"Beautiful day. Glorious. I needn't have brought my jacket..."

Me and Ioan decide to visit Corcovado - Christ the Redeemer statue which overlooks Rio.

We catch a taxi outside a shop in Santa Teresa, and we are off in what I can only describe as a bile curdling journey by a driver who is hell bent on meeting his maker. We swerve dangerously at high speed from one side of the narrow road to the other as we make our way up the long, and twisty road to the top of the mountain. Jesus looks down at us with his wide stone arms welcoming us up.

I don't want to die on my way to meet Jesus, i say to myself, as I try desperately try to stop myself form being sick.

We arrive safe and sound at the redeemers feet.

We decide to tell Schumacher not to wait, we'll get another taxi down the hill, thanks!

The monument is unbelievable. 39.6m tall, high on a mountain 750m above the sea. But it is the view of the city that takes your breath away. Its like a prehistoric land dotted with skyscrapers at the shore and iggledy piggledy favelas clinging on to the hillside for dear life, and all surrounded by rainforest. Amazing.

I film Ioan reciting "Treftadaeth" for the Cydweli 900 celebration.

And we make our way down the hill in a leisurely taxi ride to meet Wallace Cardia at Spectaculu. The meeting is arranged by Paul Heritage of the People's Palace, and it is great to see a school which trains young people from the favelas to become professionals in the creative industries. Photography, set design, set building, make up , and costume design are taught. The school receives its funding from private sponsorship, and donations. It is an impressive programme.

We get a bite to eat in Santa Teresa and then prepare for our performance of the Wallace play at Tavares Bartos a favela, whose views over the bay look out onto Sugar Loaf.

We arrive promptly at 8, at the Maze Inn, the home of the prolific Bob Nadkarni, who at six years old, tore a picture from a magazine, of a little white house fringed with coconut palms and stuck it to his bedhead.

Not dissimilar to Wallace.

The website describes Bob (http://basebrazil.com/):-

"Son of a clergyman and a playwright, Bob studied fine arts in London, was sculptor on Stanley Kubrick's 2001, A Space Odyssey, a war cameraman in the Middle East and a BBC TV correspondent in Brazil. During the making of more than four hundred documentaries, he broke bread with rich and poor, poets and gangsters, cowboys, ministers, thinkers, musicians, generals and mothers of the tortured. He wandered through dazzling palaces and the rubble of destroyed civilisations. Longing to return to painting, he opted to build a studio home in a Rio favela. Underneath he created a community centre with adult literacy schooling and a free pre-natal clinic followed by an art gallery. Then in 2004, the idea of The MAZE Inn was born so that open-minded people could stay amongst the real Brazilians and feel the pulse of Rio de Janeiro. Bob is married and has four children, is preparing his next exhibition and writing his first novel."

The performance goes well, and the name of Alfred Russel Wallace is introduced to another group of people.

This impromptu evening is arranged by Bill, our host at our hotel, who during the week had mentioned that he loved Under Milk Wood, so me and Ioan read the beginning of the play for him.

Interestingly none of the audience had heard of Dylan Thomas either.

What is it with Welsh geniuses that they are so easily overlooked.

The evening ends with us listening to the band, whose singer studied languages in Cardiff, and who speaks welsh.
It's a small world - but I wouldn't want to paint it!

Flutterby

I answer the door of my hotel room, and who is there but Wallace. ARW.

I have called Ioan early - 7am to film some sequences from the play. We go up to the garden behind the hotel. Planes fly low over the rooftops and destroy any attempt I have of creating an explorer in the jungle in the mid 19th century.

But we get some stuff. A huge blue butterfly flutters by and I try to film it. But I am so cumbersome, I'm like an elephant charging through the undergrowth that the butterfly effortlessly flits by and disappears.

I realise how patient you must have be to be a wildlife photographer, and light on your feet, must help too.

I thought we would see an abundance of insects and butterflies, but that butterfly was the first I have seen while we have been here, but I suppose we are in the middle of a city, so we decide to venture into the rainforest, and so on Saturday before we fly home, we will be taking a jeep tour to Tijuca National Park. It is the largest urban forest in the world, home to 30 waterfalls, hundreds of plants and trees and at least 100 different species of animals, and right in the middle of Rio.

So surely even I will be able to capture something on film!

Angenoo, Ildeu and Elasticity!

A taxi picks us up at the hotel to take us to Museu Da Vida, for meetings about the next stage of our collaboration.

The taxi driver asks for "Angenoo". That's me! That's how he pronounces Geinor- I love it.

So off Angenoo and Ioan go to the museum.

Museu da Vida is described as...

"A space of integration between science, culture and society, the Museum of Life aims to inform and educate in science, health and technology in a creative and entertaining manner, through permanent exhibits, interactive activities, multimedia, theater, video and labs"

Diego and Bruno take me and Ioan around the beautiful castle, which encapsulates the idea of merging science and art. This beautiful building was created as a laboratory, for scientists to discover vaccinations, but the setting is breathtaking. Moorish inspired architecture, which when you are inside reminds you of a Escher drawing. The carving of the wood and glass panels, that decorates the interior are unique to each floor and room.

We then arrive late to a meeting (very brazilian!) with Rosicler, Clara, Wanda and Gustavo, to discuss the next step in our collaboration with the museum. They explain that the children who see our play take part in activities related to themes of evolution. It's fascinating, because we have a similar model back home with our collaboration with Swansea Museum.
They have an excellent exhibition about Wallace and Darwin, with images and pictures which will be great for our project in the autumn, and some of the activities which illustrate evolution are fantastic and I ask if it would be ok for us to use the same activities for the children back in Wales.

I discuss how we at Theatr na n'Óg create our education resources by working with the Professional Reference Group and also having teachers seconded to the company to create the resources with us. They seem impressed by the way the company collaborates with teachers.

It make me realise how well set up we are in Wales, and how advanced we are in what we provide for young people in Wales. It is unique and priceless.

The meeting is held in English and Portuguese and we discuss the potential of our Webplay project, where children from our area will be able to communicate with young people in Rio, using the play about Wallace as a focus. It is very exciting and everyone is enthusiastic about its potential. We set an action plan and now the true collaboration begins.

We bid them all goodbye, and exchange pens!

Luisa meets us and takes me and Ioan out for food with her husband Ildeu Moreira.
Don't even ask how you pronounce that! Apparently no one can.

It is a lovely evening Luisa and Ildeu are very funny, and we discuss a variety of things from trips up the Amazon to the theory of elasticity! Yes and all over pizza and chips.

Ildeu shows us books about Robert Hooke, the scientist who is famous for many things but mainly for first applying the word "cell" to describe the basic unit of life. We are shown his microscopic illustrations of bugs, fleas, flies, from the 17th century. It is fascinating, and could be a great show for young people. I start to think about the story.

We end the evening with Ioan signing up to a trip up the Amazon in 2013, and Luisa and Ildeu signing up for a trip up the Usk in February.
I know which one I would go on....