The Brazilian Story So Far...

Phew, where to start!?!

Rio Carnival was amazing, we went to the Samba Drome for the last night of carnival and the atmosphere was amazing! The Brazilians have a sense of spirit and freedom for life that you can admire. It was mental at times. The floats and costumes were out of this world, so much time and effort must have gone into creating them.

We met some lovely girls in our first hostel who showed us the ropes a little. We also tagged along with them for a night out in Lapa... we have no photos of this because everything gets stolen around there so we didn´t take cameras. It was packed full of people and lots of street parties, loads of people were dressed up - lots of men dressed in girl´s clothes, wigs, face paint etc. you name it, it was there!!!

Sugar Loaf was good, some beautiful views from the top. When we got back we sat on the beach and had a much needed drink.

Santa Teresa was a quaint little village with trams. Here we got swept up in more street parties and went along with the flow for a while, there was so much to take in and lots of merry Brazilians happily partying away with their friends. They were all quite friendly.

Christ Redeemer was great, although a little overcast unfortunately. The thousands of pictures we took (sorry!) just don´t capture the real mcoy. It was very crowded full of tourists trying to get the right pose for the photos!

Copacobana Beach - hot, white sand, blue sea, lots of people, teeeeny bikinis and women of ALL shapes and sizes! Exactly how you would imagine it to be. There were lots of locals walking around with things to buy, food, drink, bikinis galore, hats, jewellery, clothes etc! Perhaps a little overrated to some of the other beaches we have been to but it sure is better than Clacton with TB (Work reference).

The language is probably our biggest barrier so far. It is hard to pronounce things and nothing like Spanish (or any other language for that matter!!). But we are getting by ok.... although most of the time we feel we have words on our foreheads including ´mug´, ´tourist´ and ´rip us off or rob us please´. The locals seem to be very taken with our white skin and blonde hair... one boy actually asked to take a photo of us and everybody stares at us when we walk along the beach!! At first we were paranoid (i.e. that we had our skirts tucked in our knickers) but now we are just used to it!!!

We got the bus from Copacobana to the Buzios Islands which are beautiful and very relaxing. Our hostel is great and so are the other travellers staying here. We are firing up the BBQ tonight for some homemade burgers! YUM! We hired a buggy and had soooo much fun flying around the place from beach to beach. Rachel had to drive because Alice´s legs were too short to reach the pedals but Alice was exceptional at working the hand break which Rachel could not seem to manage. The petrol guage didn´t work so that was a little worrying at times, so was diving down a little road in the dark that was not really made for cars and having to do a 57 point turn in the sand next to a big brick wall, on a hill with hill starts - not so good with the old hill starts! We loved buggy day!!!

We have spent a day with a bunch of people from our hostel on the beach playing bat and ball and messing about in the sea. Buzios is quite an expensive resort but pretty and the Brazilian equivalent of St Tropez according to some.

BY THE WAY - please be appreciative of this, it is taking ages and in future we will probably be sticking to bullet points at the most!!! We do still love you though!

Missing you Alice and Rachel xxxx
p.s you will be pleased to know it has been raining the last two days