Olympic Games 2016

I am delighted at the news that Rio de Janeiro has been awarded the 2016 Olympics. Rio is one of my Top 10 cities of the World - Paris, New York, Leh (India), Vientiane (Laos), Sydney, Vatican, Amsterdam, Paro (Bhutan) and Ushuaia (Argentina) complete the list.

A beautiful city I visited this stunning metropolis in October 2007 as part of a CIS school inspection and accreditation team.

The school was on split sites and we had four days of running across the city.

One of these school sites bordered on a favela – the shanty town areas on the neighbouring hill-sides, portrayed so amazingly in the incredible movie, The City of God.

About 9am alarms sounded across the area and everyone ordered inside. A police helicopter flew overhead firing semi-automatics below. It took almost an hour for the all-clear signal to sound and life resumes back to normality. And everyone thought i was nuts to live in Bogotá! Never experienced anything quite like that in four years in the capital of Colombia.

The work was full on in Brazil, but I stayed on for a couple of days afterwards to explore this amazing city. Despite the threat of potential danger in several parts, it is stunningly situated and oozes a vitality and energy you cannot find in Europe (or i can´t anyway).

A few photos taken with my old Nikon Coolpix can be found here.

With World Cup 2010 in South Africa, I really should make an effort to be in London for the 2012 Olympics. Mmmmmmm...Rio in 2016? Sounds pretty tempting to me.