Navigates his way around the world then gets lost in a backyard blog!....I found the problem!...I backdated that blog "The Pear-shaped Puzzle" and its back in the pack at 2nd Dec. Ooops. But thanks to all the responses...its sort of gratifying to know there are so many of you still folowing the trail. But for those of you saving it for some verification later, well, that's another story...I mean some of these things have actually happened, some have happened to others, some have happened in my head.....some might have happened...I don't think any of them have maliciously not happened.....and over time some may happen in the future..my only aim is to try and paint the picture of whats going thru' my hhead at any given point of time ..and hope you an share the vision...its not ... read more

OK, I'll revise the previous opinion...yes, its pretty speccy...justifiably one of the 700 natural wonders of the world..the Cataratas of Iguacu!..They have it in 5th place, just above Niagra, on the list of the World's top waterfalls sign in the park....but they don't mention Salto Angel which we know is the highest...?..and on this side (the Argy side)they have miles and miles of steel walkways..all very cool and surprisingly unobtrusive...that is if you can build anything in a tropical rainforestpristine bushland without being a tad intrusive...so you wander all around and get fantastic views of the falls...and the falls go on and on and on...At the special viewing spot for this really big part called Throat of the Devil...theres a largish older woman at the rail...she's hacking and coughing like about to cark it...going on and ... read more

And in this section we cross the Foz, ride thru´a bit of don´t-cry-for-me-land, have a run-in with the cops, and win!, make the easiest frontier yet, discover another hidden treasure in Uraguay, choose the Devil over Eden, and more.... I was riding along this morning just contemplating some of the perfect pear-shaped bottoms I´d seen in Copercobana and Ipanema, in fact on nearly all the beaches, but in Brasil they are special....and I was wondering who was the unimaginative jerk, locked in some dingy office, riding his overneat desk thru´his boring life and came up with the sicko idea of describing something that has failed as Pear-shaped!...unbelievable...why not brick-shaped, or cuboid or flat or passionfruit-shaped..pears are so perfect, and in relation to body parts, absolutely perfect...if I was working on a project and it turned pear-shaped ... read more

Ahh, another of the biggest cities in the world and this is big...everything is big.....and its also pretty cool...We are at 22,000 and something kms and about day 150!...luckily guided in from the coast by Felipé with a bit of blue material sticking out the back of his car as its identical to 50 million other small black chevvies on this road...we pushed on from wherever we stopped in the last episode..its getting harder and harder to remember names of places...we play games with each other by asking..(and theres no parentheses on this keyboard!) :what was the name of the place we stayed 2 (or 3 or 4 or even 1) night ago?:..crazy..so many fantastic places here in Brasil, still knocked out by the friendliness of everyone...and the beauty of the scenery..boom boom. We rode nearly ... read more

Ah, a friendly lttle bookshop with an upstairs couple of machines and a comfortable chair......in this episode we move on down the coast, just a few observations and then to Rio. We´ve been thru big cane, big cashew, big banana, now it seems to be big pawpaw, or papaya again or another local name I haven´t fathomed...and really, its ´small´pawpaw not big pawpaw, but perfectly formed, of course....everyone seems to be planting pawpaws and theres been some genetic monkeying about as these ones have 15 or 20 smallish fruit clustered around the trunk just under the leaf canopy like some multi-testicled ostrich-gone-vegetable.... And the reactions altho´not any more frequent have been spectacular...like one little kid, obviously been waved at by Ted, he was about 10 or so, scrappy rags flapping as he jumped up and down, ... read more