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 [View Full Entry]

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Ahh...at last, another iconic moment in the trip...(and another misuse of íconic´)..but still a significant milestone in the journey...to get to the most famous and exotic of Brasil´s places..Rio de Janeiro...and just for starters..its not a bloody river at all..the turkey who first landed..way, way back, thought it was and so named it..the next bozo that came along didn´t have the nouse or the courtesy to re-name it...like Porto de Janeiro, no, he wants the first bugger to have wear the ignomy for all time...anyway... Into the most beautiful city in the world, they say.....across the longest [View Full Entry]

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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-tes [View Full Entry]

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OMG he´s back again...riding an unusual high, inexplicable and maybe just getting over the travails of the past few days...and knowing where I am, I think!..its Arrial DÁjuba..maybe..does it matter?... On email - I´d sent one off to someone and hoping they hadn´t just hit the ´delete´button automatically, assuming it was another useless rant or offer of something unnecessary, unwanted or unobtainable...I love opening my email after a spell and seeing lots of entries, then despair seeing all the usual offers to either make my dick bigger or my mortgage smaller...is it the same operation?..the [View Full Entry]

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Well, another team decision to stay, or really a lack of any real decision to move on, and we stay another day in another spectacularly boringly, over-inhabited by beautiful people and all the beautiful trappings, and all the touristy gift boutiques and galleries(?)...who comes to a beach resort and needs to buy art?....and its low season so at least one can negotiate better deals and the service is keenly offered...restaurants are fantastic but you wonder, when they are empty, just how fresh are the crabs?...I saw an old woman with a bag of crabs yesterday and wanted to follow her to [View Full Entry]

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OK devotees, back to the keyboard after a few days off...in this episode we continue down the coast of NE Brasil, getting a taste of several states, I get drugged, deserted, mugged but rescued in Salvador, we continue to pass thru too many inumerable cute towns and gorgeous beaches to count...(but if you want the travelogue, check the discovery channel...or national geographic)...so, whats really happening? The notes in my little note book are getting more cramped as I´m down to the last couple of pages...not that theyre the last few pages, just the last few usable pages as every notebook sta [View Full Entry]

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Calling in from a little beach place just north of Fortaleza...Monday morning and still a few people left after their weekend away...I´m still loving Brasil, wierd language (Portuguese) that, overheard, could be German, French, Russian or a lot of others...fortunately my limited español seems to work....the people are curious, friendly and cheerful....to us anyway!...amongst each other there´s a clear pecking order and an enormous inequality in wealth...however, notwithstanding the fact that I´ve not met any of the really wealthy (and probably won´t!) who may well have a sense of duty etc...bu [View Full Entry]

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Similar, but less intense than my disappointment at finding no small dogs in Chihuahua is the lack of those big nuts in Brasil...tempered by the fact that I like small dogs and those nuts are only fillers in the mixed nut collections!...however, too early to digress! And this is the 2nd attempt as the fcuking computer just bombed and dropped a few pages of gems!...ahh cést la bloody vie! So, reflections of Manaus I´ll publish later, suffice to say a great intro to brasil..so the boat ride..the fabulous Amazon Star...3 levels of fun and excitement...after 12 hours wondering if I´ll survive [View Full Entry]

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A PS at the start...thats novel...but I cant take responsibility for the pix...dont know what happened but they look shite to me...but its really hot, sweaty and Im meeting my new little friend in 2 mins...so.....read on... But its not really the Amazon...but it is amazing...its the Rio Negro and the confluence with the Amazon is 20 something kms downstream... But, back to the start...early start again and off across the deserted sabana... The road is perfect...lovely new bitumen, long straights and long curves, no one else around...have a bit of a fang to enjoy the newly serviced machi [View Full Entry]

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A bit of a backdated issue this time as I´m really in Manaus...yes, on the real Amazon...(in fact its not on the Amazon but thats another story!)but more of that later! Where to begin?...and this will be abbreviated as its exy here and uncomfortable...but for you, hey, gotta do it. Got the bikes 20,000 km service in Caracas...Andrès, our man in BMW organised everything fantastically, new tyres courtesy of Herr Florian at Continental, Germany...the BMW guys did the fuel filters as well so hopefully that sorted my probs.....some cockup communications notwithstanding we were led out of Caracas [View Full Entry]

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