Rio de Janiero, Brazil

What to say about Rio? Fantastic, sensational, beautiful, lively, colourful, no single word could ever do it total justice.

After a long 24 hour bus ride from the Iguazu Falls, we landed in Rio on the first of many beautiful sunny mornings and settled into our great little hostel (the Girl from Ipamena) in Ipanema Beach. Despite its charm and beauty, there are certainly enough warnings around that Rio is reputed to be one of the most violent cities in the world. Ipanema beach is one of the most expensive places to live in Rio and as a result it means it is one of the safest. Indeed, the entire time we were in Rio, both night and day, we felt very safe and comfortable. Of course it didn´t hurt that within a couple of blocks in any direction were dozens of chique little restaurants, cafes, bars, shops...oh and a magnificent 4km stretch of beach.

So after arriving it took us all of about one hour before Lyds and I were reclining in the sand, soaking up the Brazilian rays and admiring the sights and sounds of the beach. Over the 5 days we spent in Rio we made a couple of solid observations....

1. Ipanema and Copacabana beach are not filled with beautiful 6 foot, slim, tanned amazion women in tiny little G-Strings. However women of all shapes and sizes do in fact wear bathing suits that are too small, too tight and extremely unflattering to their physique, but they wear it with total disregard and even great pride in themselves. (Lydia says "You go girls!!!!!!"
2. In Ipanema it is pefectly acceptable for a guy to continue to wear nothing but his tight little Speedo shorts a good 7-8 blocks away from the general beach area without any shame whatsoever.
3. On any given beach day there are almost exactly the same number of hawkers selling anything from - sorongs, beers, snacks, sunglasses, sunscreen, musical instruments and even kites as there are beachgoers.

Life in Rio wasn´t all about the beach though. While there we hit the local buses to check out a number of the town´s most famous sites. We spent a great Sunday morning strolling up and down the length of Copacobana beach. We got lucky as on Sunday´s, they block the traffic along the road which runs the length of the beach. So it was free rein all day for thousands of walkers, bikers, and us humble little tourists to take it all in.

We also spent an incredible day taking in the breathtaking views of Rio offered up at two of the city´s most famous landmarks - the giant Christ Redeemer statue atop Corcovado mountain (which has recently been named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World) and Sugarloaf mountain (Pão de Açúcar). As you can see from the pic´s below, we got some amazing sunset and night photos of the city from the top of Sugarloaf mountain.

Throughout our 5 days, our timing seemed to be spot on. We arrived in town on a weekend when 2 of Rio´s biggest local soccer rivals (Botafogo and Fluminense) just happened to be scheduled to play a local derby at Maracanã stadium. The stadium alone is worth a look. It was once the world's highest capacity football venue, holding nearly 180,000 people, for the World Cup final in 1950. Modern safety regulations means that there has to be seating for all fans now, but it still holds an impressive 95,000 fans.

We went with a tour group of other Westerners (a popular tour option in Rio), and our guide decided pre-game that we would sit in the Botafogo section as they are apparently the loudest and best supported fans in Rio. Before we went, I knew that one of the local teams wore the same Black and White striped jersey as my beloved AFL team of Collingwood, but I wasn´t sure which team exactly. Well wouldn´t you know it, it´s Botafogo. I was pretty happy to arrive and see our section quickly filling up with Black and White jerseys.

We had a great group of about 15 people from mainly the UK and the US. It didn´t take us all long to get swept up into the spirit of things as the crowd became rowdier and rowdier before kickoff, singing constantly, waving some of the biggest flags you will ever see, and beating their drums.

Someone in our group discovered that the team jerseys were cheap as chips, so in no time the 15 of us were decked out in Botofogo jerseys, much to the amusement (and approval) of the local fans. Despite the game being a local derby there was probably only about 25-30,000 people in the stadium. However they are some of the loudest, most excitable fans I have ever seen. Even the poms in our group were saying they´d never been to a more exciting game in their life. The game itself was a cracker. Despite a 0-0 scoreline at half time, the game came alive with 4 goals in the second half and a 3-1 victory to Botafogo. A script perfect result if you ask me !!

We took in another great beach day before we regretably had to continue moving on. All up an unforgetable trip to one of the World´s greatest cities.

Here are some pics from our trip....

As always, click here if you can´t see the album RioDeJaneiro