Honeymoon

Left Hong Kong for my honeymoon for 3 weeks

stayed with my family and friends in Manly on the northern Beaches.

Stayed in Palermo in a boutique hotel. Palermo is a really nice suburb with great shopping!

Arrivfed in Rio at the busiest time of year. Luckily we had booked a hotel for the first night and were able to extend it. It is summertime in December and the beaches are crowded with locals and tourists wearing skimpy bikinis, playing volleyball and drinking booze. My husband and i chose to lie by the pool instead, but it was too hot to lie out in the middle of the day so we went to have a look around the shops in ipanema. Shopping isn't as great as it is in Argentina, although i did manage to score a pretty cool aquamarine ring from my hubby!
On our second day we took a 15 minute helicopter ride to have a look at the sights. it was great fun although the pilot doesn't say one word so i suggest you read up on what you're looking at before hand.
We wanted to rent a car and head to buzios (3hrs) but sadly there wasn't a bed available in the entire town so we spent the remainder of the third day looking for flights on the internet and finally we found one to the very north of brasil at vast expense! If you have a time limit and are traveling in Brasil over the christmas/new year breakmake sure you pre book!!!

we only transited in Fortaleza. It is one of the biggest party cities in the north, however we wanted to get the a beach village surrounded by sand dunes called jericoacoara.

The trip to Jeri (as the locals call it) was an interesting one to say the least! The bus takes on average 6 hours so we opted to be driven in a 4WD instead. The car and driver was arranged for us by one of the transport/tour desks in Fortaleza. We loaded up on snacks for the four hour drive and were faily confident we'd get there before dark... BUT the driver of our car had never driven to Jeri before and although people on the street were eager to point us in the right direction, when we got to the sand dunes he managed to get us seriously lost. He had obviously never driven over sand dunes before as he was driving at the same speed as on the tarmac. After becoming very nervous and telling him to slow down a few hundred times he managed to crash into a barb wire fence! we stayed here stranded for about an hour. My husband and the driver were trying to get the car out but couldn't so eventually he drove over the fence, tore the car into shreds and broke one of the headlights!!! By this stage, I was marginally P^%%$# Off and thought we'd never reach our destination. Just before I was about to get out and walk we saw another car in the distance. Luckily it was coming our way so we asked if they would mind driving back to Jeri so we could follow..
Upon Arrival In Jeri my blood pressure dropped and i totally realxed. the stars were shining so bright and our hotel room at the Mosquito Blue was perfect. After a good nights sleep later and a tasty breakfast on the beach we had to pack up and find somewhere else to stay. Mosquito Blue was booked out which was a real shame as it is one of the prettiest hotels i have ever stayed in. It isn't uber modern or fancy but the walls are drenched in boganvillia and it is situated right on the beach.
we found a cute pousada to stay in although it really isn't worth mentioning. the showers were cold, bed bugs abundant and apart from a cute little puppy and a spunky italian employee there wasn't much to write home about.
Jeri as a whole was also very disapointing. It is supposed to have a beautiful beach but infact it smells terrible and is covered in seaweed. the beach is quite wide although there is no soft sand to speak of! instead there are hundreds of starving horses galloping about and buggys taking kite surfers off on some safari adventure. My husband went kite boarding for a few days which he enjoyed and whilst he was doing that i went horse riding. It was fun although i ended up with bruised and swollen shin bones due to the metal stirrups.. was not a pleasant feeling nor a very attractive sight!
the night life kicks off very late here. Its good fun if you like a very laid back atmosphere and sensational fresh fruit caprioskas and caiphrinias.. mmmm delicious!
All in all, I was happy to leave and go somewhere with a little more to offer.. besides, who wants to relax in a stinky isolated beach town!

we arrived in Soto via Rio and london. Soto is good if you're family oriented, like to play golf and prefer to speak english with the locals. Soto isn't a holiday destination in its self and isnt one of the nicer parts of spain. We were staying with my husbands family so we naturally had a good time.. we ate out most meals and dranks pleanty of vino sol..

Flying out of Gibraltar (closest airport to soto) we landed in london as the final part of our honeymoon. we had about 5 days here staying with family and friends. the weather was freezing as it always is in the beginning of the year but none the less we managed to get ourselves splendidly drunk and put on about 8kgs each..

Back to the Grind - we both live and work in Hong Kong.