on the road again

ello :)

so, we finally managed to leave rio. what a place, such lovely people and an awesome hostel too. cant speak highly enough of it.

so we got some proper touristy stuff in before we left which was nice. it was a bit cloudy on the day we'd set aside for doing those bits and we were both stinking hungover from the beach party the day before (and the fact that we failed miserably to NOT go out that night as well) so we sacked off visiting the christ the redeemer statue and plumped for a dusk visit to sugar loaf mountain instead.



this, my friends, was totally worth it. its a really nice facility outlining the history of the cable car and the conception, design and building of it. whats really interesting is getting out of this space-age capsule then seeing the rickety wooden shed-on-a-string that they first used to go up there in. mental.

stunning views from the top too and we managed to time it just right so that we got to see the city just as the light was going and the mist had cleared a bit by this point too. the sheer scale of it isnt done justice by the photos, even from the very top of the mountain the zona nord stretches as far as the eye can see. proper urban sprawl, ive never been to a city this big and seeing it from high up was quite an experience.



anyhoo, we met a lovely couple on the beach called paul and renata who were celebrating renatas birthday last night. bearing in mind how hungover we both we we had doubts about how worth it an all-you-can-drink free bar would be but (shockingly enough) we went anyway. once we got our heads round getting one of the girls to get the drinks (so that the barmen would actually serve them) it was pretty much plain sailing. the music was the first we've heard out here with an actuall bassline - plus there was UV art! one for you lynette...



met another load of wicked people, such a friendly crowd - treated us like we'd known them for years right from putting us on the guestlist, coming out of the club to help us skip the queue to just being wall-to-wall lovely all evening. we had an absolute blast at that party, happy birthday renata and a genuine thank you to you, paul, lyvia and her fella (whos name ive forgotten but he was a legend) and everyone else for showing us some true brazilian hospitality.



this morning was a bit hectic to say the least. i was shitfaced and forgot to set my alarm and we both slept through trickys. cue him waking me up at the hostel about an hour beofre the coach was due to leave....oops. still, despite the confusing layout of rios bus station we made the coach by the skin of our teeth and we're now a few hours in to a 23 hour journey to iguacu falls - one of the main things we wanted to see on this trip.

rio was pretty full on and im really sad to leave. i will definitely be back, no doubt about it but for now, frankly, i reckon our livers could do with a rest! ;)



thatll do for now, hope all are well and happy xxxx