Brazil was a trip mainly for a wedding, but I had to take a bit of advantage while I was there, so we made our first stop in Rio...

Rio is an absolutely beautiful city, but one of the main aspects that really strike one is the poverty. The entire beachfront is very well developed with large hotels and the streets and surrounding streets quite clean. As one gets further back however, there are the favelas which is where the majority of the native population to Rio live. They are a little more than makeshift houses and apparently have the basic necessities and the occasional luxuries like TV etc, but electricity is tapped off government lines and water is a problem. Taking all of this into consideration, the dangerous crime that the tourist needs to look out for is relatively minimal. I am not sure whether this is due to good policing or people being relatively content with their lifestyles.

Rio itself is an amazing city with vast expanses of beaches and stacks of people always on the sand sunbathing/swimming/playing volleyball etc. When we went to the beaches, it was pretty obvious to everyone from the tans or lack thereof that we were tourists. Tourism is a major source of income to a lot of the  people there, so we were treated to first class service all day. Umbrellas and beach-chairs were placed on the beach immediately and beers/ freshly cracked coconuts with straws were on offer straight away. That was pretty much how the day progressed until anyone got a little hungry and then there were a few options. You could go the the stalls on the beach and buy cochinha de galinha (minced chicken, crumbed and deep fried with spices and sour cream inside), queijinho cualho which was a special cheese that they roasted for you on the beach and you ate off a stick or platters of numerous things like fried fish and quail eggs with French fries.

There were numerous hotels all the way along the beachfront with a couple of very nice ones, although the impression I got from a lot of the buildings was that Rio was a city that was past its heyday. We stayed in a friends flat just behind Ipanema beach, so were in prime position as far as I was concerned. Copacabana beach wasnt really the place to stay if one wanted to enjoy relaxing Brazil. Another beach well worth mentioning was Barra (Baha) beach which was about 30 minutes in a taxi from Ipanema. The crowd was a lot younger there with more space to relax and better beaches to swim etc overall. On the day we were there, there were about 30 kite surfers all the way out to sea doing their thang!

The nightlife in Rio never stops, although it definitely pays to have some local knowledge. Virtually any club that one went to was packed with beautiful woman,  all...and I mean all of which were only too keen to stay the night for the night for a price. It does take a lot of the enjoyment away from the club because you cant even just casually chat to a girl without her wanting money. Anyway, I only had one night in Rio and with the time difference and 3 hours sleep, I was doing my utmost just to stay awake.

On the day before leaving, we went up to Corcovado to see the statue "Cristo Redentor". I am sure you all know about the huge statue of Christ that overlooks Rio, but if not, it is a statue that took nine years to build, starting in 1922 and was completed in 1931. It is the largest art déco sculpture in the world, but I think the reason most of the people visit the monument is for the views of the city as you can see in the pictures.

The next stop was Salvador. It is further north than Rio and thus closer to the equator, but not significantly enough to make it noticeably warmer. We did have a good night of rainfall the night before I left though. Big drops!

Salvador is a beautiful city in its own way. It doesn't have the magnificent views and scenery that greet you in Rio, but what it lacks there, it makes up in the experience of more genuine Brazilian culture. People there are living more normal lifestyles that arent so focussed on tourism, although of course, it is still there. I was able to see a lot more of how Brazilian families normally lived when I was there because I was staying at Lise's mother's house. I typical Latin spirit, there is a lot of conversationall the time and volume is a necessity. It sounds just like there is a big argument all the time. Families in Brazil are very close though and anyone that is close to, or friends with any one of the family is naturally a friend of the entire family.

Obviously the main event in Salvador was the wedding on the 30^th of April. It was a very warm night to say the least and the sunburn I got the day before didnt really help a hell of a lot. That aside though, the wedding was beautiful. Lise looked amazing as did Nate. The ceremony was translated so that the gringos could understand and the priest did a very good job. After the ceremony, there was the mandatory 10,000 pictures and then everyone...well almost everyone hit the dance floor. The food was both in buffet style, together the waiters bringing around dishes with snacks. As far as pictures of the wedding are concerned, I have been asked to temporarily keep them off the web by the bride, but I will supply a link shortly that will point you in the direction of those pics when they are ready.

All in all, Brazil was a great place to visit and well worth the trip. I am definitely very keen to go again and hopefully will one day.