Lots of highs, few lows: a trip round-up

I've been back in the UK for six weeks now - six weeks which have flown by just as fast as the six weeks I spent travelling and the weeks in Rio. Every time I've seen a friend for the first time since returning they've asked me what the best bit was, usually prefacing with "how was the Olympics?" At that point I've usually gone "oh yeah, the Olympics, I did that too". The travelling part of the trip, being more recent and immediate, had somehow taken priority over Rio in my head.

I blogged about both the Olympics and Paralympics earlier and the memories are still strong. The ones I've been dragging out when people ask tend to be:

• the lovely chat I had with single sculls champion Mahé Drysdale before racing started, because it genuinely was just a nice conversation with a nice guy;
• watching the GB women's eight win silver, because over the years I've known a number of the women who have been fighting for that medal for so long; 
• being in the athletics mixed zone on the night of the men's 100m final and squishing into the front of the agency pen to grab Usain Bolt's quotes (that man is TALL - my arm was aching from holding my phone up to record);
• the many, many incredible stories from the Paralympics, but maybe most that of Australian para-canoeist Curtis McGrath. We sat in the shade in the boat park and he told me, with perfect clarity, about the moment on 23 August 2012 when he'd lost his legs in an IED explosion in Afghanistan. It was only moments later, being stretchered to the helicopter, that he told his mates they'd see him at the Paralympics. Some of them were in Rio to watch him win gold four years later. It was hard to listen and ask questions without getting emotional.

The Lagoa at dawn

But those are just a handful of the many moments I'll remember from those two and a half months in the Cidade Maravilhosa, shared with a great bunch of colleagues and friends.

When it comes to best experiences from the travelling, the Salkantay and Machu Picchu probably top the list. I had such high expectations from the trek and they were met almost entirely, which is saying quite a lot. Iguacu Falls is also up there as one of the best bits of the trip. The sheer power of all that water was just astounding - and I got to go to Argentina for the day!

But I also loved Ilha Grande and wished I'd stayed there longer; I was very pleasantly surprised by Lima, which everyone had said wasn't that great a place; I chilled out with the locals by Lake Titicaca; I was awed by condors in Colca Canyon; and saw pelicans in a place that looked like the moon in Paracas. I stuffed my face with steak in Brazil and with livelier fare in Peru, and drank somewhat more than my fair share of capirinhas and pisco sours as well as plenty of ice-cold beer.

With my Lake Titicaca homestay host Calixto

Along the way I encountered all sorts of interesting people, from the wonderful locals who were my guides and hosts, to other travellers. Young couples taking career breaks, older solo travellers looking for something new, backpackers from all over the world stretching their money as far as it can go. And of course in Rio a whole host of fantastic cariocas who were so generous with their welcome to their city. 

In many ways it's odd looking back at the journey. At the beginning of the year I was tired, trying to give as much time as I could to work and to rowing and not quite succeeding on either level. I felt like I'd been operating at maximum capacity for far too long. And I really wanted to work in Rio, having spent the best part of four years looking back wistfully to the London Olympics. When the offer came through I was on a long weekend break in New York, seeing my brother and sister-in-law and enjoying a brief few days of travel - it seemed appropriate that I spent much of that weekend buoyed up with anticipation over Rio too.

It was difficult in some ways leaving my job. I worked with an awesome team and the job itself was interesting, varied and challenging. But I'd been there a while and the changing shape of the world of business media was getting me down. Taking the leap into Rio, travelling and then the challenge of trying to go freelance was absolutely the right thing to do. Writing this now, despite the fact I haven't really put much effort into getting work yet, I feel refreshed and excited about next year. Planning is overrated - I'm going to see what happens and seize any opportunities that come. It seemed to work this year, after all.

Thanks for following my travels with me. Until next time!

HARRIS (GBR)

* Note to confused readers: for my last post from the Olympics and Paralympics before this becomes a proper travel blog about, you know, travel, I decided to use the 'flash quote' template which is the backbone of what the Olympic & Paralympic News Service produce, complete with capitalised names!

Men's T54 marathon

RIO DE JANEIRO - Comments from Joanne HARRIS (GBR) after the end of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games on Sunday.

Joanne HARRIS (GBR)

On how she feels right now:

"Knackered, mainly."

On what the Paralympic Games have been like:

"Incredible. I've spoken to such a wide range of athletes in five sports with a whole range of impairments and stories and hopes and dreams. I've spoken to established, experienced athletes with multiple Games and medals behind them, and to rising stars finding out what they can achieve for the first time.

"The atmosphere has been fun and supportive from all sides: the volunteers have helped each other, and the athletes have shown real sportsmanship and friendship which has been a privilege to see. The Brazilians properly got behind the Games and especially behind their own; the sheer volume of noise in the pool whenever the Brazilians were swimming, and particularly when Daniel DIAS won gold, was utterly deafening and exhilarating at once.

"It's a very different sort of Games from the Olympics but that doesn't make it any less competitive or any less exciting. It also doesn't make the athletic feats any less impressive."

Copacabana from the marathon tribunes

On her best Paralympic memories:

"Do I have to pick just one? I don't think I can. Here are a few though:

Interviewing GB gold medallist, canoeist Anne DICKINS

"When GB won three golds on the Lagoa, not once but twice, in both canoeing and rowing.

"Interviewing Ellie ROBINSON after she won the 50m butterfly S6. She was so very thrilled and shocked and it was lovely.

"Interviewing US swimmer Cortney JORDAN after she won silver in the 400m freestyle S7 because of the way she talked about her teammate McKenzie COAN, who got gold. They're best friends and she gave the impression she genuinely didn't mind being beaten by COAN. To be fair, COAN was also a fantastic person to interview, with a massive smile and brimming with enthusiasm.

"Meeting the Zimbabwe rowing team, who I talked about in an earlier blog, for their joy at being in Rio at all."

On her most random Paralympic memories:

"Having a selfie with the Danish flagbearer at the opening ceremony was odd but nice.

"Having my shoulder squeezed by Brazilian swimmer Phelipe RODRIGUES after what was probably the second of three interviews over the course of the week as I thanked him for the chat."

On why she is very proud to be British:

GBR LTAMix4+ - gold

"Officially one is supposed to be impartial when doing this job, but sometimes it's hard and I'm particularly bad at it. I love seeing the Brits winning stuff, and we won so very much in Rio. I covered 36 finals at the Lagoa (14 Olympic rowing, 12 Olympic canoeing, four Paralympic rowing, six Paralympic canoeing) and Britain won 10 gold medals in those events, plus three silvers and three bronzes. Which is pretty bloody impressive.


"I'm proud my country puts effort into the Games. It's a relatively small amount per capita and I think it matters. I'm proud that the Paralympians are supported in a similar way to the Olympians and that their achievements are praised just as much. I'm proud that our Paralympic broadcaster went to the effort of getting live coverage from places no other broadcaster touched.

"And as a journalist, I'm glad that our athletes will stop and talk even if they're disappointed with their performances while those from other countries rush by, sometimes even if they won gold."

