what´s that smell? - Monday 23 June

We walked a short trail because it rained last night. You can´t walk the big trail for the danger of slipping is just too much! We went for dinner quite early after our relaxing stroll and there was a really bad smell at the table. Everyone was commenting on how the dog must be near by but she wasn´t in the eye view. Lexi, bless her, had found her spot under the table before we had arrived. She really does stink so we moved to a table far away from her. She stayed put. Dogs are open to wander around freely here and lots of them are stray. The others try their best not to touch them, I stroke them all, they really are sweet lonely little things. The girls think it´s gross that I touch them and unhigienic, little do they know that after I stroke them I clean my hands with sanitizer that I keep in my pocket. I´m enjoying their disgust too much to tell them that I´m eating my food with clean hands.

Three boys walked cautiously over to our table and tried to talk to us. All of the girls I am with are gorgeous so I was only a tad surprised when they asked to take a photograph of them smiling next to us but was completely surprised when they introduced us to another twelve year old and asked ¨would we like to kiss a brasilian boy?¨. Ofcourse our answer was going to be yes from a bunch of twenty somethings....? They weren´t even bothered which girl it was! I wish I had taken a photo of them.

Some restaurants here have an interesting idea that works for us. We weigh the food that we have chosen from a cart and that is all you are charged for. Being vegetarian, this helps a lot. Only once have I found meat in a dish that was supposed to be meat free. In england, to say it is meat free normally includes chicken but over here chicken doesn´t count, you have to say sin everything to be understood. The food is pretty tasty here, we can eat salad and be safe as the water isn´t clean enough for the locals either so you know you wont be ill. One girl Leah, has been drinking water from the tap, she says she has been fine. Later on in the day we discovered that she is becoming ill... she has been drinking water from the tap all over the country...

Christ! paradise Island & love - Sunday 22 June

Carla, a harvard english graduate from New York, had arrived on the day of our meet and greet. She hadn´t any time to see any sights and really wanted to see christ, and as I hadn´t, we got up early, caught a taxi, took the second train up the hill and came upon something that we couldn´t quite see. Was it christ, I think so, the mist was so heavy that we couldn´t see this amazing statue! I looked over the edge at the landscape and could see only cloud. We spent most of the time in hysterics trying to spot a patch of noncloud so we could take a couple of pictures. A helicopter flew at us out of nowhere, stopped, looked at the statue and went away. I mean, who would be stupid enough to wait until the one cloudy day to pay for a helicopter ride and stare at some cloud, and just maybe, might they catch christ for a split second. At least we weren´t more stupid than them. The thing is, from the ground the sky looked clearer, the higher we got, the worse the weather became and the more we couldn´t see the landscape.

This was the beginning of our bad weather. We made it back to the hotel just in time to pack and jump in the taxi with the rest of the girls. Their names are Catherina (tour leader), Ellie, Eleanor, Vicki, Sophia and Leah. We were on our first long bus ride to a paradise Island, Ilha Grande. If it wasn´t raining most of the time, we would believe that statement. When I read the climate of South America, I didn´t think about the global warming impacts on this side of the world. This is the dry season which is also winter. Except, apparently the rain is getting more frequent all year round. Dogs are popularly a stray animal here. One in particular follows us everywhere we go. Not one girl likes her, except me. I feel sorry for this stranded dog. Yes she smells, yes she obviously has fleas and yes half of her fur has been scratched off so she isn´t attractive. BUT she has a lovely personality and always wants a friend. She sleeps outside of our door at night and is always happy to see us. I love her and named her Lexi, as a relation to ecsma. Noone understands my love.

laura, sugar loaf & girls - Saturday 20 June

Laura, a funny entrepenurial northern girl staying at our hostel, recently split up with her boyfriend while traveling. Unexpectedly she needed to make the choice of whether to carry on or go home. She chose to carry on with a heavy heart. Quite a few people in the hostel had discovered that there was another girl staying there who was also traveling on my 17 day tour with Intrepid. After a few days of knowing this, we finally came into contact via Laura and the three of us had a few drinks. I´m not going to tell you the ideas that Laura was coming out with to make money to keep traveling but she is one funny girl. We had such a laugh together that Laura came to our meeting point hotel to try and get on our tour. After some thought it was too much of a bit of an expense so sadly we had to leave her behind. This late interaction with Clare led to us to being room mates for the entire trip. This is lucky for me, I almost had to share my room with a loopy girl who really isn´t on this planet. Not that anyone could know she is loopy for a few days but looking back, I feel lucky. Clare has a couple of her own little quirks too, she is a reporter in Ireland for RTN news so has a lot of conversation in her, and she is VERY scared of moscuitos. I have never seen anyone with such an obsession to protect herself from being bitten. I can see why, she is bitten when I am not, even if she uses a moscuito net and I don´t. Poor girl.

