The day finished with a meal at the Girl from Ipanema (again) with Neil and Colette in tow. They´re over here for about 3 months; Neil left just before 3com collapsed last year...sensible guy...we´re getting on great and so spent most of yesterday together. We eventually made it to their hotel (very central, near the old presidential palace) after a real palava with the buses that meant it took us about an hour to get there (should have taken about 15 minutes). Still not to worry as that made it about 1-1 in that sense as they got delayed making their way to our hotel the night before...so we started our walk at the Gandhi monument, a gift from the Indian government a few years back...it´s fairly unremarkable, but is huge and seems to miss out his most ditinguishable feature, his glasses, unless of course they´ve been nicked.

We then headed out to the Saint Teresa tram, or bordinho, which according to the lonely planet ´has young thieves contantly jumping on and off´. The tram meanders up the hillside towards (but not getting to) Corcovado, via some huge mansions, grand in the 60s/70s, now covered with graffiti and surrounded in high barb-wire fences. The tram itself is so ramshackle that you feel at any time it might just fall aparrt like a clowns car, you can literally see bits of wood coming out of their joints, but the four of us clutched our stuff close to us, and enjoyed the rided. I´m not sure we would have found it as good had the armed policeman stationed at the rear of the tram decided not to turn up for work. Thankfully for us he did, and although loads of scallies jumped on, and clung onto the sides to avoid paying, and jumped off the trrip passed without incident. The vewi of Corcovado was great but by the time I´d got my camera out we were back among the favela that have slowly started to creep up the hillsided and it was too risky to take a shot.

After the obligatory tourist photo we carried on our walking tour, passing a number of grand buildings that were now porno cinemas, squares that were dust bowls, and streets so ugly, not even their strteet planners would love them. About half way through the tour we thought sod this and did what any self-respecting bunch of tourists, fed up with seedy allies and even seedier people loitering in them, would do - we headed to the pub, and had a beer.

The afternoon was to be the highly anticipated trip up Pao de Acucar - Sugar Loaf Mountain, where the views of the city are the best (in theory). We eventually made it there on the hot,sweaty, standing room only bus from hell, and bought our cable car tickets. The mountain is in two stages, Urca, then Pao and at the top of Urca (only a couple of hunderd metres high) we had great fun photographing and chasing some playful monkeys, hell one even posed for me with the city in the background - good lad!! It was at this stage we looked over at Corcovado and realised we could see as much of it as Stevie Wonder could, as it was covered in a thick, dark mist. Despite Jen´s optimistic cries of ´it´s lifting´ every five mins it didn´t. What do they say about Jesus never being there when you need him? Never worry though as we enjoyed a couple of beers at the top (after cable car number 2) whilst trying to decipher some Scots sitting next door (we failed on this count...). On the way back down the monkeys made another brief appearance, this time with a couple of cute babies, and then we headed back to the hotel.

We met up for the night in Copacabana, us late (again, 2-1 to them) due to our hotel seemingly having lost all our clothes en route to the (shut at 6pm, we got back at 7) laundry. No record, no receipt they said as we headed out. The irony of losing all our stuff via the hotel rather than being mugged etc...was not lost on us. We had a mediocre meal but nice beers (is beer ever bad?) before going our seperate ways. Copacanaba has lost alot of it´s glitz and glammer over the last few years, not even Barry Manilow makes the trrip down here any more. It was decided today would be a beach/shopping day for the girls and a trtip to tthe Maracana for the boys. Suits both parties fine.

On waking up we were told they´d found the receipt for our stuff, and it duly arrived, clean, pressed, and ludicrously expensive, at 10am. Thank God! We wouldn´t have been insured so Jen´s hopes of a new wardrobe would have been dashed...