On what the future holds:

"Tomorrow I pack my bags and head to Ilha Grande, which is an island fairly close to Rio which is known for being a beautiful place to chill out. There's walks and beaches and waterfalls. After that, Paraty (pretty much ditto, except it's not an island), then Sao Paulo, then Iguacu Falls, before I fly to Peru and get confused about which language I don't understand and can't speak." 

On who she'd like to thank:

"Working in Rio has been an amazing experience and it was great to share it with my ONS and PNS colleagues who are all superb, as well as various Press Ops team members at rather a lot of venues, but especially Lagoa. And thanks to Lisa for being a great roommate during the Olympics."

ONS/PNS jh

The joy of the Paralympic Games

Today is the first day of the Paralympic Games. Last night I was fortunate enough to be one of the team collecting flash quotes from the flagbearers before the opening ceremony, easily one of the most fun things I've done so far.

There was such an infectious mood among the athletes, even though they had a long wait - the first countries, at the start of the alphabet, started arriving at about 4pm and they started moving out about 6pm. Such a lot of diversity (of all types) in one place, and everyone trying to get selfies of themselves with other people from other countries, catching up with friends, and wreathed with smiles. There was a samba troupe moving around to keep everyone entertained, complete with several dancers and musicians with disabilities, which went down well.

My favourite interview was probably Annika Lykke Dalskov Risum from Denmark, a four-time Paralympic medallist in her third Games, who was so excited and happy and willing to talk and then wanted a selfie with me!

Once we'd collected enough quotes we went and watched the ceremony. The parade of nations was a bit long - the music a little repetitive and the gaps between countries too big - but once they got back to the ceremony part it rattled along nicely with beautiful choreography and design celebrating different types of disability. My favourite bit was where they brought pictograms to life by pushing them through giant cages, while the stage was turned into giant basketball courts, running tracks and so on with lights. Incredibly clever and effective.

It was also incredibly emotional. The Paralympic flag was carried in by a group of children and their fathers wearing special boots created by a Brazilian, which allow disabled children to walk supported by an adult. The kids were loving it and the Paralympic athletes they were walking past were loving it and I suspect half the crowd was somewhat tearful.

Then as the torch was being carried around the stadium it started to rain, and former runner Marcia Malsar fell and dropped the torch. But she got up again and to huge cheers and a standing ovation made it, solo, to the handover point.

Then the flame was lit, amid the pouring rain, and the Games officially began.

In the past few days I've been speaking to athletes in the three sports I have responsibility for - rowing, canoe sprints and sailing. It's been incredible listening to their stories. Some are at their first Paralympics and a few only took up their sports a short time ago; others have spent their lives pursuing elite sport, particularly Irish sailor John Twomey who is here at his eleventh Paralympics (six discus, including gold in Seoul; two where he also did table-tennis; and now five as a sailor).

I spoke to the Zimbabwean coxed four, who have the most basic of training facilities back home and whose effervescent coach Rachel Davis has supported them financially as well as on a sporting basis. I met GB rower Laurence Whiteley, who got bone cancer aged 14 and is one of just two survivors from his treatment group of 14 in Newcastle. I spoke to canoeist Curtis McGrath, who had his legs blown off by an IED in Afghanistan only days before the London 2012 Paralympics started and made a promise to his mates stretchering him away that they'd see him compete at a Paralympics - some of them will be in Rio.

I had a chat to Anke Molkenthin, who at 54 is competing in two sports in Rio (rowing and canoeing). She was diagnosed with a congenital nerve disorder in the 1980s and even with only 80 per cent of nerve function ran ultra-marathons through to the end of the 1990s. I met the fantastically fun Aussie sailing duo of Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch; during their training every day Fitzgibbon, who has quadriplegia, has to pass the jetty which he fell off in 1997. Yesterday I met Kenyan rower Itaken Kipelian, who got polio aged five and was taken away from his Masai family by a missionary and educated. Now he's supporting four of his brothers through school and he says his life has been a miracle.

The atmosphere is subtly different from the Olympics. Everyone wants to win just as much but I think there's an even greater camaraderie between competitors. And in my sports in particular, I get the impression that the athletes feel by participating they achieve real freedom which they don't always have on land. Sport makes a tangible difference to these athletes' lives and I'm looking forward to covering their achievements in the next 11 days.

The beaches of Rio

I am not what you'd call a beach person. I don't go on holidays where lying on a beach is the entire aim (although if that's your thing, enjoy). I love water, I love the sea, and I quite like the odd hour or so of sitting on a beach reading or something.

So the fact Rio has a LOT of beaches wasn't really a massive draw, but somehow I've managed to spend a little time on most of them. And so, without further ado, here's a non-beach-person's guide to (some of) the beaches of Rio de Janeiro.

In common

All the beaches have a few things in common: the lifeguard posts, or 'Postos', at intervals along the beach. They're numbered and manned in daylight hours and they have showers, lockers and toilets (which you have to pay for).

They also have great wide pavements running along by the road with segregated cycle/running paths too, making the beaches popular places for cariocas (inhabitants of Rio) to exercise. There are little kiosks/beach bars at intervals, selling beer, fresh coconuts (they drill a hole and insert a straw for delicious fresh coconut water) and food.

Mainly all the beaches have people in common - people of all ages, shapes and sizes, enjoying the sand and sea. They play beach volleyball or Brazil's own 'futvolei', which is a mashup of football and volleyball; they sunbathe; they flirt; they run. And the majority are in the skimpiest of bikinis or shorts. It doesn't matter what your age or figure, a tiny bikini, preferably with a thong, is the clothing of choice on a Rio beach. The total lack of body self-consciousness is rather refreshing. 

Copacabana

The granddaddy of them all, a beach which everyone's heard of. Copacabana runs for 4km, or 2.5 miles, from Leme down to Fort Copacabana. During the Olympics it was the site of the beach volleyball arena and there are loads of beach volleyball pitches the whole length.

Copacabana

It's certainly a nice beach, but it's not my favourite. It's very busy with lots of sunbathers, tourists and hawkers selling you everything from capirinhas to sarongs to sunglasses. The sand is pretty good, but I found nicer sand elsewhere, and because it's so busy there's quite a lot of litter on the beach.

The public loos are good though; lots of them, mostly built semi-underground, clean and safe and only about 50p to use.

I paddled a little in the Copa wavelets but didn't swim. I've read differing accounts of how clean the water is off Copacabana and the general consensus seems to be it's all right but not brilliant.  The waves are biggest in the middle of the beach and towards Fort Copacabana the water is calmer, the beach narrower and a little quieter.

Ipanema/Leblon

Ipanema and Leblon from above

Technically Ipanema beach stretches from the Arpoador rock at the eastern end to the canal which connects the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas with the sea, and then from the other side of the canal to the western-most end of the beach is Leblon. The Leblon end is narrower and I confess I didn't actually step foot on it, but if you sit on Arpoador at sunset (the best time) and look down the beach you can't see much difference!

