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!