You can stand under my Favela-ela-ela ay ay ay

Next day we went for a Favela tour. Rocinha, the biggest favela in Rio. Amazing. We got a motorbike taxi from the base of the favela. No pics of this as we were under strict instruction not to get our cameras out. We blatantly looked like a bunch of visitors taking in a tour anyway, but I guess you don’t wanna wiggle a camera under a muggers nose. Anyway, the bike to the top was insane and definitely one of the top 5 moments of our whole trip. It was madness. Weaving between buses and cars, winding round lanes clinging on to the bike for dear life watching the main streets of the favela whizz by. If anyone is planning a trip to Rio this is a must. So we walked our way from the top of the favela all the way back down again. With a guide of course. Making our way through the little back lanes. We stopped at a local artist’s studio where I almost bought an awesome painting for £400 but bailed in the end. Stopped at an orphanage too. For anyone who remembers our orphanage trip in Bolivia, they will be pleased to know no children we’re left crying this time.

In the afternoon we took the old tram up to Santa Teresa. A lovely apparently ‘arty’ part of town. Had a lovely ‘last supper’ (lunch) with our group and bid our farewells.

There are a lot of gaffs around here.

Electricity comes from as many people as possible plugging themselves into the nearest powerpoint. This results in a tangled mess.

Chistian the tour leader and I decide to take the extreme option on the tram – holding on to the side rather than sitting. It wasn’t that extreme and lots of people seem to do it. I thought I’d get involved too.

Marta & Mel. It was Mel’s birthday. We bought her arguably the best umbrella money can buy, but have no pics of that so you’ll just have to imagine. The more keen eyes will have spotted the lady behind looking rather concerned. She had a beard so she was quite right to be weary of our snapping.

Our taxi back from Santa Teresa was wicked. The driver was a nut job and very welcoming. He dressed me up in Flamengo (Local Footy team that just won the league for the 1st time in 17 odd years) celebratory regalia and insisted I kept it. What a dude.

River of January

Rio De Janeiro translates as River of January. It wasn’t January but it was making a pretty good effort at being a river. Have you ever seen a photo of Rio without sunshine? No me neither. Sadly this torrential rain was belting it’s way all over Rio state and we pulled into the city in the pissing rain. This was the last day of our organised tour. Although we had 9 more days by ourselves in Rio we figured we would as a group cram in the city tour together. 1st stop Corcovado – Christ the redeemer. Not many people get to see this particular view of the giant statue of Jesus. The main reason being no-one is stupid enough to make the trip all the way to the top of the mountain to barely see the head of the statue due to abysmal levels of visibility. The pics below are actually clearer than it was to the naked eye. We pressed on and took in a few more sights that were less dependent on such heights & weren’t shrouded in mist. Rio De Janeiro Cathedral. An epic building that looks like a headless shuttlecock from the outside and just massive from within. Escaderia Selaron – The rio equivalent of the Shell Garden in Jersey. Anyone familiar with Jersey will know this is a huge compliment. It really was quite engaging scanning all the many different tiles the Chilean creator Jorge Selaron has picked up on his many travels and residences over the years. And finally sugarloaf mountain. (More of this & corcovado later).

Anyone seen (one of the best James Bond films of course) Moonraker? Remember the bit when Jaws (The big guy with metal teeth) bites his way through the cable car cable to scupper Roger Moore’s getaway? Well that’s what I’m re-creating. Yes I did feel stupid. But the least I could do as a tribute to such a fine romp.

Ilha Grande

This island is paradise. However I think only when it isn’t raining. It was raining. But you could still see it was gorgeous. But it was wet. And when I say wet I mean absolutely torrential bat-shit crazy rain. I went to a nearby internet cafe as our hotel PC was stuggling under the weather conditions. During this time the rain stepped up to another level. I thought I’d make a run for the hotel. A couple of seemingly old dears were slowly ambling in front of me with umbrellas. “What inconsiderate clowns” I thought. “Do they have to walk so slow?” So I legged it past them only to discover the reason their pace was laboured. All of a sudden I was wading in about 20cm of water. So as I legged it passed them I managed to splash all and sundry. It was pointless running as 1 second under this rain was enough to soak you through, so every further second was an inevitable accumulation of insults to injury. Still. Lovely place. Look even in the rain. These photo’s were however taken on the moments when the rain let up. You knew that of course.