Ipanema, in my opinion, is nicer than Copacabana. It's quieter and there are fewer hawkers to interrupt the sunbathing. The surf close to Arpoador is bigger and there are more surfers there, but it looked pretty calm in the middle (although again I failed to swim at Ipanema).

A word of warning though to tourists: Ipanema is, especially at weekends, a hotspot for thieves. A colleague had his wallet pinched while browsing a market near the beach and all his cards were promptly maxed out and I've heard of several other cases of theft from Ipanema beach and the surrounding area - which is nice, so attracts people with cash. Lots of good restaurants in Ipanema and Leblon.

Flamengo

Flamengo on a cloudy day

Flamengo beach, north of Copacabana, has a good view of the Sugarloaf and is a nice beach in and of itself, next to a park. However its waters are those of Guanabara Bay, which are more polluted than further south, and several guides recommend not swimming off it.

Barra

Barra beach, out west beyond Leblon, is incredible. It's 18km long, a vast stretch of the softest golden sand you can imagine. It definitely has the best sand of any of the beaches I've visited. It's deep and just lovely to sit or walk on.

Barra at sunset

I did go swimming off Barra; the waves are fairly big even on a calmish day and unpredictable in the sense that they come in from all directions. There are surfing and kitesurfing schools on the beach in addition to the usual beach volleyball pitches.


The road is also quite close to the beach and quite noisy, which makes sitting in one of the bars a little less relaxing than in other places, but only a little.

Barra is much quieter than the beaches closer to the city in terms of hawkers and it's got a more local feel. However development is coming fast - the east end of Barra now has a lot of hotels and the new line 4 of the metro runs out there - so I don't know how long it'll last. At the eastern end there are a number of fancier bars. Towards the west there's a whole section with no pavement, at the moment, and no lifeguard posts for several kilometres.

Pontal/Macumba

Where Barra ends there's a rock (the Pedra do Pontal, per Google Maps) and then a smaller, shorter bay and beach split by another rock in the middle. I think the eastern half is Praia da Macumba. Pontal/Macumba is framed by the Pedra do Pontal at one end and cliffs at the other end and you can drive along the coast road to some even nicer beaches, apparently. If you have a car, which we didn't.

I spent two rather nice days at Pontal, once alone and once with colleagues, and enjoyed them both immensely. It's much much quieter than the other beaches, all locals, lots of families and groups of kids, and the people running the bars along the path seem nicer and more relaxed too. The big thing on Pontal is fish, served fried and hot and eaten with your fingers. I had sardines both times; the second time the four of us shared a big plate of sardines with salad and chips and had a few beers each for R$70 (£16). The lady serving us was delightful, although we couldn't communicate properly, making sure we didn't order too much and keeping the cold beer flowing.

The sea at Pontal is calm and quiet by the Pedra and the surf picks up as you go along the beach, although not dangerously so. There are flags warning of currents but as a confident swimmer I felt very safe out beyond the first breaker - apart from finding it hard to get out of the sea as there's a bit of an undercurrent sucking the waves back out once they've broken on the beach.

Sandwise Pontal is slightly coarser than Barra but still pleasant to walk on, if tricky - it's so deep, it's a real effort to walk! Much better, perhaps, to stroll along the paved path - no cars running along this beach - and then find a spot for a bit of relaxation with the sound of the waves all that can disturb you. Bliss.

My footsteps on Macumba

Hiking the Dois Irmaos

Rio de Janeiro is surrounded by hills and there are tracks up most of them which are pretty easily hikeable if you're reasonably fit. On many of them you can reputedly get better views than by going up to Christ - although of course that trip has a massive statue bonus thrown in.

On Sunday a couple of colleagues and I decided to do the Two Brothers, or Morro Dois Irmaos, which are the twin hills sitting between the sea and Rocinha above the favela of Vidigal. From the top you get a wonderful view across to Corcovado and the Lagoa, downtown Rio, Ipanema, Rocinha and Sao Conrado.

Like the Corcovado hike there's not a huge amount of information online about the Dois Irmaos walk. I did find this helpful website which was extremely useful in getting us to the start.

Vidigal is a small favela clinging to the hillside above the sea, close to Leblon, and has been fairly

well gentrified. The lower part of the favela even has what look like nice apartment blocks although it gets more favela-like with brick and breezeblock buildings as you ascend. The start of the Dois Irmaos track is almost at the top. Essentially if you enter from the Avenida Niemeyer 210 - the corner of Avenida Presidente Joao Goulart, where there's a sort of big blue monument thing - and just walk up the main street you can't get lost. It's a steep old walk up the street and it's possible to get a motorbike taxi or a van to the top, but Vidigal is a safe place to walk in daylight and it only took us 25 minutes.

The walk starts next to Vidigal's 'Vila Olimpica' or sports centre. There's an astroturf football pitch and a kind of running track. Cross the track to the other side and the path emerges; straight out of the favela into the Rio bush. Then it's straight and mostly uphill apart from a short downhill/flattish section as you cross between the two 'brothers', and mostly through bush. We didn't see many birds or animals, I think as there were so many people, but we did see a gloriously-coloured toucan in a tree (too hidden by leaves for a photo though).

In total from bottom to top and back down the walk took us about three hours in elapsed time, although our moving time was more like 50 minutes up and 50 minutes back down. There was a lot of stopping and of course we spent a while at the top looking at the view, looking at crazy people standing on the edge for selfies, and taking pictures ourselves. Personally I'm not good on an edge, so I generally stayed back, but the views were pretty spectacular regardless.

My main recommendation would be not to do this walk on a sunny weekend as we did. It was packed. It's a narrow path and there were a lot of pinch points where people going up had to wait for people going down or vice-versa. It was also pretty steep and eroded and we were astonished to see a fair few people in flip-flops and even bare feet. Not sure I'd recommend that for anyone who doesn't go barefoot all the time! Take plenty of water too so as not to be the poor girl collapsed from heat exhaustion two-thirds of the way up the mountain (although really, her leather leggings can't have helped).  But if you're prepared for a decent slog uphill and are looking for a really great view over Rio, it's definitely one to try.

Rocinha: out of the bubble

Being at the Olympic Games means you live very much in a bubble, even if, as I was, you're staying outside one of the 'village' complexes. In Rio, if you venture outside the bubble, the bits most tourists experience are the beaches - Copacabana, Ipanema, Botafogo - another bubble, really.

But that's not the whole of Rio. The city is built around a series of hills and on every hillside, stretching down to the flatter land between, are the favelas. These are often described as "slums" or "shantytowns" but having been to Rocinha I'd argue against the use of either term. They're communities, they're unregulated and unplanned and look like they're in a constant state of being built with bare brickwork common, but "slum" to me suggests something much more chaotic and basic than what we experienced in Rocinha.

We met our guide, Sandro, at the entrance to the favela. Rocinha sits above one of the two main roads which run out from Rio towards Barra di Tijuca, where the Olympic Park is located and where there are hundreds of gated condominium communities along a wide, consumer-centric avenue. Very close by is the beach at Sao Conrado and one of the most exclusive areas in the whole city, and above it, Rocinha.