Before our tour group meeting to introduce ourselves to everyone, I took a brash decision to run to Sugar Loaf mountain, knowing that I would be late for the meeting. I was the luckiest person on earth to go up the hill just as the sun set. If I am ever able to find an internet cafe that is quicker than a snail, I´ll upload the photos. They are beautiful, I happened to catch a couple completely embraced in the corner of one romantic night shot. And I was late. That´ll teach me for exploring the neighbourhood and not seeing the key sights first. I still haven´t seen Christ and we leave in the morning.

We went for a meal with our group. We were all surprised to find only girls. Eight of us plus our female tour leader. This will be interesting.

oh to fly forever and see the streets - friday 20 June

The excitement was beyond me and when we ran off the cliff edge and were flying over a hill of trees, the feeling was so powerful that tears came to my eyes. The happiness of having fulfilled another dream was phenominal. Now, I have a new dream, to learn to handglide solo. Wow! That will have to wait until Peru. It´s encouraged me to think more seriously about getting into extreme sports. Seriously, I mean it. The ferry ride back to Centro didn´t quite match up to flying.

Drinks with other hostel people let to Thai dinner in Ipanema, a great nightlife area with lots going on, and then a bus to Lapa with Rafael and his best friend, who I call Jelly, but that´s not his name. We were supposed to meet a big group from the hostel but they got lost and had ID problems getting into small clubs in the tunnel arches. In Lapa, there is a mass group of people gathered on the streets, tiny stands sell Caipirinhias, beer and crisps. Music pumps out of most buildings. Lots of Brazilians come here for their nights out. Everyone seems to know everyone and they greet eachother with big smiles. Maybe that´s just because I was with two regulars but this friendliness appeared to spread through the crowd. The taxi that took us home was a mix between a taxi and a bus, it has a roughly set route. It is a nine people van that will pick up lots of people up from Lapa and then take everyone near enough to where they want to go in roughly the same direction. What a great idea! Cheap and cheerful, people talk to eachother on the bus unlike in London.

taxi, alcohol & a motorbike - Thursday 19 June

Our hostel receptionist Phillipe was worried that I´d be in danger on my own in Santa Theresa. Ofcourse, I went alone and took a tram from Centro (the most mugged area) with my eyes peeled at all times. Male locals stare, however women are quite friendly. They talk to me in Portugese and I nod with a response of ´si, si`. With a feeling that I´m not really blending in I catch the next taxi that comes my way. I pay him to show me the area. He pretendsto understand my broken spanish. Then takes me to a corner shop while he asks someone to translate for him. We had already agreed the price! He took me everywhere up a hill to a helicopter spot. Such a great view.

At night, I went out for Thai food with Dom and Amy, we met their friends who were celebrating a birthday. You have to do something pretty terrible not to be welcome somewhere with travelers. Luckily I wasn´t intruding. Hostels are such friendly places.

I went back to the hostel and left them out samba-ing. My plan for a quiet night ended up drinking, and singing to Rafael while he played the guitar, and riding on the back of the security guards motorbike. There was a communication breakdown somewhere - I thought we were going around the block but he took me a few blocks down through tunnels and pedestrian walkways past people sleeping on the streets, and to a bar. He bought us a capiriniah and I suggested that we leave in cinco minutos. Another miscommunication, he wanted to go to the club next door and thought I was going to gather everyone in the hostel up to come clubbing - in the favellas! We got back and Rafael translated for me. All understood, he left for the club alone, upset.

Paranoia and road mayhem - Wednesday 18 June

Today I took the metro to Centro to follow a walk from my lonely planet guide. Try following a map that has half the road names missing. Even when I thought I was lost and in dodgy areas it turned out that I was on the right road, I´d just made my own way to their suggested destination. Most of the time I was paranoid and thought I´d be mugged. My camera only came out from hidden angles and in quiet areas. Lots of the time you see either a bit of my top or a lot of land and no sky. Not my best shots. I walked around a big park five times just to find a moment when I felt safe enough to take a picture, I slid down a bit of grass, hid between two trees and looked in another direction to veer any attention away from my hands sneaking out my camera to take a shot of this gorgeous park. Bound to go wrong really. The shot has a lotta pond and not a lotta park. Not that you can tell but there were lots of cats and some other creatures that may be wombles, who knows?

