After floripa we went to Praia Grande (Big Beach), oddly named because its quite far inland and miles from anything more than a creek. Its the closest town near the Aparados da Serra, a national park in Rio Grande do Sul (the most southern state.) We stayed in an Albergue de Juventude (a youth hostel) that we highly recommend should any of you be along that way. Its an hour drive from Praia Grande along a rocky dirt road to the national park, but unforunately it was so cloudy and misty that once we got there saturday morning visibility was limited to about 30 feet - not good for viewing the amazing canyons that are the park´s main draw. Disappointed, we pressed on to Canela, so we could visit Parque do Rio Ferradura and Parque do ... read more

Faith again here. We drove to Florianopolis on sunday and went right on through. The capital of Santa Catarina, "Floripa" is half on the mainland and half on Ilha (Island) de Santa Catarina. Most of the Ilha is BEACHES and small towns supported by tourism. its the off season now, so we got a room with a porch facing Praia da Joaquina, on the east side of the island and facing open ocean. Praia da Joaquina hosts the Brazilian Surfing championships every year, so every day by 7 or 8am there would be twenty surfers in the water right by our hotel, and that number would grow and top out at about 50 or 60. The beach was pretty long - it took over 2 hours to walk to the end, one way - and there ... read more

The bus arrived in Manaus at 6 am. When I got out off the bus I had a temperature shock. It was so hot and humid at 6 am, I couldn’t imagine how it would be at noon. I had 21 hours to kill in Manaus before my flight to Belo Horizonte, the end of my trip. I had originally planned to take a boat down the Amazon River to Belem (4 days), and the bus from there to Belo Horizonte (3 days), but I have to be home before the end of the week, so I substituted a 4-hour flight for the 7-day land trip. Manuas is the only large city in the Amazon, with 1.5 million people. It lies by Rio Negro, which becomes Rio Amazonas just a few miles to the east. There ... read more

Caracas is an overcrowded and poluted city stuck in a valley between two mountain ranges. The traffic is horrible, the streets are dirty, the buildings are uggly and the center is loud. It is surrounded by endless slums where the huge black, indigenous and mixed population live. The center has a few nice colonial buildings that are very well preserved - about six of them. The other few hundred either look like old gigantic cardboard boxes or are new constructions that resulted from the combination of too much money and a lot of bad taste. One of the two tallest towers in the city caught fire and was never renovated, it is just a skelleton above the 20th floor or so. The country side is not any better. Through the endless bus trips I took I ... read more

Cartagena is one of the most beautiful colonial cities I have seen. The old town is surrounded by a wall built by the Spanish to protect it from the many attacks from pirates. It was a main port to Spain during colonial times and goods from all over South America went through Cartagena, making it rich, but also a valuable target. Phil, Sjoerd, Paul, Eva and I left for Santa Marta after three days, Sjoerd was feeling much better, but Eva was giving signs of being sick, we were afraid that she had got whatever disease Paul had. ... read more