Sandro told us that at current estimates 250,000+ people live in Rocinha, although officially the number is more like 70,000. He wasn't sure what the area covered by the favela is; Wikipedia says it's 143.7 hectares, equating to a density of around 48,000 people/square kilometre, or 120,000 per square mile.

The favela is governed, insofar as it is governed, by the gangs. Currently the guy in charge is called Rogerio, and although he's a fugitive from the police he's still the boss. Until a few years ago the favela was run by a man called Nem, who encouraged tourism - something which still continues, we saw a number of other tour groups and a sign for a guesthouse while we were there.

Sandro is half-English, half-Italian (Sardinian, to be precise) and he works for an Italian NGO called Il Sorriso dei miei Bimbi (The smile of my children). The NGO runs a number of social projects in Rocinha and Sandro's been there five months - a relatively short time, but he seemed to know a lot of people. As well as seeing the favela we also saw all four of the projects, which was interesting.

Most people enter Rocinha from the bottom along the Via Apia da Rocinha, a fairly wide street running pretty much straight uphill and lined with shops. There are a lot of shops all over Rocinha covering every need possible: supermarkets, butchers, hairdressers, toy shops, clothes shops, second-hand electrical goods, bakeries selling beautifully-decorated cakes, a shop selling elegant glassware next to one which seemed to be a junk shop, pet shops ... Sandro told us Rocinha had an unusually high number of businesses for a favela. Basically, you don't need to go anywhere else for your everyday items.

It was just off the Via Apia where we saw the first of Il Sorriso's projects, a primary school. A class of kids aged between three and six were having their mid-morning snack when we popped in, and they seemed happy to see us. Sandro teaches them English on Thursday mornings so there was lots of "hello!" and "bye" from all the class. The school tries to educate children for free but parents with incomes are asked to contribute some fees. As well as normal lessons they get taught about gardening with a little garden on the roof, and also have capoeira lessons (capoeira is a Brazilian martial art). The school is trying to encourage them to improve their diets and health as well as their minds.

We then jumped in a van to go to the top of Rocinha. The whole place is on a hill and there are two ways to get to the top; minivans, or motortaxi. The theory of the vans appears to be you hail, climb in, hand over R$3.60 (about 85p) and then jump out when you reach your destination. It was busy with several people standing.

Up a short hill from where we climbed out we were treated to an exceptional view over towards Christ the Redeemer, the Lagoa, Ipanema Beach and beyond. Below us was an American school which Sandro told us charged fees of around US $2,500 a month. I can't imagine what that equates to in terms of the average salary for a Rocinha resident and its location, on the other side of the hill from the favela, just helped drive home the inequalities in Rio.

Back down the hill Sandro took us on a winding route through the narrow alley-like streets of the favela. There's barely room for two people to pass down most of these, and at every turn there's a flight of stairs leading to another alleyway or into a house or shop. Sometimes you can hear rushing water, which isn't water at all; it's raw sewage as the favelas don't have proper sanitation. This is one of the things causing the pollution problems which have hit the headlines around the Olympics. If you have 250,000 people's sewage heading down a hill with the sea nearby it's difficult to catch it and treat it before it gets into the ocean, sadly.

Electricity is similarly disorganised. As in Vietnam cables run above the streets in large, complicated bundles. I would not like to be a favela electrician. TV aerials are connected in a similar fashion but everyone also has Sky satellite dishes.

Eventually we wound up climbing a steep flight of steps to a balcony with a truly stunning view over the favela towards the big rock called Pedro da Gavea, around which there was a flock of paragliders circling. You could see down to Sao Conrado and the highway too. The balcony is newly-constructed by Il Sorriso, and features a decent-sized garden area with chillies, tomatoes, herbs, lettuce and other plants donated by another social project, Favela Verde. The balcony will serve as an outdoor classroom to help teach kids about sustainability. with board which act as barriers but also blackboards. Sandro helped build the area earlier this year, and the team carried up all their materials - metal and concrete - from the bigger street below. Like many other buildings in the favela it doesn't technically have planning permission, as you're not supposed to build anything in Rocinha, but what happens in practice is that you make friends with your neighbours and get their permission (and help, and in this case, coffee) for new constructions.

Balcony view

 Next stop was another Il Sorriso project, a library and language school open to anyone wanting to read or learn English, Italian or German. Sandro said often the kids are quicker than adults, and the classes are by ability not age! The library is also a café serving cheap juice and coffee and we had the best coffee of my entire stay in Rio here, made in an Italian espresso jug. Bliss.

Heading back towards Via Apia we passed through a street of brightly-coloured buildings - purple, green, orange, blue - which had recently been regenerated. But we also passed by a drug dealer, sitting on a plastic chair waiting for customers. Sandro asked us not to take pictures at that point, but it was the only time in the whole tour.

Drugs are obviously a big problem in the favela, and it's impossible to pretend it's all peace and quiet there all the time - shootouts happen regularly and there is violence. But there are also people just trying to have a normal life, make the best of what they have, and there's an incredible community feel there. At one point one of our group had lagged behind to take a picture and someone on the street pointed out to Sandro that we'd got strung out. People look out for each other in the favela. While I wouldn't swap my life for theirs - I'm aware how lucky I am - I do envy them that community feel. It's something which too many big city communities elsewhere have lost.

At the end of our tour we got in cabs and drove to Ipanema and had sushi in a Japanese restaurant, and it could have been in another world. We were back in the bubble. I'm glad we left it for a couple of hours.

Marvellous. Exhausting. Over.

On Sunday night the Olympic Flame was extinguished in the Maracana stadium. It won't be lit again for another two years, when the Winter Games go to Pyeongchang.

I ended up actually being at the closing ceremony, although the evening didn't exactly go to plan. Together with a few colleagues I'd been asked to gather flash quotes from flagbearers, but on a night of high wind and rain and with everyone pretty much at the limits of their endurance it turned out to be impossible to actually find any athletes before the ceremony kicked off. We walked the entire circuit of the stadium in vain, asked everyone we met, tried cajoling our way through various access points, and to no avail - so in the end we gave up and watched the ceremony instead.

It was a good closing ceremony, full of music and colour and very Brazilian while sticking to the low-budget effects of the opening ceremony. Actually I think this is a good model for the future. Beijing's ceremonies were filled with hordes of people in perfect synchronicity. London's had cool sets. Rio's were mainly digital, but it worked just as well. And the finale last night, in which dancing vegetation turned into a massive samba in the middle of the stadium - with the athletes joining in right at the end - seemed a fitting finale to the Olympic Games.

It's been a memorable, exhausting two weeks which have flown by. In the end I covered seven sports, all apart from rowing and canoe sprints briefly, with a session or two at athletics, hockey, sailing, swimming and wrestling providing variety and breaks from the wind and heat at Lagoa. I witnessed 14 nailbiting rowing finals and 12 canoe sprint finals; three gold and six bronze medal wrestling bouts; and covered the mixed zone for two brilliant sailing podiums. I heard the British national anthem played five times in total (three rowing golds, one canoe sprint and one sailing), but the German anthem was the one I heard most live (two rowing golds and four at canoe sprints).

