Inauspicious start...

It´s probably karma that my luggage didn´t make it to Rio with me. Retribution for blindly following ebooker.com´s advice regarding cheapest flights and hopping around Amsterdam and Paris yesterday, ramping up an impressive and unnecessary footprint. Whatever the reason, I´m here, but my luggage is not. However, as I have made it through arguably the most daunting part (arriving in the airport at 5am, hoping to see nice friendly taxi man but dreading thought of him not being there and having to forage for a taxi myself) I´m feeling remarkably unconcerned. This will no longer be the case if my stuff hasn´t turned up by tomorrow evening, obviously. Apart from anything else I only have one spare pair of knickers in my day rucksack.

So, brief first impressions of Rio gleaned from trip to hostel: a city essentially carved out of a rainforest. The fact that it is so muggy and cloudy adds to the effect - the bits of mountain popping out of the city look weirdly prehistoric with the mist lying around them. The shacks on the outer part of the city were eye opening - start of a quality of life that I will become used to seeing over the next few weeks.

Anyway, as I have been here all of five minutes will stop there - once I´ve actually embarked on any activities will hopefully have something of worth to add....! Breakfast is about to start so I need to go and harass unsuspecting travellers and force them to be my friend.