Crazy Carnaval

The night we arrived in Rio we went to the Red and Black ball in honour of the football team Flamengo. The outfits were outrageous, women in body paint only, topless 7ft transexuals and lots of lots of figure hugging (regardless of the size of figure) dresses. Some women do actually wear just nipple tassles and a G-string. We didn´t take our camera but others did so we may put some pics on at a later date but you will have to use your imagination and maybe footage from Sky News for the time being.

The music from the live bands just made you want to dance, you couldn´t stand still and there was more booty shaking than the Renault TV advert. After we left (v early at just after 1am) and the party got roudier all the ladies from our group were approached by amorous Latinos and when they rebuffed their advances and informed them that they were married were asked "Yes, but is he here?"

We visited Sugar Loaf Mountain (via a cable car), from where you see all of Rio´s impressively curvy coastline, that gives you fantastic views of just about all of Rio. We also took the tram to see "Christ the Redeemer" up close, one of the world´s iconic landmarks that overlooks and protects the city of Rio de Janiero. From Sugar Loaf you can see him; to the left of the helicopter in the last pic. The beach in the background of the photo of Bec and I is the famous Copacabana where we may have a quick swim and sunbathe this afternoon.

For those of you worried about our safety -we are being v careful and travelling in at least a group of 4 all the time.