Before they started racing or before finals I managed to interview five eventual gold medallists - Mahe Drysdale, Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, German canoe sprinter Sebastian Brendel and, briefly in the mixed zone, Canadian swimming star Penny Oleksiak - as well as several former champions and legends of their sports.

My fabulous flash quote reporters and I had a solid run in getting quotes in the 'quotes of the day' section on the journalists' information hub as well as two in quotes of the Games, including my favourite from Eric Murray. When asked (by a Kiwi journalist, I confess, I only picked it up) why he and Hamish Bond are so much faster than all their rivals, Murray said: "I think we're just better-looking." The BBC tweeted it and it went moderately viral.

But as well as the champions I met so many other incredible athletes. Only a small number of Olympians win gold medals or even make it to the final, but everyone competing in Rio has given up a huge amount and put in so much hard work to be at the Olympics. They can all say for the rest of their lives they are Olympians, members of a very small group.

Our own small group of Olympic News Service staff are starting to head off back to their normal lives. Some of us are staying for the Paralympics and we now have a week or so off to get some rest and be tourists; the others are flying back to the real world outside the Olympic bubble. We'll hopefully all meet again at another event. The job's not always easy and it's seldom glamorous but it is most definitely rewarding. I'd never have had the physical attributes to be an Olympic athlete. But I'm glad my journalism skills have helped me be an ONS reporter.

I've now moved out to Barra di Tijuca, into one of the media 'villages' where most of my ONS colleagues have been staying - it's quite a long way from anywhere but I have a whole apartment to myself with a double bed and a sofa and am looking forward to predominantly vegging, with a few excursions, for the next week before we're into Paralympic mode. It's been a blast and there's still more to come!

Tears and cheers on the Lagoa

The rowing is over. Eight days of drama, mixed zone madness, wind, rain, sun and 14 incredible finals.

As journalists you're supposed to be professional and not get excited when your country's racing, but frankly I'm just a bit too close to the GB rowing team - not nearly as close as some, but I know their names and their faces and can remember when women's eight cox Zoe first rocked up at my rowing club straight out of school and showed that one day she'd be not just a good cox but a very good cox. So yes, I did a bit of jumping up and down and cheered a little bit and may have had slightly damp eyes once or twice as the medals clocked up.

After Wednesday's racing was cancelled Thursday turned into a mammoth day. Instead of our first finals session featuring just the two quads we ended up with a morning of semis followed by six finals in quick succession, and then six 20-minute press conferences in quick succession. For every final and every press conference we had to get quick, accurate, pithy quotes out as soon as possible. We had an extra pair of hands but the mixed zone was mad, thronged with journalists, and it didn't help that some of the semifinalists were only coming back through it an hour after their racing. Add in problems connecting to the internet and to our CMS and it was a tough couple of hours.

But there were some outstanding races and it was wonderful to stand in the broadcast pen to hear Katherine Grainger's post-race interview. The OBS cameraman Mark, who's been to a few Olympics, said she was the best interviewee he'd ever filmed - she was eloquent, interesting, thrilled and humble all at once.

Yesterday was much, much calmer; the core ONS team of me, Shauna and Olivia handled the four finals and the four semis preceding them brilliantly, our systems all working despite the fact it was pouring with rain until the finals started. Both lightweight double sculls finals were superb and I think everyone was thrilled that the Irish O'Donovan brothers won a medal, not least because they're the funniest interviewees anyone has ever seen. In the post-race press conference, because the French were late, apparently the O'Donovans started the conference by 'interviewing' the Norwegian bronze medallists, with whom they're good friends.

Olivia, me and Shauna and the Olympic rings

I did do some unprofessional jumping up and down with the women's pair and then pretty much missed the men's four final, managing to just see them cross the line ahead of Australia. When the Olympics are over I'm going to spend some time watching all the racing again as as usual I haven't really seen the whole of any races.
Today dawned bright and sunny and while a little breezy, not too windy to stop racing. The minor singles finals were pretty much as standard - a shout out to Dattu Bhokanal, who I interviewed before competition started, who missed his top 10 target but did manage to record India's best-ever rowing placing by winning the C final. Pretty good for someone who was once afraid of water.

The men's singles final happened while I was in the middle of an interview with Ekaterina Karsten (well, me, a Russian translator, and a couple of Belarussian journalists). Karsten's one of those people nobody outside rowing has heard of yet she's a legend of the sport: this was her seventh Olympics at the age of 44 and she has two golds, a silver and two bronzes from the first five Games she went to. She's pretty serious in nature and she was clearly not happy to be going out with eighth overall (second in the B final) but she did say she won't row in Tokyo. What was perhaps saddest was her answer to my question about whether she thought she was an inspiration for others; she said most young people these days spend all their time staring at a smartphone and she doesn't think any of them have role models they follow.

I managed to catch the end of the men's singles - the Croatian journalists were yelling, Mahe Drysdale and Damir Martin slumped, and it seemed to take ages for a result. To be honest, I'm glad it went the way it did (see World Rowing's tweet for a picture of the finish!) as Mahe is a very decent man and I suspect this was his last Games. Martin is 10 years younger and will definitely have another chance.

The women's singles was an entirely different race - my flash quote reporters, being American, were thrilled with Gevvie Stone's silver which was very well-deserved.

And then on to the eights. Somehow I managed to be relatively free for the women's eights final so watched it, heart in mouth, on one of the mixed zone TVs with British Rowing's press officer Caroline next to me. The British eight got out to such a bad start but they paced the race brilliantly - although Romania's charge was incredible. Romania was absolutely thrilled with the bronze and sang a song when they got to their national broadcast interview, but it was so lovely seeing the British women embrace their coaches in the mixed zone (with the mixed zone team trying to shepherd them around the correct route) and then hear them speak about the way they approached the race and what it meant to them.

I was so busy typing up their quotes that I missed the men's eights final until I heard shouts for the Netherlands outside the tent, so I leapt up and rushed outside to see our guys cross the line clear. Caroline and I hugged each other and then it was back to work. But I did have a 10-minute window before press conference quotes came in to go and watch the medal ceremony and sing the anthem. I was very proud to be British.

After everything was filed and all the spectators had gone home we got a few shots of our little ONS team, and later more of the press ops team. It felt weirdly like the end, even though we still have a week of canoe sprints left.

Tomorrow I'm on athletics - the women's marathon in the morning and athletics in the evening. It's the men's 100m final so I expect it'll be slightly crazy. But that's what the Olympics are all about. Looking forward to it!

Mixing up the mixed zones

The past couple of days have brought home how massive a thing the Olympics is - both literally, and figuratively. Literally in terms of the thousands of people involved in making it happen, and in the size of the stadia (and of Rio); figuratively in terms of how much competing means to the athletes.

