All Good Things....

Hi everyone!

I'm happy to report that we've had a lovely last few days in Rio. The sun has continued to shine and we've really enjoyed chilling out in this gorgeous city.

On Wednesday we caught the train up to the Christ the Redeemer statue. The statue itself was really impressive but the views from the top of Corcovado were even better. We could see pretty much all of Rio from up there. It was absolutely stunning - if there is a more beautifully located city in the world we haven't seen it yet.

In the evening we went to the Maracaña for the game between local side Flamengo and Club America from Mexico. The match was in the last sixteen of the Copa Libertadores, and Flamengo were holding a 4-2 advantage from the first leg in Mexico. As such there was a fantastic party atmosphere in the ground, with 50,000 fans singing, dancing, banging their drums and letting off flares. The stadium itself was also really impressive. It was built for the 1950 World Cup (when it held 199,500 for the final!) and will become the first stadium to host two Wold Cup Finals when the 2014 tournament is held in Brazil. The capacity is 'only' 95,000 now, but it is still an amazing place.

Unfortunately the game didn't quite go as planned, and America ended up winning 3-0 and therefore knocking Flamengo out! There were needless to say quite a few unhappy fans after the game....


Yesterday we had another lovely day and decided to spend it on Ipanema beach soaking up the sun. Unbelievably this was the first day of our travels when we've done nothing but lie on a beach - it was the 244th day of our trip! I've been promising June that at some point she'd get a beach holiday, and yesterday I lived up to my word!


So, this is it. Tomorrow we fly out of Rio and on Sunday we'll be back in good old Worthing. It feels really strange to be coming to the end of our travels. We've had an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime adventure with hundreds of unforgettable experiences, but now we're just looking forward to 'on-shoring' ourselves and living a normal life for a while. Some people are never happy eh?


The End


.....almost. Look out for one final posting when we get home, when we'll try our best to pick out the highlights of the trip. See you very soon!

Here Comes The Sun.....

Rio skyline
Originally uploaded by mark&june

Hello again! As you can tell from the photo above the sunny weather has finally arrived, and we've had a lovely day visiting the Sugar Loaf Mountain. The mountain is actually a large rock on the coast of Rio reached by cable car, and is a beautiful spot with stunningly gorgeous views over the city and bay. To my disappointment though it turns out that it isn't actually made of sugar.

Yesterday's trip to the favelas was good and showed us another side of Rio life, although after having been to India and China the conditions here didn't seem that bad comparatively. Having said that though we didn't go on one of the tours that includes a visit to machine-gun-toting drug dealers!

All being well we're heading up to the Christ the Redeemer statue tomorrow, and in the evening are going to see a football match between local side Flamengo and a Mexican team in the South American equivalent of the Champions League. The weather is still supposed to be good until Thursday, so our dream of actually lying on a beach may still come to fruition....

Her name is Rio

Hi there.

 

We've had a good few days in Rio so far, although unfortunately the weather hasn't been quite what we were hoping for. Its nice and warm but a bit overcast with occasional showers, so we haven't managed to hit the beach yet. Instead we've been chilling out and visiting a few different areas of the city, including the centre with its bizarre cathedral, and the hillside suburb of Santa Teresa. We were supposed to go to see a football game today but the agent couldn't get any tickets, so will probably go to a mid-week game instead. Tomorrow we're going on a tour of a favela (slum), which should be interesting.

 

We're saving the "highlights" of Rio (the Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugar Loaf mountain) until the weather improves and we can get some nice views. Even now though the city is really beautiful, with huge hills looming over beautiful beaches. We've enjoyed strolling along Ipanema and Copacabana beaches people watching. The people here are a lot more varied than elsewhere in South America - Brazil was a major destination for the slave trade, and there are a lot of their descendants here alongside the Europeans and indigenous people.

 

June has bought a Portuguese phrase book but we're finding it pretty difficult to pick up the lingo. The accent is very hard to understand, and the words that look like their Spanish equivalents don't sound anything like them!

 

We're really looking forward to getting home now. Its been a long road with a few bumps along the way, and it will be good just to be in our own home and see all our friends again. Can't wait....