I´m still here in Rio and in the mind of never leaving, it´s the most beautiful city which is almost woven between the mountains and beaches that are so much part of it. By day our lives revolve around the beach, either Ipanema or Copacobana where I usually lie motionless in a hungover state with someone painting a henna tatoo on me while I sip the milk from a fresh coconut. The other more energetic and healthy type play volley ball or ´work out´ and it has to be said they are nice to watch. On every street corner there is a juice bar which generally is vital to get the day started. By night Rio really starts to come to life, the streets are dancing to the sounds of the afro latin choonz coming from every bar and the people are lively, happy, tall, tanned, beautiful and free. The crowd in my hostel are great, our room is a small dorm with 5 girls, we´ve a kitchen and bathroom and table and chairs and a little garden which makes it feel like our own little apartment, all the dorms are like that. each night things start off in the comon area of the hostel with everyone drinking and meeting the new arrivals. At about midnight we head for the bars or clubs where the party continues untill the early hours. Everyone heads down to the beach bars before sunrise to get their meat on a stick or corn on the cob and we stay there to watch the day begin. It´s always someones last day but generally they miss their bus or flight and then we´ve to do the same all over again next night to say farewell again.

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So now I have some time to write, and there's so much to fill in since Buenas Aires, it's been a non stop Phileas Fogg type journey since the amazing Shakira concert. Sonia and I got the over night bus to Iguassu falls and as we were on the border anyway we decided to cross over to Brazil. The Falls from the Brazillian side were beautiful but the best bit was meeting up with Sonias friend Carmen who is a flight instructor. She took us each up for a flight in a two seater plane and we flew over the Itaipu dam which is the biggest in the world. I got to fly the plane for a bit and it was so scary but great. The next day we went with our massive hangovers (after meeting up with Lizzie, Ciara N's sister the night before) to the Argentinian side of the falls which were much more spectacular than the Brazillian side. We went in a dingy along the river and saw alegators and turtles and loads of jungle. That night we got the overnight bus to Curitiba, slept for a couple of hours in a strange asylum type of hostel thing and then got a flight to Rio. Rio is amazing, our first night we went to the Friday night street party in Lapa and learned how to samba, I can see how carnival here would be amazing, this was just a normal Friday night and the atmosphere was like a carnival. There were food stalls and drink stalls and little capsules of honey alcohol (like mead) and music of all different types came out of every building along the street. Next night after going up in the cable car to see the sunset over Rio we went back for more samba in Lapa. Even though it wasn't street party night it was still great and there was probably just as many people there. We met up with some girls from Ipanema, and they were tall and thin and young and lovely just as the song describes. So today as the sun was blaring we decided to spend the day on Ipanema beach and it was beautiful. I can see why Brazillians are so happy, if there were beaches like this everywhere the whole world would be happy. Where to next and how to get to santiogo I have no idea.