The second leg of the Dragoman tour started in Manaus. Only 7 of us this time. We had a 2 day drive to reach Venezuela and the landscape on the way was stunning with very pretty green farmland and lush forest. We saw macaws and lots of parrots. Our night stop was at the equator, a scrubby, grubby patch of dirt with a bizarre marker, a rock with a funny hockey stick through it. It was a nice evening, the sounds of the parrots in the forest replaced by the sounds of the frogs. One of the young girls got spooked [View Full Entry]

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Leaving the Pantanal, we had 1400 km to cover to get to Porto Velho and we had to do it in 2 days to meet up with Carlos again for a jungle trip. It was a hot trip. The landscape was sometime stunning with farmland dotted with palm tress and patches of forest. But a lot was burnt and ugly. Somewhere during the first day the sun disappeared behind a think layer of smoke. This got thicker until we stopped for the night. There was a petrol station and a patch of orange dirt across the road. Pieter spotted a hotel [View Full Entry]

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We drove for two days to get from the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park to Poconé. Being so dry it was a spectacular drive but we did see half a dozen toucans and an anteater on the way. Our first stop was at the slightly bizarre and run down resorty Hotel Fazenda Aguas Clara still in the Goiás state. The man in charge tried to push up the prices and in the end we took rooms because he initially wanted too much for camping. There was a swimming pool and a dark lake. I wouldn't dive into that! The next night [View Full Entry]

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For our stay in the National Park area we stopped at Alto Paraiso to pick up our guide. Pulling into the Rodoviaria (bus terminal) of this little town we had our first indication that we were in hippie country as a barefooted rag-topped lady came onto the truck trying to sell us her jewellery. We were not going to see any toucans during our visit to the National Park but we saw one there in a tree next to the bus terminal. Go figure. Sao Jorge is a lovely small town on the edge of the National Park. We stayed at [View Full Entry]

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Brasilia is an expensive city which I guess justifies staying at a horrid little place like Pousada Vila de Zen. We had been quite excited at staying somewhere with the same name as our cat, Zen, but when we were given the small, airless room between the kitchen, laundry and loo we soon lost our enthusiasm. We had arrived after dark and the area around the pousada looked really devoid of life. But just a couple of corners away was a lively shopping street with two very nice restaurant/bars and a handy supermarket. Franz, the co-driver of the Dragoman truck, had [View Full Entry]

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Gus was a V6 Mercedes truck customised by Dragoman to carry up to 23 passengers. Happily we were 2 of only 8 people on this trip. Lucy and Franz were the drivers making 10 all together. On the way to Ouro Preto we all agreed to make a stop at Congonhas to see the collection of prophet and passion sculptures by Aleijadinho. Aleijadinho was a famous sculpture and architect who continued to sculpt after his feet and hands had disappeared, most likely due to leprosy. The church was beautiful, set on a hill top with the prophet figures on the staircase [View Full Entry]

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Arriving by bus in Rio we could see the Christ the Redeemer statue on the hill. We took a fixed price taxi (R$18 or US$9) to our hotel. Hotel Paysandú was the joining hotel for the Dragoman tour we would be taking through Brazil and Venezuela. It is a lovely old hotel in a pleasant part of town but they did give us one of the nastiest rooms our first night there. It was smelly and small and we were woken at 5:30 am by the kitchen staff and their pots and pans. We asked for a different room the next [View Full Entry]

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I think that if we didn't have friends in Sao Paulo we would have had a hard time in this huge sprawling city. 20 million people in the greater metropolitan area. You can drive for ever and still have a view in all directions of high rises to the horizon. It was scary big. We were staying in the district of Precizes in the spare room of Ana and Daniel, on the 5th floor of a nice apartment block, with their two lovely dogs. They took us all over the place during our weekend visit. We had our first experience of [View Full Entry]

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Antonio met us at the station. We didn't know Antonio but through the couch surfing project he had invited us to stay with him. The site has location software that tells people where you last logged in from. When we were at Iguazu Falls the software incorrectly showed us as being in Curitiba and Antonia saw this and invited us to meet him or stay with him. He was a great guy who immediately took us on a little tour of the city, showing us the landmark greenhouse in the Botanical Gardens. His home is a little green house from the [View Full Entry]

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The Uruguay to Brazil crossing was the most anxiety (and the most fun in retrospect) we have had in crossing a land border. There is a big city that straddles the border, called Rivera on the Uruguay side and Livramento on the Brazil side. We arrived early afternoon at the bus terminal on the Uruguay side. We made the mistake of asking for the Brazil border. About 4 or 5 blocks north we found the border with a bustling market (Brazilians taking advantage of Uruguay prices) and a square with both flags standing in it denoting the border. Otherwise it was [View Full Entry]

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