Last, but by no means least, Rio de Janeiro!

The final destination of my South American adventure has been Rio de Janeiro. Everyone who hasn't been there warned of the dangers of the city (there's even an app that lets you know the areas where there's been a shooting!) but everyone who has just said what a fantastic city it is and how much they'd enjoyed their visit! Having been here for 4 days, I'm in the same camp as all the others who've visited! 

I arrived on Wednesday and ordered an Uber from the airport. You do have to keep your wits about you as even before I'd ordered the cab I had three people come up to me and tell me they were my Uber driver! Anyway, I arrived safely at my hostel and spent an hour or so chatting to Grace, another girl in my dorm room before heading out for food.

Thursday was Corpus Cristi here which is a public holiday and in the morning I headed down to the beach, I think along with everyone else in Rio! I have been staying in Leblon in Zona Sul, just along from Ipanema and Copacopbana and when I got down to the beach and looked right, what should I see but Sugarloaf!

Leblon beach was lovely and just what you expect of a beach in Rio!

That afternoon, I had booked to go to a football match at the Maracenã stadium. 

I'm no football fan but it's the largest stadium in the world and this is football. In Brazil. It had to be done! Flamengo were playing Bahia and if they won, it would put them at the top of the Brazilian Series A table. It was great, we got the transfer straight from the hostel and Guillerme, our guide, taught us the football chants on the journey there. In the stadium there are people that serve you drinks at your seats and Marie, a girl I got friendly with and I ordered our beers. About 10 minutes later the guy in the seat next to us bought us another drink to apologise for his language in advance! He only spoke Portuguese so this was a good deal for us as we wouldn't have known if he was swearing or not!! Thankfully Flamengo won the match 2-0 and so there was much excitement and the most amazing atmosphere around the stadium as a result. Not sure what would have happened had they lost!!

The next day I had a city tour booked. As I didn't have much time in Rio this seemed like a good option as it visited the key places in one trip. We started with Cristo Redentor or Christ the Redeemer as we know it. 

I had seen this in the taxi from the airport and also when I'd gone my walk along the beach and you don't quite realise how high it is but it doesn't look that big from sea level. Your perception changes dramatically when you get close! It's absolutely stunning.

What is also incredible are the views from the base of the statue. 

This did always used to be a lookout point and there was a tram to take you to the top. But then for the centenary it was decided to construct the statue and hence JC looks out over Rio. 

From here we did a brief stop in the neghourhood of Santa Teresa, an area I would have loved to spend more time if I had chance as it was so nice. The tram stopped here

And it was a lovely higgledy piggledy place with street art and whimsical buildings and all the telegraph poles had these lovely paintings on them.

Our next stop was the cathedral. 

This is in brutalist style and the only light that enters the building does so through the most beautiful stained glass windows. 

It was magnificent and just my style.

We then continued on to the tiled steps, Escadaria Selarón, which were the work of Chilean born artist Jorge Selaraón. 

He used to live by the steps and decided to renovate them using scavenged bits of tile but over time people started donating them from all around the world and so there are tiles from many different places - including London!!

Near the steps one artist who had done a painting of the world and he added people's names according to where they were from and surrounded it with flags had had his work vandalised so it was painted over and he was starting it again. He saw me leaving a tip and so he added my name to the map!

Our final stop was at Sugarloaf mountain. To get to the top, you have to take two cable cars. 

As it was around 5pm at this time and sunset started at 5.15pm we decided to go straight up to the top and spend time at the first stage on the way back down. It was a good decision! The views were unbelievable!

Seeing Rio as the sun set was so special. The sunset took about half an hour and as it did, the sky went through so many beautiful colours and cast the city in many different lights,

and then we were left with the spectacle that is Rio at night!

For my final full day I decided to have a trip to the botanical garden. Did Kew not have such a special place in my heart, I can quite honestly say this would be my most favourite botanic garden I've ever visited. Of course there was a cactus section but we're in Rio, so they were outside in the sun! 

There were some really cool ones and I loved how this one was broken so you could see the centre of it but it was regrowing too! 

Within the garden there was also an orchid house

And a bromeliad house - I'm a big fan of this species too!

Around the garden I saw marmosets, hummingbirds and amazing spiders! The garden had lovely features including these carved logs and all the signs represented shooting trees in the design if the metalwork. 

The tree that I found most weird was this one, Calycophyllum spruceanum, in the Amazonian section which looked like the bark was encased in some kind of weird waxy substance although it was hard and smooth to the touch. 

There were also incredible bamboos 

and for those who have one from IKEA, here are dragon trees growing in their natural habitat!

Today I fly home and so this morning I just went for a walk along Leblon and Ipanema beaches and watched the Rio marathon. 

The runners must be incredibly thankful that the temperature, which has been in the high 20s/low 30s for the past few days dropped dramatically today and the sun went into hiding too! Sugarloaf mountain disappeared behind cloud as well 

and it's now hammering it down! Which somehow seems fitting given that I fly home shortly. 

This is obviously the last post from my trip that will describe places I'm visiting but the blog will continue, don't forget you need to find out about the songs I've been listening to. My career break doesn't end for another 3 months yet though so there will be updates until I return to work in September.

Thank you to everyone who's come along with me on the trip so far! I hope you're enjoying the journey!!