Two races in particular drove this latter point home. Yesterday it was the repechage of the women's quads, in which Australia lost out for a place in the final - it's particularly brutal when there's only seven boats in the quota and six final spots. The boat featured Kerry Hore, on her fourth Olympics and with a bronze from Beijing to her name. When the Australians came back to the mixed zone later they all gave interviews to the Aussie press and I managed to run over for the end of the written press bit, by which time poor Kerry was struggling not to break down. She'd given so much for so long and going out in the rep was not the ending she'd hoped for.

Today, it was the lightweight men's four, which is always incredibly competitive. On Saturday the unfancied Italians won the heat, GB made it into the semis as planned. Today the Italians got out to a rapid start which nobody could match. France, GB and the Kiwis were trading second, third and fourth through the race and the NZ sprint was too much for the Brits. Remarkably, five of the six boats in their semi were faster than all the boats in the other semi - conditions didn't change that much in 10 minutes so it'll be fascinating to see what the final result is. It's always disappointing when a British boat loses and more so when you know someone in it even a little bit. The crew came back later and were calm, measured and gracious in defeat, which was somehow just as heartbreaking as watching Kerry Hore's tears the day before.

Apart from that it's been a weird few days. On Sunday we hung around at Lagoa watching the wind blow until they finally decided to cancel racing for the day, at which point it got even windier and I was dispatched to help out at the swimming. Not, of course, that I saw much swimming or even the inside of the pool; after a long journey on a media bus trying to avoid the roads closed for the cycling I saw only the mixed zone.

But it was good to experience a different sort of mixed zone where they have the luxury of picking the people they speak to in the knowledge that they'll all have to come by straight after the race - unlike in rowing, where we usually don't know which athletes will respond to the request for an interview or when they'll do it. It was also weird to be back in a swimming environment after so long away from the sport and I was reminded how different swimmers' bodies are from rowers'! Chad Le Clos was probably the biggest name to come by, but we got some great quotes from British swimmer James Guy too about Adam Peaty and his 100m breaststroke world record in the heats. ("I said to him, 'Peaty, don't smash it'. He said 'no, I'm going to effing smash it'.") The subs edited out the effing.

Sunday's cancellation at the rowing meant that FISA decided to squash two days' racing into one, which made sense as yesterday was originally a short day. It was a fairly standard sort of day racing-wise with no major upsets really apart possibly from the Danish Olympic champion LM2x who didn't make it straight to the semis. 

We weren't done until about 2.30pm and then I had to hightail it up to Deodoro to help out at the hockey. Rio's Olympic 'cluster' system means that venues are in four zones; Deodoro is miles away from Copacabana and hosts equestrianism, rugby sevens, volleyball, canoe slalom, mountain biking and hockey (and probably something else I've missed). I thought I had public transport sussed but clearly not as they've helpfully closed the station nearest to the Deodoro Olympic Park and you have to walk back from the next one along. That meant I was lost, outside the park without the right accreditation, and late, which wasn't a brilliant start to the evening. I'd also not had time for lunch, which at 5pm was fine but was less so later.

My colleague Will had to go to the rugby which was why they needed another hand, so he left me with instructions and extremely accurate match predictions and I watched some hockey. International hockey is fast, aggressive and good entertainment and I quite enjoyed it although I couldn't work out why teams were penalised or anything like that! I also got to watch Britain comprehensively beat India, which was nice.

It was, however, a long old day by the time I finally got back to Copacabana and today was another long hot day in the mixed zone. We got some good stuff today though. I finally managed to talk to the Danish LM2x who are only in Rio because the Belgians decided to race Hannes Obreno in the M1x instead of their LM2x who won the final qualification regatta ("we're very lucky to be here," Rasmus Quist admitted). Czech Olympic W1x champion Mirka Knapkova told me that when she sank in her pre-race warm up it was the first time she's ever fallen in (!) and Kim Brennan, who'll probably be the new W1x champion later this week, revealed she likes doughnuts and especially the ones with pink icing someone gave her for her birthday. It's that sort of personal chat which makes things fun.

Tomorrow, if the weather gods are kind, is our first finals day. Woohoo!

Day one. Done

After three weeks of training and waiting, the Rio 2016 Olympic Games are finally here - and what a first day we had at Lagoa!

I slept badly (I blame the combination of opening ceremony excitement and mixing beer and a capirinha) and woke early, so decided to just get up and go. I arrived at the lake as the sun was rising over the most incredible flat water. It couldn't have been more perfect.

Yes, this was the morning before the storm

Even before 8am it was hot, and when me and my two American student flash quote reporters (Olivia and Shauna) went to the mixed zone it was starting to get very hot.

The mixed zone, for those unfamiliar with the term, is the area in a sporting event where the athletes mix with the media. They do broadcast first - NBC is the first pen, followed by our colleagues on the Olympic Broadcasting Service/Olympic News Channel, and then BBC. Then it's radio, and finally print and digital press. In ONS we have a privileged position to stand in the OBS pen and listen to their interviews, which is extraordinarily useful as they're often the only people to get a decent interview and always one of the first.

In the mixed zone our job is to produce flash quotes - quick, pithy quotes which journalists can use if they want to create their stories. Ours are also used by World Rowing so if you want to see the sort of stuff we produce check out their Olympic live blog.

Shauna, Olivia and I developed a pretty good method today. We had two computers and I needed to check over their quotes before sending them to be subbed and published, so they alternated between standing in the OBS pen and taking quotes and writing them up. I hovered to pounce on athletes to get extra quotes or quotes from people who'd bypassed OBS. After a slow start when I thought that nobody was going to stop, it all kicked off and in total we managed to get quotes from almost 30 athletes or crews over the course of the five hours we were there.

The topic was almost entirely about the weather. Although the first couple of races were pretty good the wind then kicked up with a vengeance and it became a survival game. Although the men's races went pretty much as I expected there were some surprises in the women's singles - especially in heat one, where a 22-year-old Mexican lightweight took on the race with utterly no fear, posted the fastest time of the day and beat favourite and London 2012 bronze medallist Kim Brennan. Nigeria's first-ever rower Chierika Ukogu, who I interviewed last week - a very impressive woman - also had a good race, leading Olympic champion Mirka Knapkova to the 1500m mark.

Then in the men's pairs Serbia caught a crab and capsized, which I totally missed because I was busy interviewing someone else. In the women's doubles Australia caught a little crab and then Greece, chasing hard, caught a proper boat-stopper. It was all quite dramatic and every single person who came off the water said that it was the worst conditions they'd ever rowed in. We had to stop putting in quotes about how atrocious the conditions were because there were simply too many!

I had a comedy few minutes when the British doubles came through. There was a bit of a scrum to interview the women, and they were playing drums nearby and Katherine Grainger's got quite a quiet voice, so I couldn't hear a thing. I gave up and went to interview the men's double, who were disappointed with missing the semis but pragmatic about it. The women were still hanging around talking to the fans watching on from the spectator pathway next to the mixed zone, so I checked with the press officer Caroline that I could grab them for a couple more quotes. But all the fans wanted selfies with Katherine and Vicky Thornley and I ended up taking a bunch of them before I could get to speak to them. I apologise to anyone whose picture I messed up ...

