Rio Round 2 - Thanks to a Volcano in Iceland...

After our adventure from Ilha Grande, we were so late we figured that we wouldn't have much time to enjoy Rio as we were to leave the next evening...all before we learned that volcanic ash had shut down Heathrow and there were no flights to London! Yay! We actually gained another 5 days there - and I couldn't think of a better place to be 'stranded'...

So we made the most of our stay, more of Ipanema beach/swimming/tanning time, hit up Sugar Loaf Mountain (The Christo was closed due to all the flooding from our previous stay there) and got a great view of Rio! Absolutely stunning from up there! We made it to Lapa - a very cool part of Rio as well for some nightlife - the clubs there are total meat markets though, I was just in a tank top and capris and flips flops and got groped by more men than I could even count!

And we also got to do one more thing we really wanted - see the inside of a favela - Rocinha to be exact. We met a guy who worked at a bar we frequented who happened to live there, so one night after a few caipivodkas and beers we convinced him to let us tag along on his ride home - at about 2am. You actually stand on the road and just wait for these crazy vans driving by to swerve over and yell the name of the place, then you give them a few reais and you are off speeding crazily towards your destination. You actually have to go through a police checkpoint to get in (to try and stop drug smuggling) and then you are there. They are built on really steep hills, and everyone rides street bikes and carries some sort of weapon...we are talking huge M16's and things of that nature...crazy. Guys just sit at tables with tons of drugs laid out, you have a weed table, and next to it will be a coke table - just nuts! We thought we were perfectly safe, later many people told us we were insane for going in here, especially hanging out there until about 4:30 in the morning...but we were just fine, nothing crazy happened, just had some pizza and beers with the people we went with and after a chat with one of the dealers we were on our way without incident.

The next night we just laid on the beach and enjoyed our purchase and laughed for about 2 hours straight - perfect way to spend our last night in Rio :)

On Wednesday we called our airline (we had been doing this every morning since Saturday) and found out we were confirmed on a flight back to London that night! We spent the day with a friend of a friend that lived down there in Rio, he and his girlfriend showed us around some of the beaches, we had a few Skols, some Coconuts, and one final Acai berry smoothie with a banana...