The owner of our hotel didn’t beat around the bush when it came to colour schemes.

This place was called the black beach. There was black sand. You work the rest out.

The rain fell and fell and fell. And when we left it was still falling. Showing extreme cunning I located what I had calculated to be the best seats on the boat for hour hour long journey back to the mainland. I honestly couldn’t have picked a worst spot. No-one was as wet as us.

BBQ on a Boat

Our next stop was Ilha Grande. An ultimate paradise island just off the coast of Paraty. We loaded up our taxi (Donkey) and hopped on our boat that took us through rough seas, calm seas, torrential rain & baking hot sun, all over about a 6 hour period. We caught fish, we snorkelled, we drank more Caipirinhas, played cards, then dropped anchor near the island and had arguably the most delicious barbecue I’ve ever had. Music was playing, sun was out, this was one hell of a moment.

Note to self. Don’t get sunburnt.

Large candle

Paraty gave us our 1st taste of the amazing breakfast of Acai. Something we pretty much ate at some point every day until the end of our trip. It also saw one of Rio’s biggest local teams Flamengo win the league, so huge celebrations & street parties ensued. It was also one of our travel buddies – Claire’s – birthday so we all ate stacks of pizza & she got a cake. Cake pic below. And that really is 1 big regular candle in the middle of the cake.

Take that and Paraty

Another seemingly endless journey took us from Iguassu to Paraty. A beautiful coastal town just south of Rio. This journey was 22 hours by public bus via Sao Paulo. Some local idiots decided to make the journey feel even longer by shouting all night long & somehow creating the worst smell in the world – I honestly thought someone had taken a dump in the aisle. Not a lot of people were happy about that. So 22 hours and a couple of completely random ‘service stations’ selling unrecognisable food later we arrived. Relaxed in the hotel room while some Brazilian holiday makers chose to serenade us at full volume and fully out of tune whilst one of their kids kicked a football at our bedroom door for about an hour. Seeing as we were pretty tired we were clearly well up for this. I was glad to see later a discarded guitar with all the strings broken so someone had got there before me and put us out of our misery. We managed to pull ourselves together, have a lovely meal, drink lots of caipirinhas and dance to Kung Fu fighting into the early hours.

The next day we hit the local sites. Waterfalls, natural pools, swinging on Tarzan ropes etc. This was great. The truck journey into the rain forest was not for the faint hearted. The tour of the Cachaca distillery was awful but that’s not the point. End of ramble Start of pics.

Paraguay don’t we do it in the road?

Second part of the third day in Iguassu we head to Paraguay. I think this was illegal as we didn’t go through any passport control, but there was some kind of pseudo-official gate we drove through. Goodness knows. We were only going for a few hours. We were told we could pick up a bargain. 10 minutes in I remembered I hate shopping. But once we got to the street sellers we were snapping deals up left right and centre. I bought the new Sunglasses & two watches I am sporting here.

And Marta picked up a new watch some sunglasses too.

We also bought a watch as a Christmas present for someone. It stopped by the time we got home. When we took it to the shop the watch fixing man said “You might as well throw it in the bin”. You win some you lose some.

Here are some general pics of Paraguay streets. And some chaps putting up a billboard sign. Health & Safety hasn’t kicked in here yet.

(n.b. Yes. The headline puns are getting progressively weaker)

Dam that’s big

Final day in Iguassu & we took a trip to see the awe inspiring hydro electric plant known as Itaipu. There’s just too much info to tell about this place so if you are interested tuck into this (hopefully reliable) link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu

If you’re not then just look at the pics. We watched a film beforehand telling the story of the place. It was also inspiring, incredibly forward thinking and triumph for co-operation between two countries (Brazil & Paraguay). The world needs more ideas like this.

Two T-Shirts

Iguassu (Iguacu) Argentinian side

Day 2 in Iguassu and we cross the border to Argentina which was all very exciting. On this side though we took a motorboat ride right up to the base of one of the biggest falls. No photos of this as the camera would have been drowned in a second. Also on this side you can take a series of walkways to the ‘Devils Throat’. Right here you stand on the brink of the biggest fall. It is pretty intense. The spray from the crashing water rises higher than the waterfall itself. We got soaked. We then took a small rowboat trip back to the entrance. The captain/rower seemed to be averagely confident about taking us all & at one point we were certain the tow of the river was going to lead us all back to the Devils’s Throat but he got us back safely in the end.