On Saturday the 23rd I left Salvador and got a bus to Lençóis, a 6.5 hour drive west of the city. The drive to Lençóis was a bit different - I had never seen scenery like this in Brazil. It was during the blazing heat of midday that we passed through other towns in this agriculture interior that seemed desolate, poor and ugly. The vegetation around wasn't very green - just scrub and cacti, with the odd hill in the distance. Lençóis was a different matter though. It is an old diamond mining town of 9000 people that now relies on [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone I headed up to the North-East by myself on my first solo leg in Brazil. Salvador, capital of Bahia and previous capital of Brazil was where my plane landed. The city has a different culture from the south; much more influenced by African culture as this was the first stop for the slave ships. It also has a lot of colonial architecture since it also where the Portuguese first landed. Once I had gotten a local bus into town from the airport (over an hour away!), I did the usual touristy thing - museums, shopping in the markets and [View Full Entry]

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Both Australia and Waitangi Day were celebrated in São Paulo with pavlova, lamingtons and ANZAC biscuits. They were a hit with the Brazilians. :-) Emma flew out on Wednesday night so it is just me now and it is quite an odd feeling. Vanessa also starts back at work soon so we will see what I get up to in the next few days. PS. Brazil 1 Irlanda 0 in the soccer - good effort Ireland! [View Full Entry]

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Spent the next weekend in Sampa before heading to Angra Dos Reis on the coast of Rio De Janeiro state. Junior (a friend who I also met in Dublin) had joined us by this point and the six of us squished into the car for the 6 hr drive. We were staying in a house that was literally on the beach. The lush green mountains nearby meet the ocean here and we spent our languid days swimming, eating and reading. I had a Portuguese lesson from Vanessa, which I quite enjoyed (she teaches English here so she is very good at [View Full Entry]

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Emma and I left Vanessa in Floripa and headed on another bus to Porto Alegre, which is 7 hrs south of Santa Catarina. We spent only one day in the city, which had only a few nice parts to look around in. The night we spent there was funny (now we look back on it). Extremely cheap accommodation - that was right above a bus port and was extremely noisy. We couldn’t close the window (it was broken) to block out the noise or the mozzies. The fan also didn’t work and it was still 30-something degrees that night. Slept in [View Full Entry]

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The day we got back from Foz we got cheap flights to Florianopolis and we booked it about 4 hrs before it actually boarded, so packed in a hurry. Mairon and Marcio were joining us three girls this time. Flight was delayed; got a bit of a Brazilian history lesson from Mairon, flight was delayed again; dozed in our chairs, and the flight was then cancelled at about midnight. We blame Vanessa and another of her jinxes, but we got a night and breakfast in a nearby hotel. We were picked up by Marcio’s friends who we were staying with. Floripa, [View Full Entry]

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A few days later Vanessa, Emma and I took a bus to Foz do Iguaçu, the closest Brazilian town to the famous waterfalls. It was an overnight trip that was meant to last 16 hrs, however it broke down and we spent about 4-5 hrs on the side of the road waiting for a new one, so we arrived quite late the next day. When we arrived we took another 2 local buses to reach the actual waterfalls. What I will always remember about these trips was the heat, carrying our backpacks through 40 degrees and humidity of 90%. But it [View Full Entry]

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Flew back to São Paulo for a few days. Marcio had been the wedding planner for a couple who were holding it at one of the fanciest buildings in the city and Vanessa was also working at it, so Emma and I tagged along to the reception (with the bride’s permission of course). Had a wonderful 3 course dinner and watched some traditional Portuguese dancers that were there as entertainment. The 5 of us spent the next night at Marcos’s place. He is a friend of Marcio’s and has lived in England and the US, so he speaks English very well. [View Full Entry]

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Emma and I arrived in São Paulo late on the 3rd of Jan, before we had actually left New Zealand, since we crossed the International Date Line. Aerolineas Argentinas is the worst airline ever and we were sick of travelling, but I forgot all about my discomfort when I saw Vanessa at the arrivals. It has been 13 months since we last saw each other - I still remember saying goodbye outside our apartment in Dublin, saying we would see each other in Brazil, which I can’t believe has just come true. Marcio (her uncle - who I also knew from [View Full Entry]

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Wow, I haven’t written in about 1 and a half months but I will now update you on what I have been doing. After my last entry I spent a bit of time in Wellington, met a Canadian who was living there and climbed Mt Vic with him. Then I hopped on a bus to Taupo. I had previously visited but I was going to spend some more time there with my friend Emma and her family. I sat next to a nice Aussie guy on the bus who had spent the last two months stuck in the jungle in Queensland [View Full Entry]

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