I finally got around to leaving Rio and I found my little Island where I can chillax away the next few days to my hearts content. The little Island is ironically called Ihla Grande (pronounced granj) but is about the size of Achill and remarkably similar apart from the lush rainforests and tropical beaches. I found a lovely little room to stay in about 10 mins from the town, there are 3 cats and the lady brings me tea and biscuits in the morning and evening. In the absence of Sonia I've had to learn how to speak Portuguese and it's going fine even though I'm sure most people can tell that I'm doing the 'Spanish with a Russian accent' thing. Yesterday I sat on the beach all day and it was bliss, a nice relaxing start. Today I got a ship, not unlike the Asgard only not quite as nice and a bit smaller, to the two laguns and a few beaches. I did a bit of snorkelling and got even more tanned so now I actually look Brazillian.
I forgot to mention how I was robbed in Rio, it was not as spectacular as it first sounds and is hardly worth writing about at all. I was lieing on the beach in Ipanema and my bag was snatched while I slept. I´m not in the habbit of carrying much important or valuable in the bag and as far as I was concerned the $13 inside is probably worth more to them than it is to me. The thing that annoyed me was that I really liked that bag, Mafe gave it to me and I knew that my lips would burn without the factor 25 lip balm inside (I couldn't buy new lipbalm without money, you see my dilemma). Anyway about an hour later the bag turned up by my feet where it had been flung back by the thoughtfull thieves of Rio, it still contained the lip balm and was just minus the $13. just goes to show that even the criminals of Brazil are sweet as honey and nice as pie.

I still here in Rio, I have changed my flights 'cause I was never realistically going to make it back to Santiago on time. I still spend my days on the beach and my nights on the town. The other night we went to a "Funk" party in a flavella. The flavellas are sort of like ghettos but the "funk" party is really friendly and there hardly ever any trouble at tehm. It was amazing to see Ie never seen anyone dance like that and all the kids from the flavellas dance like professionals. The Party in in a huge warehouse and the music and dancing is really unique, they even have a bastardized versoin of the "walls of Limerick" and I'm pretty sure it's never been danced like that in any self respecting ceili. Yesterday Sonia left us all in a blubbering ball of sobs as she returned to the UK, it was the saddest day of the year. Rio just won't be the same without her so I'm going to leave tomorrow and spend a couple of days recouperating on a tropical island with a jar of vitamin pills and a couple of books.