Landed in Rio Tuesday pm and shared a taxi ride to the centre. I was staying in the old part of town Lapa, considered the party place at night but also pretty sketchy with high crime. The hostel I’d picked was only four months old, so in good nick, but it was the biggest dorm room of my trip with 24 beds! And my first triple stacked bunks, luckily I got a bottom bunk. A friend Lisa came over that I’d met in Morro, within thirty seconds of leaving the hostel a kid on a bike had grabbed my necklace in attempt to steal it; he only managed to break it luckily. It wasn’t so expensive anyway but it was the only bit of jewellery I’d bought myself the whole trip from Bolivia so was glad I still had it. Lesson learnt, guard now fully up. A pretty quiet night, met another buddy from Moro for some drinks before a relative early 1am finish. Unfortunately Lisa then had a less then pleasant journey back to her apartment in another area were her taxi driver tried to assault her, luckily she got out of the situation unharmed.

When I woke up Abby the Scot had arrived off the nightbus and we headed out to explore. The weather wasn’t looking to great so headed first to the jardín botánico, a huge area and very beautiful. Took in some street art before heading to a huge market I’d been told is great for food and music but midweek was only 20% open. We still had a great lunch of gigantic proportions. Many restaurants serve meals meant for two to share, the portions could feed a family of four; my main complaint of Brazilian food is for my palette it’s incredibly salty. The weather pretty gloomy by now, and Abby shattered from her nightbus we headed back to our hostel and had a siesta.

A couple of drinks, nibbles and cards played before we headed out into Lapa for the night. We went to two dance clubs, the first Samba and Salsa and the second Farrol. You can’t take it away from these people they can dance! Unfortunately you can’t get away with just watching and “no I can’t dance” means nothing; most of my friends will vouch for the fact that I think I’m an awesome dancer, but on my own! This close body in sync with someone else whose amazing and I look terrible! One guy gave up on me after about 40seconds, it’s also not easy when they’re shouting instructions at you in Portuguese. Either way it was really fun, and when I was getting way with just standing and watching I was just fine!

Next day was a free walking tour (pay what you want at the end); I bumped into my tour guide from the trip I did in Chile/Bolivia back in December again! It’s quite a new tour in Rio concentrating on the central downtown area, which is now really the business district, and unadvised to visit over the weekend as its a ghost town. The information on some background to the founding of Rio and Brazil was interesting, but visually it’s not the most inspiring parts of a Rio. We had a local lunch of feijoada; black beans with meat and sausage, served with kale, rice; for me too salty, not that interesting and won’t be trying it again. We headed to the neighbouring art bohemian area of Santa Teresa and took in the views from the top of an old mansion converted into an art space and mirador. We descended via the famous Lapa steps, that have been decorated by Jorge Selarón since 1990 with coloured tiles, and tiles donated from around the world. He died this last January, it’s an impressive work of dedication, and a big tourist draw. I managed to get a few photos with hardly anyone else I shot! A quiet night in advance of a packed following day sight seeing.

Up early to head up to Christ the redeemer, and the weather was playing ball with the forecast! We reached the top before the major hoards and it was pretty much a blue sky, big tick! The statue itself seemed smaller to me when right underneath it compared to when you can see it in the distance over the city. Nevertheless it’s imposing and impressive, as are views back out over all the cities famous landmarks. On our way down we passed big ques of people, and we were quite smug for getting up early. Next stop the famous beach of Copacabana. It’s massive, white, pretty clean but the water was scary! The waves crashing in looked like they would rip your bikini off and leave you with a broken nose and a lot of sand in all your cracks…I declined a dip! We had a good few hours sunning, before the weather failed us and it clouded over completely within half and hour and quite a cool wind. This put a spanner in the works for our final plan of the day which was the sugar loaf for sunset views.

Plan b)….siesta before a big Friday night out in Lapa. The hostel all though quite full had not seemed too lively, that all changed at 8:30 when the hour and half free caipirinha happy started. All of sudden there was a great bunch of solo travellers from all corners of the globe (well mainly Europe), and the party was on. They also let us make our own, and I now know the perfect balance of lime, Cachaça and sugar…and it’s quite a bit less sugar then they put in normally! They kicked us out of the hostel at 11 as we were getting a little loud, and headed over to the famous Lapa arches were they set up drink stands and the whole streets are full of revellers. A recipe of chaos and carnage that just simmers at a peaceful level of people meeting, chatting, drinking and dancing….this could never happen back home. We then headed into a live music venue, where apparently the bands and singers that performed were amazing….according to the one girl who remembered as none of the rest of us did.

Saturday the weather again was not on our side, and after a late start and with fuzzy heads we headed up into Santa Teresa where they had a art and food festival on. Artists exhibited in their homes, and restaurants had a deals on, it was a great atmosphere and plenty of music too. It was a shame it wasn’t warmer, and that we were feeling less then chipper but it’s a charming neighbourhood that feels like a small village in the centre of the Rio. We headed back for another siesta before we started the whole Lapa party again. Pretty much the same as the night before, and couple of other friends came over. But that damn weather put shot to plans of drinking under the arches as the heavens opened and we had to pick a inside venue pronto. We found some more live music and had another top night.

On returning to my 24 bed dorm at 4am I was all ready to try and be as quiet as possible for everyone else sleeping, no need; a group of ten men had checked in earlier in advance of the marathon on Sunday morning they were all ready getting up and spoke at full volume from 4am-7am in and out of the bathroom, lockers etc as if it was 11am..crazy disregard for everyone else! Thank god for earplugs.

Needless to say the next day was a little tough, lack of sleep took its toll and it was time for a break from Rio. The weather was equally miserable and wet as I took a transfer three hours down the coast and a boat crossing to Ilha Grande, one if Brazil’s biggest island famous for its incredible beaches. I had a quick dinner and was asleep by 6pm with fingers crossed for better weather the following day.

Morning came with blue skies, I met up with two guys I’d met in Salvador and we hiked two hours through the Atlantic rainforest, (pretty steep in bits) we arrived on the island’s most famous beach Lopez Mendes. A huge stretch of the softest white sand surrounded by forest covered hills, and not so many people. It was absolutely beautiful and the sun was still shining! The sea here is quite a bit colder than Salvador and I didn’t swim, it was also really rough, more a surfer beach than swimming. As its so remote the handful of stalls selling food and drink can charge what they want, and after the worst most expensive sandwich of the year we regretted not bringing a pack lunch. The sun didn’t last too long and by 2:30 had completely clouded over with the wind getting up. We hiked back half an hour to a smaller beach (on the way I berated some people for feeding wild monkeys bananas, that kind of thing really winds me up.) to catch a boat back to the small town. The boat ride was pretty fun, as we heavily banked port then starboard with the waves crashing into the boat soaking us all. That night I sacked off the beach party as it was quite chilly and I was using my few days on the island as a mini detox before returning to Rio.

My last day was really sunny, and I set off on my own for an hours hike to a different beach. I left pretty early and arrived at the tiny cove beach with no one else there. The water was perfect to swim in and I had the whole place to myself for an hour before a few others arrived including a drinks snack vendor by boat. The boys turned up later a little hungover, and we had a really chilled afternoon. After Rio were you have to keep your guard up and eyes open all the time it’s really relaxing to just switch off and not worry about your stuff getting swiped if you go swimming or anything. I wish I’d had more time here, especially as the weather was looking great for the next few days. Ilha Grande was my eighth and final island of my trip, and not a bad one to finish on.

I left the next morning with the sun beating down strong and returned to Rio for a final 48 hours.