Rio de Janeiro/Carnival

First 2 days were real hard, trying to recover from the last hectic few days in London, my fall down the stairs with annexed aches and sores as well as what looked like a mild symptom of DVT. My hand has finally healed and the legs are also OK, though still bruised.
3rd day was the real beginning of our holiday, in the sense that I was able to get up and walk around and feel like a human being again.
We have done all the usual sites - been to the Christ statue (completely obliterated by clouds though..), Sugar Loaf by cable car, Botanical Gardens, Copacabana and Ipanema beach. While going to Sugar Loaf, Gregory managed to burn his nose, while I completely underestimated the length of our trip and sun exposure and so managed to sunburn my shoulders and collarbone - nevermind, maybe when I hit 50 I will remember to put sunscreen on...NEVERMIND!!!!
The guest house is OK, a lot more rundown than what it looks like on the website - www.casamangomango.com - but the pool is refreshing and Gregory enjoys it every morning at 8 for an hour, together with Julie's kids, 5 and 7, who take it in turns to jump on Gregory's back and get carried backs and forwards. So they both have fun and Gregory swims with weights, which is great exercise. Casa Mangomango is huge and needs a lot of work, but the people are super-friendly and we have all what we need and more - a very large room with en-suite bathroom (not expected), free coffee all day, laundry lines outside the door, power points for all of Gregory's electronic devices (I still do not know how he has managed to fit everything in that ruscksack), we can access the kitchen to make our own caipirinhas and use the Internet and even have a small library with lots of very relevant books - travel guides on South America as well as grammars and even a small Chomsky selection.

CARNIVAL

On Monday night it was our turn at the Sambodrome - the 2 main parades run on Sunday and Monday night, then the winner is chosen. We went to the Monday one and it was worth every penny - never ever imagined that a show of this sort could ever be put up - thousands of incredible costumes flowing all night, from 9 pm till 7 am - just AMAZING!! We stayed till the very end and were completely hooked - no point in posting any pics since we have taken hundreds, which we managed to cut down to 190, and it would be just impossible to pick 2 or 3 for the blogger... The last school of the Monday night was the best - absolutely - and in fact they won the parade: Beija Flor. The theme was Africa, the rhythm was fantastic (still in our heads) and the costumes simply unbelievable. The Rio Carnival site is found at http://www.rio-carnival.net - unfortunately no pictures of Beija Flor though I am sure they are posted somewhere.

Here are some pics from Rio - next stop is Exodus overland!