georgielenf

'Hallelujah' screeched the woman a few seats away, 'God will save us.' She didn't actually say how or when this was going to happen but seemed utterly convinced that it would. She, unknowingly, had a captive and unimpressed audience. She continued shouting, and I think almost singing (if that's what you call it). She was even overcome with tears at one point. It was a great performance, although sadly I don't think she was really that aware of us. The suits - charcoal grey, black, pinstriped - were trying to ignore her. Some plugged into MP3 players or IPods, emitting audible repetitive beats, to block out the noise; others desperately trying to pretend she wasn't there disappearing further into their newspapers and books. The tourists - alarmed to start with, then almost enjoying the entertainment laid ... read more

Saturday 12th July We left Paraty on a local bus and had a very scenic 2-3 hour ride. We had to go through a turnstyle on the bus which was a bit strange - to count us on apparently. The scenery was beautiful. We were driving along the coast for pretty much the whole journey and there were so many amazing white sandy beaches. If that wasn’t enough you could instead take in the luscious green forest which looked even more stunning with the backdrop of the blue sky and sea and the white beaches. We arrived in another little town which I've forgotten the name of and found our boat. We had a 2 hour journey to the island. I was a bit cold as I didn’t have a jumper with me (it was packed ... read more

7th July - from the Brazilian side Arrived in Foz do Iguacu after another night bus and had a couple of hours to rest before being taken to see the infamous falls. I should point out that we were now in Brazil - well, that’s where we were staying - we seemed to be going in and out of Brazil and Argentina endless times. Ranked as the world’s second largest falls, Iguazu is located on the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Parguay. The Iguazu River forms a border between Argentina and Brazil with the best place to see the falls being from the Brazilian side looking towards Argentina. Hundreds of years ago the area belonged to the Guarani people, before the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese. In the Guarani language, Iguacu means ‘great waters’, which ... read more

Seeing as South America is the place to watch football, it seemed only fitting to go to a match. It was Racing Club (the local team) vs Belgrano. It was a big match as it was the last of the season and Racing had to win to stay in the premier league whilst Belgrano had to win to move up. After a lot of persuading we managed to get a taxi to take all five of us to the Racing stadium. There were so many people around shooting off flares and fire crackers. Riot police were everywhere. The atmosphere was electric. We managed to get seats in the Belgrano side. We queued up with the other fans to get searched and then went to find the section that we were supposed to be sitting in - ... read more

Goodbye Chile. We left for Bariloche and Argentina today on a bus that took around 7 hours. Amazingly passport control went without a hitch - although my bag was one of those picked out by another friendly dog (a professional sniffer dog this time though) to be checked. It was pretty much turned upside down and inside out. The guy even unzipped my washbag, unwrapped some of the souvenirs I had so carefully packed and basically made it very difficult for me to squash everything back in again. We arrived at about 1pm to a VERY VERY windy city. And it was so cold as well. It was supposed to be a great ski resort….when there’s snow….but there had only been 3cm so skiing definitely wasn’t going to be something we were going to be doing ... read more