Interactions with the locals

Ola!
So since the last post a lot has happened, to Eleanor...
Whilst we were still in Rio on Saturday night we went to a street party in Lapa, where they close off all the streets and set up stall with cheap caipirinhas and banging music. Our spirits were not dampened by the torrential rain, in fact they were lifted by the screams of Eleanor with a cockroach on her foot!!
Not only can eleanor lure cockroaches with her beauty but also tramps from the favela Roçinha- we went on our own tour on a local minibus where both Shauna and Eleanor sat on my lap, with an absolute legend of a bus conductor who took the piss out of us Gringos (we had Sumner and his friend Matt with us- who could translate the portugese for us), and then proceeded to sing Celine Dion in Portugese. When we were at the bottom of the favela we bought a couple of kebabs and a sneaky tramp managed to come and kiss Eleanors hand. Ha.
From Rio we went to Ilha Grande. It was paradise. And finally some sunburn....Keelin has burnt feet. Shauna on the other hand is bronzed....NAAAT.

On our first night there we went to the town where there was a Brazilian street party, with loads of stalls and traditional music- and ridiculously good chocolate cake- the sort of stuff that would make Mumma Gav weak at the knees!

A small bit of bullying and Keelin taking the bull by its horns first,literally,we both jumped up on the bunking bronco, putting our out-of-use irish dancing muscles to use for all of .... 10 seconds.

We were approached for a quick samba with the locals and Keelin jumped at the opportunity with a handsome, sweaty, beast of a male suitor. (see below for the awesome pictures Shauna captured).

After dragging Keelin away from her new love interest, everybody persuaded Shauna that a 12km hike the next day would be a tremondous idea.  Sadly no pictures were taken of the hike but arguably the beach that we hiked towards- Lopez Mendes was worth it!!

Tomorrow we are off to Salvador bright and early at 7.30am, we´ll keep you posted on any other interractions and happenings. Missing you, love Keelin and Shauna xxxxxxx

Hiiiiii!!!!!
Time for a little update we thinks.
Our 3rd day in rio and we are still far from a tan- we haven´t even got any more freckles yet!
DC arrived yesterday (shout out to Lynney C) and led us to the botannical gardens and walked around the 7.5km lake- by error of course. He´d only been here one day and I´ve never heard the words ´tour´ and ´ladsy´ so much in my life - Shauna. Eleanor almost wet herself with excitement after spotting a cheeky monkey in one of the trees, and then a sneaky lemur. We then hit up the beach which was more successful than our cornwall experience of the day before. Yet still no tan in sight.

Today we took part in some hardcore queuing for Christo Redentor/Christ Redeemer/See picture below. The view was absolutely amazing and it was completely worth the wait- Wayne I needed your SLR.
We were also going to head to Sugar loaf mountain but we´ll head there tomorrow.

(apologies for how rough we look!)

Right, Dan and Eleanor are calling us to get to the bar so we´re off. We´ll check in soon hoepfully with some Sugar Loaf Mountain and hang-gliding pics!!

Love you xxxxxx

Goodbye UK!

I have just managed to go through to departures as Wayne dropped me off- ironic that shauna is probably arriving at check in now! Thats if she can navigate her way through the airport.
I will miss you all, but will be back before you know it.
Speak to you soon!!!
Lots of love, Keelin.
xxxx

Less than 24 hours until departure

Hi, so Keelin and I have set up a blog to try and keep you all updated on our South American adventure. We currently have less than 24 hour hours until we have to get on our planes... yes that is correct plural because we are on different departing planes. I'm hoping I will prove all of my friends wrong and actually make it to Lisbon all alone and then on to Rio with Keelin and Eleanor. So I better go and finish packing my rucksack which is surprisingly empty at the moment! Apologies if this is a severely boring post but I don't really know what to write yet.

See you all in 2 months or so :)

Shauna xx