Chlordan

We just spent five days in Rio and it is an amazing city. We were lucky to stay in a really social hostel so we met tons of other travellers. We did some sightseeing in the city to check out the main sights, like the Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks the city. This was one of my favourite activities since we first stopped at a lookout to take pictures of the city and then went all the way up to the lookout right underneath the statue. The day we went it was hot and the sun was shining, but the statue was still shrouded in mist, which made it look really cool. On the same tour we also stopped to see this really amazing urban art project. An artist from Chile decided to tile and ... read more

We took a train from Curitiba to a place calle Morretes (spelling?) and then a bus to Paranagua. There we caught an afternoon ferry to Ilha do Mel. We arrived at Ilha do Mel and found a hostel on the beach called Zorro´s. Probably one of the nicest hostels we´ve stayed in. AND, it was almost DESERTED so we got an entire dorm room to ourselves with a private bathroom. It rained for the first day and a half, but that did not stop us from taking out ''big red´´ the surfboard (which was over 2 metres in length, the biggest surf board we have ever seen). The ocean was rough that day but the water was SO WARM! Definately in the high 80s. We had sun on our third and fourth day. More surfing, swimming, ... read more

Florianopolis So, we took a bus from Montevideo to Florianopolis. It was an overnight bus, and the bus attendants took our passports and entry forms from us when we boarded. We then woke up in the morning (in Brazil) with our passports stamped and entry forms complete...............no questions asked, no awakening at the border.............easiest border crossing ever. It was also the same deal when we entered Uruguay from Argentina. When we got to Florianopolis (which is on the Island of Santa Catarina), we boarded a local bus to take us to the other side of the island to a place called Barra Laguna (i think). The island is beautiful and we quickly noticed how active everyone was. Lots of joggers/walkers/surfers/swimmers. We checked into a hostel that Katie recommended, The Backpackers Shared House, which had free surfboard ... read more

Rosario..............finally some warm temperatures Rosario is four hours northeast of Buenos Aires.....it is inland and the temperatures were finally SUMMERY! We didn~t book a place here and wandered the town for about an hour with our backpacks in the heat, getting turned away from two hostels before a receptionist at the second hostel phoned everyone in town, and finally we checked into '' LA COMUNIdad''. Highlights of Rosario: 1. Thunderstorm in the morning 2. Hailstorm in the afternoon 3. Sunburns/tans between the thunderstorm in the morning and the hailstorm in the afternoon. We went to the beach on an island. We had to take a ferry. It was really cool that there was beach sand on this river. 4. Met a plastic surgeon from Buenos Aires (note: BA is a hot spot for plastic surgery and ... read more

Two updates in one day! So, Buenos Aires is pretty much everything we had heard and more. We stayed in a very nice neighbourhood, Recoleta, which is close to the center of the city. It was undoubtedly the biggest city either of us had ever been in with a population of around fourteen million. The central area doesn´t feel overwhelmingly large but driving into the city took a very long time. The hostel was stayed in had a really good location. It was close to the expensive shopping district and the cemetario de recoleta, one of the coolest things we saw while in the city. The cemetary reminded us of pictures we have seen from ones in New Orleans with these amazingly ornate masoleums housings not just individuals but whole families. While we were there we ... read more