Coca cola, never one miss a marketing opportunity, have produced these special gold olympic bottles

Rio in pre-olympic state resembles a giant building site, where they’re frantically working to get it finished in time.

Nevertheless still good. I spent 5 days/6nights in total. I could easily have stayed longer but I had things to get on with.  Plus the olympics were fast approaching and I didn’t want to get caught up in all the chaos and crazy prices.

My hostel was near to Cocacabana beach. It was a bit overpriced for what it was, but it had this whole pop-art thing going on, which was nice. I met a couple of interesting people there (a young woman who taught me some guitar chords in return for me teaching her some ukulele chords springs to mind here) but as always in these places there are some idiots. I think I’m getting a little hosteled out again.

Rio itself is interesting anyway.

Here’s the downtown:

This building won ‘awards’ for being the 5th ugliest building in the world.  Here it is trying to hide itself in shame behind a tree.

Cafeteria Colombo.  This is where Queen Elizabeth took her tea when she visited Rio.  They have prices that you need to be queen to afford.

This is Lapa.  It looks quiet now but, trust me, if you come on a weekend night it will be teeming with people, playing music and drinking outdoors.

Selaron Steps in the downtown, the work of artist Jorje Selaron.  He started this as a hobby and it ended up being his obsession.  Don’t climb these alone unless you’re prepared for a thousand people to expect you to take photos for them.

Then there are the two most famous beaches, Cocacabana (as in her name was Lola…) and Ipanema (as in the girl from…):

Then there is Sugarloaf mountain. It was very busy; well this didn’t get to be Trip advisor’s number 1 of 631 things to do in Rio by coincidence I suppose, and the views are stunning.

However just sometimes it would be nice to be able to stand and appreciate a view without getting pushed out of the way for a million selfies.