I’ve started today, tonight, just because you are 3 hours ahead of me. I’m determined to enjoy Rio and I hope that it’s not spoilt by me being paranoid. I know some of you have been worried about me in Rio so I hope that your fears aren’t realised.

John has told us about confidence tricksters who squirt mayonnaise on your foot so you look down and whilst they’re helping you clean up, they rob you and also those that pretend to drop money and whilst you help them pick their money up they rob you🤔

So, the key to all that is that you keep walking and act like nothing happened. Either that or you hire Vin Diesel and you’ll be perfectly safe. I wonder how many Real he’d charge🤣🤣🤣🥰💞

Im off to Christ the Redeemer and sugar loaf mountain (via cable car🙏😱) today. I did take a photo of Christ by night, last night, however he was very, very blurred 😫

Please come back later for more photos😂

Oh dear, another photo alert. Today has been amazing and soo many photos…

First we hot footed it too Christ the Redeemer before the crowds and how did we get up there?! Yup by train🤣🤣

It was amazing

Gina came too😁

This is the Olympic stadium which apparently used to hold 200,000 people😱. It’s now reduced to 80,000 for crowd control purposes

He has nipple piercings🤣

And stigmata (kind of). Okay maybe not, maybe lightening conductors🤔

We then went across town to sugar loaf mountain and on the way we..

Went past the opera house

The town hall (I think. I’m trying to remember information given to me hours ago) 🤣

Other buildings..

NO not Father Christmas 😫

Think I recall this being a government building when Rio was the capital city

We then stopped at the most unusual cathedral you may ever see🤔

But then inside… it was really rather extraordinary. There was a service happening (it is Sunday after all) so it felt disrespectful to take photos otherwise I would have taken more

We then went to the Olympic stadium on the ground, which was a bit uninspiring really. Known as the…..

We then went past the area in which the carnival takes place. Apparently it’s all very serious and there’s a judging panel that decides on the winning float. Disgruntled losers have been known to take court action against the winners 😱.

They’re not the best photos as they were taken from the coach.

There’s seating areas either side..

The parade makes its way down the centre (there’s several blocks of stands not easily seen in the photos) and ends up at the arch thingy at the end. I think it all takes about 1.5 hours from start to finish, in the searing heat and full costume😓

Then onto here..

It’s a 2 stage process as you first go up to Urca and then you head up to Sugar Loaf mountain. So double the stress😓

Christ the Redeemer in the background, just about🤣

Christ the Redeemer from sugar loaf mountain👍

Oh my goodness..😱

Some of us then got off the coach at the hippy market in Ipanemar. Louise and I then walked along Ipanemar beach back to our hotel on Copacabana beach. Thankfully I don’t yet have those photos as my battery died on my camera and I’m waiting on Louise to send me her photos! Guess what you have to look forward to tomorrow! 🤣

PS. On the safety aspect. There was a visible presence of armed (batons) police in Ipanemar (not sure if that means its less safe there) and less moving onto copacabana beach.

It was just the perfect day. I’d definitely come back here again although I would stay in the copacabana palace hotel, 2 doors down from our hotel

The perfect end to a perfect day.. copacabana cocktail sitting on copacabana beach

Goodnight.

Tomorrow I’m chilling on copacabana beach for the last time before travelling home on Tuesday. Have to decide how many toiletries I have to ditch in order to stay under 23kgs 🤣