Ipanema beach. We spent 4 interesting days in Rio...luckily we managed to somehow aviod being soaked in the unbelievable torrential downpours every half hour but still managed to get roasted alive in the half hour sunshine in between...it wasn't hard to spot the tomato coloured Irish! It wasn't the most relaxing few days after hearing some stories...our room mate telling us he was held up at gun point (which actually turned out to be the guy's hand in the shape of a gun under his shirt...but still kinda scary) and an elderly Irish couple we met were held up at knife point but that also ended up quite funny with him chasing this Brazilian lad down the street screaming obsenities at him...quite funny to imagine! Anyway, despite the jetlag we had a blast! And so we packed our bags for a relaxing few days in Ilha Grande. We decided to pay the extra tenner to get a direct transfer straight from the hostel to the island which we were told would save us 2 hours but actually ended up taking 4 hours longer...because the boat they usually used sank that morning...luckily I managed to keep this information from Mitch until we landed on the island.
Shar xx
(pic: surfers on Copacabana beach)
