March 16 - 20
The arrival in Rio wasn't as I imagined. It was grey, rainy and all in all not ideal although Ashton was reunited with her bag so it was smiles all round. Thankfully as we learnt over the few days that we spent there, Rio has tropical weather and from glorious sunshine comes terrential rain. By the time we collected our bags and boarded the first of many buses the sun was shining and our excitement set in. Initial impressions of Rio were the fact that it is amazing. You have beautiful beaches with an amazing backdrop of mountains and forest. The first thing we did was hit Ipanema beach and the rumours are true, people do wear thong bikinis. Gross. I managed to get suitably burnt to a crisp which as everyone knows is not a surprise. Over the next few days we went to Sugar Loaf muntain which has this incredible view of the whole city, the christ reedmer, which is supposed to have an incredible view but didn't (watch the video) and spent a couple of nights in La Suite which is an amazing boutique hotel. One of the highlights of Rio was the local drink - caprinihas. They are amazing!