By the time I left the lake at about 5.30pm it was glassy calm again. I suspect the schedules may move around in the next few days. Please pray to the weather gods for everyone racing, and those of us covering the event. I'm not sure I can do seven more days of quotes about waves.

Corcovado and Cristo Redentor on foot

My roommate Lisa and I might be from entirely different backgrounds and the opposite side of the world, but we've discovered we have several things in common - apart from a love of aquatic sports, we both like walking when we're sightseeing. So we were the ringleaders in trying to get some of the ONS gang to walk up to Cristo Redentor, or Christ the Redeemer, the towering, iconic statue atop Corcovado. Corcovado is one of the many hills surrounding Rio and it has an enviable position with views out across city and bays.

Cristo from Lagoa

Walking is one of three ways to get to the top. The other two are the cog train, which leaves from Cosme Velho, and the 'vans' - minibuses, driving up from Copacabana or Paneiras. I did a fair amount of hunting for some decent instructions for the walking option and found enough to convince me it was doable, although many blogs were a couple of years out of date.

It isn't the longest or the hardest walk in the world but it is quite steep and I wouldn't recommend it if the path were at all wet - a lot of it would be incredibly slippery. Trainers at the least are needed and I was quite glad of my walking boots. Take plenty of water, even on a Brazilian winter's morning it was warm and muggy. My Garmin watch measured the walk at about 3km with about 700m of climbing and it took us just under two hours with a number of pauses. I'd say anyone with a moderate level of fitness would be able to do the walk, it might just take some people longer than others. We were passed by a couple of guys running down, which was probably excessively energetic!

You enter from Parque Lage, on the north shore of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, near the Botanic Gardens (but a different park). Going into the park, follow the paths to your right and climb up, turning right if you hit a fork. There's a map just inside the entrance to the right but we didn't really need it.

Parque Lage is pretty. It has landscaped gardens with a magnificent house in the middle which has been taken over by Team GB as their hospitality house for the Olympics. On a Sunday morning it was, bizarrely, full of expectant couples having their pictures taken - lots of women with their hands on their bellies, that sort of thing. There are also monkeys.

In the north-east corner of the park there's a small hut where you have to write down your name and emergency contact details for somone, plus where you come from and how many people in your party.

Then the trail starts. It's narrow, but clear with waymarkers the whole way, and for the first 45 minutes to an hour it's reasonably steady. Then you hit a portion which is much steeper - but there are plenty of natural steps and tree roots to hang on to. After about 10 or 15 minutes there's a rocky bit, where there's a helpful chain and handholds to haul yourself up. It looks much harder than it actually is.

The steepness continues for another 10 minutes or so after that, then you cross the train lines, and then you get to the road for the vans. It's a short walk up the road with views starting to appear, and then you're at the base of the statue.

Getting in is easy. There's a lady selling tickets for walkers - R$24 in July 2016 - which, should you wish, will also take you back down a van to Paneiras as well as give you entrance to the monument. You can choose to walk up a few more flights of steps or take a lift then an escalator to get you to the viewing platform itself. Even on a pretty cloudy day this was thronged with people, mostly taking selfies or pics of their friends or partners or families. But the statue is incredible and the views, through broken cloud, pretty good too.

We had a drink in the cafe, which had surprisingly normal prices considering it's a tourist trap. We debated getting the van down and then plumped for a train, which costs R$22 down if you've walked up. There's a man selling train tickets just next to the lifts.

Botafogo through the clouds

You do not need to buy tickets in advance on the internet, as the official site says, and as I read on some blogs. Even our colleagues who went up on the train just got them at Cosme Velho, although they were there early.

Me and Lisa doing the touristy thing

The train down took maybe 20 minutes and we had to wait for about 10 minutes for one to arrive. It was fun, though not terribly comfortable! Then we just got an Uber to Botafogo, as we wanted some food, although Largo de Machado is technically the nearest metro station at about 30 minutes walk from Cosme Velho.

So it ended up being a good morning, despite the clouds, and I'd definitely recommend the walk.

Rio de Janeiro: a few initial tips and observations

With five days to go until the Olympics begins (woo) I know a few friends are heading out here to watch things. So I thought I'd do a slightly premature blog with a few observations about life in Rio, although I've only been here two and a half weeks ...

1) Transport

Is, to be frank, pretty hideous and I think will be the main issue once the Games get going, although the Olympic lanes are supposed to be swinging into action. There's a metro, but at the moment it has just two lines. Line 4 (don't ask me what happened to line 3, really) opens for accredited Olympic personnel tomorrow and to people with 'RioCards' (like London's Oysters) on Friday. Just in time. The Metro itself is great, the trains are frequent, air conditioned to the extent I'm often cold in shorts and t-shirt and reasonably cheap at R$4.10 for a single (about 95p). I'm not entirely sure the Olympic card they're selling, at R$160 for seven days, represent good value unless you're planning a lot of travel, but on the other hand it's convenient not to have to get tickets every time and this will give you access to line 4, which gets you much closer to many venues.

Women have women's-only carriages for rush hour, which is lovely. They're much calmer than the mixed ones, although still crammed with people.

There are about a million buses and picking the right one is confusing. There's an app called Moovit which helps a little bit but nevertheless I find it hard to know what bus to get on. Our boss said don't use buses, but I have done a handful of times in affluent Ipanema and it's been fine. I'm not sure I'd get a bus at night. Bus tickets are R$3.80 for a single, and you can pay by cash. You have to go through a turnstile to get to the seats so the driver is separated from his passengers.

There are a number of 'BRT' (Bus Rapid Transport) buses which have dedicated fast lanes, and in the centre they've recently opened a tram line, although it's not very long yet. Seems popular though.

Taxis are pretty cheap and Ubers cheaper and plentiful. Ubers are also good for avoiding language issues, although we had one the other day who took a very roundabout route to get us back to Centro from Copacabana.

If you need to go between Centro and Barra di Tijuca (the Olympic park and village area), ask to go on the Linha Amarela. This is a toll road and adds about R$6 to your journey but it's usually tons quicker than the other route through town.

To get to town from the airport, I'd recommend one of the blue 'onibuses'. They go from outside the terminal (turn right as you leave the building, don't cross the road) and mine from GIG to Centro was R$14. Taxis can cost you over R$100. Although again, maybe not if you arrive late. The bus people can tell you which bus to get and they're pretty frequent. 

2) Safety

The streets are bristling with soldiers with rifles, police, and what look like state security guards - in Centro they're in red and white uniforms labelled 'Centro Presente'. All are armed.

There have been a handful of high-profile incidents involving athletes or journalists but to date I haven't felt unsafe anywhere. I've been pretty careful, although I have had my camera out a lot. I've walked a lot and I think the key is to make it look like you know where you're going. My main advice would be remember Rio's a big city, don't wave valuables around in quiet, unlit areas and don't go out late alone. I won't say don't go out in the dark alone as it's dark by 6pm at the moment, being winter. I've walked back from Uruguaiana metro station to the hotel a few blocks away at 8pm alone and it's been fine, although hanging around Uruguaiana isn't recommended as it's not the most salubrious district.

