Country Overview: Travelling in Brazil

They are used to being fed - they'd never be this tame otherwise!

They are used to being fed – they’d never be this tame otherwise!25-May-2009 14:21, Panasonic DMC-FX3, 2.8, 5.8mm, 0.003 sec, ISO 100

Introduction: Brazil is the 5th largest country in both geographical and population size in the world. Its also the only one in the whole of South America that has to be that little different and speak Portuguese as opposed to Spanish. As its also the most expensive, we’d planned to use it almost purely as a landing stop and speed on up to check out the Amazon. As it turned out, neither of these things happened and we still managed to have a great time!

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Gallery: Climbing Corcovado and touching Christ the Redeemer

We had to wait about ten minutes to get the stairs clear for this photo, its packed up there!

We had to wait about ten minutes to get the stairs clear for this photo, its packed up there!23-May-2009 18:44, Canon Canon EOS 400D DIGIT, 14.0, 28.0mm, 0.002 sec, ISO 800

The Christ the Redeemer statue is the largest Art Deco sculpture in the world, and one of the famous landmarks in Rio de Janeiro overlooking the city from the top of Corcovado mountain. When we heard it was possible to climb from Parque Lage, we thought we’d give it a go. Budget friendly exercise, plus it turned out to be a beautiful hike that meant we definitely deserved some large Caipirinhas in Lapa afterwards!

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First 24hrs in Rio! Includes such delights as Copacabana Beach and Rio water…

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We’re here, we’ve done it, we’ve hightailed it out of the UK in style – chauffeur driven (thanks Dad!), drinking Champagne (thanks Jenny!) and were then plied with alcohol and stuffed with food (thanks British Airways!). A late night packing and an early morning cleaning meant that finally getting on the flight was a sigh of relief. But… what was Rio going to be like? Would our hostel be crawling with roaches? Would British Airways lose our bags? Would we end up on a deserted island a la Lost?!

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