Rio de Janeiro!!!

Phew! Finally made it to Rio after about 90 hours of airports and aeroplanes. First impressions of the city was the vast amount of slums that cascade down the hillsides (a very green and hilly city - which is a nice change to the concrete jungles of most metropolises). The interesting thing is that the slums appear to be actually very nice buildings that would have been lovely sloping suburbs had they been kept in some sort of working order - unfortunately they´re in total disrepair - although still attractive from a distance. Still no photos in the gallery yet - will keep looking for a decent internet cafe to upload them.

The bus drivers drive at a million miles an hour and we had a hair raising journey to our hostel that involved the bus reversing back up a narrow freeway exit onto the freeway as cars zipped through the narrow gap between bus and concrete pillars.

Copocobana is the busiest place I´ve ever seen - 4.5km of beach that is jam packed full of people - all playing soccer of various kinds of course - like volleyball with soccer rules (no hands).

Had our first night out last night - went to Terre Re (tereh raow) which was a fairly non-touristy party in a huge parking lot, had a couple of local soft drink with vodka and attempted to samba, with the assistance of afew friendly chaps who tried to show me the correct technique - which i failed miserably at repeating and and ended up creating my own ungainly dance move - again. Parties start at midnight (or 3am if you´re cool enough - we started at 2am) and finish after sunrise, which is followed by an acai (asahi) - natures version of red bull - also a cheeseeggburger (not a typo) for me and Lucas. Today will involve internet, laundry, food shopping and then the beach until sunset - and possibly a siesta - although I´m not sure if the locals ever sleep!