Basically, use your common sense, stay alert, and if in doubt, hail a cab.

3) Food

Brazilian do lunch properly. This means in the business district, everyone decamps from work for an hour or so and has a restaurant lunch - usually a buffet. Sandwiches or lighter fare is tough to find. There are 'juice bars' everywhere, some of which also sell various forms of pasty-type things (empadas) filled with meat or cheese. If you're lucky you might get a cheese or cheese and ham sandwich.

Round the touristy areas there's a lot of restaurants which stay open in the evening too, selling various forms of meat and fish, usually with rice and a sort of garnish called farofa - toasted cassava flour, sometimes with additional ingredients, which Brazilians have with EVERYTHING. It's actually quite good. Steak is omnipresent and the most common fish is tilapia. Sides tend to focus on rice: rice and beans is a staple here. Vegetarians are not well catered for but the fruit's great, I'm having melon, pineapple and mango every morning for breakfast at the moment.

Street food is pretty good although the choice is limited.The main savoury options are kebabs (steak or chicken, often served dipped in a sauce and coated in farofa) or tapiocas, which are a kind of pancake filled with your filling of choice. I had a cheese and tomato one the other day which was really rather nice. These things cost between R$5 and R$10 a portion. Then there are carts selling popcorn everywhere, and many of the tapioca stalls also sell churros and sweet tapiocas as well as the savoury versions.

Decent coffee is not that common. There are a few proper cafes but my roommate's had a couole of really dodgy cappucinos in normal cafes. At the venues, all the Brazilians have their coffee in little espresso-sized cups with loads of sugar; they have incredibly sweet tooths here.

Drink is generally beer. This often comes in giant 600ml bottles in their own little cooling bucket which you share between your party in tiny glasses. Or you can ask for a 'chopp', which is a glass of draught beer of about 300ml. By the beaches, it's capirinhas but I haven't managed to have one yet. Fail.

4) Environment and lifestyle

Rio is a big city and it's not the cleanest city. It can smell pretty rank in places with the stench of urine as people pee on the streets. There are a lot of homeless and the poverty is evident - as is the wealth if you go to places like Ipanema.

Despite the traffic when you get to the beaches or the Lagoa there are a lot of people running and cycling and the average weight is definitely less than in the UK. Brazilians care about their appearances!

The plumbing system is also not great and while it's fine in our hotel everywhere else I've been has signs saying don't put loo paper in the loo. For those of us used to doing this it's a weirdly tough one to remember, even if you're looking at a sign ...

Long Lagoa days

I've now been working from the Lagoa stadium most days for just over a week. It really is a stunning venue, with the statue of Christ the Redeemer looking down over the lake and hills all around.

For the most part, the water has been pretty good. On several days including today it's like a mirror in the mornings with the wind picking up slightly in the afternoons. Yesterday it was much worse with white caps in parts of the lake, and they postponed the start of training, before opening the course only from the 1000m mark.

View across to the stands

Of course the mainstream media have been mostly focusing not on how flat the water is but on how clean it is. There was a bit of a fuss last year when a number of the US junior team got sick at the Junior World Championships, although given that very few other athletes got ill it does seem as likely that the Americans picked something up on their flight to Brazil or through eating something dodgy as through the water. US rower Megan Kalmoe wrote an excellent, passionate response to the negative press last week (which, reproduced on The Guardian, picked up a whole bunch of people saying she was over-privileged and moany and missing the point that she thought the press should focus on some of the more serious problems in Brazil).

A friend introduced me to Manoela, a Brazilian journalist and rower who trains out of Botafogo rowing club, and she kindly took me out in a double last week before the lake was closed to non-Olympic rowers. Manoela says she's been rowing on the Lagoa for 20 years and has never got sick. You wouldn't drink the water (it's partially salty anyway), but equally a few splashes are unlikely to be harmful. They're monitoring quality every day and the word is that at the moment, the water in the Lagoa is the best quality it's been for years.

Botafogo is one of several clubs around the lake. Flamengo is the one most-affected by the Games as they row basically from the finish line and their whole area is taken up with Games stuff. There's a permanent rowing stadium on site and a cinema and restaurant complex - we're in there, along with the workforce and athlete dining areas, and they're using a cinema as the press conference room! Then they've added an extra grandstand and all sorts of tents for everything needed to run an Olympic regatta - it's quite an operation.

I'm working from the venue media centre alongside a great group of mostly Brazilians in the press operations team, led by our venue media manager Cora who I worked with in London. Although my job is less operational than theirs I'm trying to help a bit as they prepare the media centre for journalists, who arrive next week when we open for business properly.

At the moment we're arriving fairly early (although it'll be earlier during competition). There's a quick team meeting and then everyone gets on with what they need to do. I check social media and news websites for any updates about rowers or canoeists I ought to be aware of, and then about 9.30am I've taken to heading over to the boat park to see who's around. ONS writers get privileged access which we have to be careful not to abuse, so I'm mostly looking for coaches who are hanging around waiting for their rowers to get off the water to ask if I can speak to the athletes.

Ergos. Ugh.

So far I've been aiming for some of the less well-represented nations. Obviously I want to speak to the handful of defending Olympic champions who are back for another shot at gold, but chances are we'll interview them several times during the competition. My challenge is to hunt out the stories behind some of the other rowers - the Angolan lightweight men's double scull, the first Angolans to row at an Olympic Games; the very sweet and slightly shy scullers from India and Vanuatu, absorbing everything with hopes of achieving their best possible results; the incredibly young Chilean lightweight women's double, who are both just 19; the lovely Polish Wierzbowska sisters who despite being complete opposites are having in a ball in their pair; and former Oxford Blue Michelle Pearson who's made it to the Olympics to row for her native Bermuda and had brilliant things to say about Title IX.

It's great fun, although there's been a fair bit of hanging around, but I've finally got the technology working to take my laptop to the boat park and get online while I wait.

OBS interviewing Phil Rowley, coach of the Angolan LM2x

Once I've got enough quotes, whether through an interview I've done or through listening to an interview done by the Olympic Broadcast Service (who do basically what we do, except for television), I head back to the media centre and file the quotes and maybe a story from them. There's usually some research or admin to do too. Lunch is much like the food we had at the MPC - salad, rice and beans or pasta, a cooked veg, and a choice of a veggie option, chicken/fish, or beef, then something like a chocolate mousse or a bit of fruit.

Later on I tend to head back to the boat park to catch the afternoon training rush, although it's a little quieter then. Currently we have perhaps a third of the nations present and New Zealand is the only big team - they had a few boats training from Sunday and everyone else arrived today (cue a few starstruck people eyeing the nailed-on-for-gold Kiwi pair). France arrived today too and Australia started getting their boats on to racks; we're expecting the USA and GB in the next couple of days and then it'll be really busy.

Next week our press ops volunteers arrive, in time for the media rush, and also my two American 'flash quote reporters' who'll be helping collect reactions from the rowers after they race. It'll be good to be a bigger team ahead of the Games beginning on 6 August - only eight days to go!