A minute later I walked out of the park and saw a motorbike crash into the front of a policia car that was edging out of a small road. The bike landed and swirled on top of the rider´s leg. It was definitely crushed because he couldn´t move. Lots of people went to help him. My lack in portugese would have caused more problems so I walked off to get lost again.

It´s easy to think any young Brazilian man is going to mug you. Lots of stories float around the hostel of people who have been mugged that have or are staying in the hostel. Last week, one girl who was laying on Copacobana beach was accompanied by an uninvited Brazilian. He sat down next to her, tapped his pocket and said give me everything you´ve got. She asked him why he was robbing her and ended up talking to him for two hours. They went to a supermarket together and she bought him a sandwich, they exchanged numbers and now they are friends. They met up on saturday to spend some time together. I know what you are thinking, that is the sort of thing I would do, but no, it wasn´t me. These sort of stories are rare, normally they are more vicious, quick and always involve knives. You can see why I was a bit paranoid about getting my camera out.

After the excitement of the crash I took a calm stroll into a government building and took a picture of the street from a high up window where noone could get to me from the ground. Then, just incase someone had seen me, I practically ran out of the building and walked to the sea docks. Nice view. I sat down and slipped my camera out from under my top. I´ll look at the result later. There were cool kids swinging two long skipping ropes while two other cool kids jumped in the middle while doing the tango. I risked taking a shot. Phew! All of this worrying is tiring.

Back at the hostel Rafael, our bar man, learned how to play an Alanis Morrisette song on his guitar and I sang with him.

A butterfly , supermarket and a musician - Tuesday 17 June

I went for a walk down on Copacobana beach and found a butterfly just alive, with it´s wings stuck together by sea water. I carried it most of the way to the hostel and decided to leave it under a tree, wings separated, as the monkeys at our hostel might eat it. I hope it´s ok.

At the supermarket a guy smiled largely at me while pretending to hit me with his shopping trolley. He did this several times and found it funny. It was, a little bit. He had a small gold cross dangling from his earring. I kept imagining that he was a drug dealer out doing his weekly shopping.

A walk around the hill of a mountainous forest I ended up facing a massive lake and took a slow walk around it. Being slightly paranoid I slowed down several times to let people pass me or sitting down for two minutes before moving on. Turns out no one robbed me at knife point like I was expecting. However, a tree had a big dangling branch which, if I sat on it, looked like it would either split in two or just about hold my weight. i thought I´d give it a go. It didn´t snap but my distraction from avoiding people gave a Brazilian the chance to come over to talk to me. Bugger. He had a guitar on his back and was on his way to show a singer his work. This was the perfect opportunity for him to sing and play a couple of songs for me. Next thing I know it is an hour later and we are still chatting. It has turned from day to night and say I want to leave. He gave me his phone number, email address and a very encouraging offer to come and visit him at his university. He lives in the jungle next to the uni and looks after the ground and it´s many animals. He ensures me that I am allowed to bring a friend and says I must bring a camera because it is sooo beautiful. He seemed sincere - he was just walking along the lake to decide what to do about his music and really did want directions from me (even though I am obviously a tourist). I still went for the ´there is no way I am going on two buses and a boat to visit you in a lodge in the jungle´option. Although, it could have been a good extra for my dream.

stags and monkeys - monday 16 June

On the plane I met a lovely venezuelian lady, a chatty Brazilian lady, a brazilian photographer and nine forty year old somethings from Notts going on a stag do in Rio. I was lucky the stag group chatted to me a lot, for when I went to look for my taxi transfer to my hostel, it wasn´t there. This football fanatic stag group took me on a journey in their large taxi to my hostel. Bless them. We exchanged numbers, I might be going out ¨on the lash¨ (their words) with them tonight...

The hostel is painted in lots of bright colours, the nine people I´m sharing a room with are french, African and English. No, not the stags! Nine is coincidental. As soon as I arrived a guy came up to me and said ¨hi, I´m david, nine of us are going handgliding tomorrow if you want to come¨ This is my sort of place. Shame I had jet lag as I slept in and missed them. I´ll go another day. Little monkeys climb around out the back - they refuse to eat everything except bananas.

...nah, I´m not going out with the stags tonight.

Lisa in a dream

Hello guys and girls,

I guess if you are looking at this you may truly want to read what I'm up to - exciting stuff!

So.... this is my blog where I'll update you on where I've been, where I am or what has happened to me. If I don't fill it in for a while, don't blame me, I've probably been kidnapped!

If you want to see my where abouts look at my travel map on facebook, gradually it will become clear that there is a route around south america.

Hope you enjoy
xxx