Will it all be a disappointment after this?

I´m sure we weren´t supposed to see our most spectacular view and stay in the best hostel at the beginning of our trip. But it seems that´s exactly what we´ve done. Waking up the morning after the Brazil Argentina game with hangovers the size of the the Corcovado, we decided to head out of Rio and explore a bit further. Sitting at breakfast, a French Candian girl staying in our hostel handed us a leaflet for a hostel called Villas Boas in a little beach resort called Arraial do Cabo - three hours north of Rio. So, we decided to jump on a bus and check it out. As soon as we arrived, we knew we´d made the right decision. Out of season, there was hardly anyone on the beach, yet it was still 28°c. And the hostel was out of this world. From the front, it was just another door in a quiet residential street. But inside it was a hotch potch of stairs, corridors and rooms all overlooking a pool. For around nine pounds each, we had a double room with breakfast in the morning, a bar, tv room, free internet and barbeques and music most nights. Our original plan to stay for just two nights was thrown out of the window in minutes.

Our first day here, we spent on a beautiful and almost deserted beach across the other side of the town. We then headed across to the busier surfing beach to watch the surfers and footballers at sunset. Yesterday, we took a boat trip to a nearby island where we drank caipirinhas and swam with tiny shoals of fish. On our boat was a group of typical Brazilian ´beautiful´ people, who spent their time posing for the cameras and soaking up the rays in their tiny bikinis and shorts. I(n Brazil, beauty is everything and everywhere you look there are well-stacked men and scantily-clad women. It´s enough to make anyone feel paranoid.

Today, the rain has finally returned but it just gives us a chance to chill out and prepare for tonight´s party - we´re celebrating the birthday of an English guy staying in our hostel. It should be excellent. Surely after this place, everything will pale into comparison.

The most beautiful city in the world

It didn´t take long. I have fallen in love with this city. My snaps don´t do it justice at all but it has everything - beaches alongside skyscrapers nestled against a backdrop of rainforest-covered mountains. There is severe poverty and wide-eyed street urchins hang on every corner begging for money but the scare stories about every traveller being robbed in Rio have so far (touch wood) proved groundless. We´ve ridden around on the buses undisturbed - even heading perilously close to the infamous Cidade do Deus (City of God) favela. My heart leapt just once when a young boy, who could have been no more than 12, was asked to lift up his shirt to prove he wasn´t carrying a gun. He wasn´t. And apart from that we have felt nothing but warmth from the Cariocas (Rio locals) who, in stark comparison to Londoners, are the friendliest people you could ever wish to meet.
Rio´s most famous tourist spot is the Corcovado mountain with its ´Christ the Redeemer´ statue keeping watch over the city. After running the gauntlet of taxi drivers desperate for trade, we took the little red funicular train, which chugged up the steep mountainside, to discover the most breathtaking view I had ever seen. A city of 20 million people, surrounded by sea and islands spread out as far as the eye could see. And standing in the shadow of such an imposing statue, which must have been 100ft high, made it an even more humbling experience. We now knew why Rio was so special.
But it´s the people who make a city and that night we discovered the true spirit of the Carioca. They say that if you meet a Brazilian who doesn´t like football, he´s not a true Brazilian. That night, Brazil were playing Argentina in a World Cup qualifier. I´d spent the morning looking through social networking site couchsurfing.com, where I found a load of people meeting up to watch the game. And so we joined them. Five Cariocas, a Dutch guy, two Swiss scientists and a couple from London. Leading them all was Marcelo, a lawyer from Flamengo who arrived in his canary yellow Brazil shirt with a broad smile across his face.

And this most passionate of football fans even managed to mask his disappointment when the game ended in a 0-0 draw. He spent the rest of the night laughing and drinking with us until none of us were sure he´d make it to work at 8.30 the next morning. He even invited us back to stay with him when we return to Rio. Marcelo - we´ll be seeing you again I´m sure of it.

All I wanted was no cockroaches...

Twelve hours is a long time to spend on a plane only to end up traipsing through wind and rain to find a dodgy bunk bed. But it´s hard to know what you´re letting yourself in for when you´re 6,000 miles away trying to find a place to stay. Yes, Rio wasn´t exactly all sunshine and smiles when we arrived yesterday morning. Flight number 247 from Heathrow landed at 8am in grey skies and drizzle. Hopes of seeing the famous Christ the Redeemer statue from the air were swallowed up by the clouds. And when we found a bus to take us into the city, we were charged double for the pleasure of being English and clearly lacking in any Portuguese language skills.
The bus dropped us off on a stormy and deserted Copacabana beach and off we trekked to find our hostel. Sadly, the bright green ´Brazucas´ sign appeared all too quickly, through a sea of traffic and street urchins begging for money.
Nervously, we headed towards the door. After filling out the requisite forms, we were shown a choice of rooms. A choice? Bunk beds or bunk beds as it turned out. The ´bright spacious double room´ I had booked was in reality a cupboard with a bunk bed, single bed and wires hanging out of the walls. And the ´bar and cable tv room´ downstairs, which had sounded so attractive, was actually a fridge with a four-pack of lager in it, stood in a corridor with a tv in it. You guessed it - it wasn´t long before I discovered that ´hot showers´ were anything but.
This was not how I imagined our first day in Rio. It wasn´t until the evening that we began to get used to our new surroundings. Two beers and a caipirinha - the local rum cocktail - and suddenly things didn´t seem so bad. And when we returned to the hostel to find a French Canadian traveller, an Ecuadorian and Mexican doctor and an Argentinian girl all sat in the ´bar´ drinking vodka, the clouds began to lift. This trip has not even started yet...

Running round the world

OK. So that's not strictly true. Having finished the London Marathon, I really haven't run anywhere far. But I am heading round the world. Or at least, sampling a few little corners of it. And I can't wait.
What is it with turning 30? I think it gave me a Carrie Bradshaw crisis. After spending the first six months in a fitness frenzy, I've now given up my job and am flying to Rio on Sunday. For nine months, my boyfriend, Andy, and I will be living out of two obscenely heavy rucksacks, sleeping in shady hostels, on buses and on the couches of random strangers. We'll be surfing in Brazil (or trying to), climbing glaciers in Patagonia, eating steak in Argentina, following the Inca Trail through Peru and doing all manner of exciting things that right now, we don't even know exist as we head round South America. Then, when the mood takes us, we'll fly over to New Zealand and Australia before finally heading home via Japan.
I never thought I'd make it on a trip like this. I especially didn't think I'd make it this morning when, after packing up all our stuff in Nottingham, hiring a van, driving it down to Devon, unloading it, heading to the tip and dropping the van back, we made it to our train with 20 seconds to spare. It was more stressful than work! Let's hope every step of our travels is not quite that frantic. But it's all an adventure...