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Published: December 29th 2008
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Hey Kids
How is all hope christmas was very merry we spent ours in a tent in the middle of literally nowhere but we{ll get to the that later we got Brazil to finish, yet yeh sorry we haven{t updated for ages, not sure why, been busy i guess. So from Salvador we went to Rio de Janeirio on a 28 hour bus ride, and saw lots of mountains and flooded villages then when we arrived in Rio we found out we{d just missed the biggest football match of the season ansd Groove Armada playing atop a mountain, but did meet some northerners who loved breaks so that was a bit of a revelation. On the morrow we headed to Pao de Azucar or SugarLoaf Mountain which is a lump of rock which sdits on the end of Rio and has a cable car up it but we decide3d to climb it which was darn tricky, Ali gashed his leg up again, its looking quite a fruiter now and then we ran up some horribly steep rocks with only cacti and ocean below but noone fell well neither of us anyway then we got to a bit
where you have to have climbing gear so we were going back down but then some guys who happened to have gear were coming up so we blagged them and ruined their day cos they then had no time to do more climbing but it did mean we got to see the sunset behind Christ the Redeemer then got to the top to see Rio and Niteroy descend into night. then the next day i{m fairly sure went to a terrible Modern Art exhibition the only redeeming feature was a Jackson Pollock, Number 16 to be precise was mind blowing, ali thought less. And so we spent a bit more time doing really bad Art Exhibitions although the Niemeyer one was good for the thunderbird esque architecture.Then we went Rio clubbing which was probably our first really good night out in Brazil, yhe i Know meant to be party capital of the world maybe on prolificness defiantely not on quality, I managaed to purchase a very dirty reggae hat for 10reais we danced like hjeck got bahoed went to some guys rooftop apartment in which he had a Neil Buchannan book then walked the wrong home and then walked the
right although we didnt know it at the time. Also in Rio we drank loads of cocktails went to a Fluminese football match at the Maracana they drew 1-1 and it was the left game of the season and they were 13th opponents already down so it meant nothing but the crowd still absolutely had it off , and i made Ali a bracelet then we were going to leave but missed the bus so spent a night in Copacabana which is like a big high rise feeding ground of gringos but Ipanema{s much nicer, then we actually got the bus to Foz du Igazzu which iswhere some absurdly impressive waterfalls are, they{re about 2000metres wide or something dow a valley so much freaking water. And thus concluded Brazil oh yeh and i lost my hammock, it was momentously sad but a couple of days later we were in Ciudad de Este, Paraguay and its only redeeming featurte was we bought a tent the only way to replace a hammock even if it does only come with four pegs the flysheet has no manner of means of keeping it away from the inner tent and there 3zips on the mozzienet
so where they meet theres a big hole, its beautiful. But that place was just a big grimey supermarket for Brazillians cos its all duty free and full of massive bits of beautiful camera equipment for horribly attractive prices, so ok it does have some plusses. from there we got a bus to the fairly middle nowhere, hoped off realise we werer 3km away from our campsite so trekked down the road hitched a lift turned up at this place which turned out to be a day retreat for rich encarnacions and there were lots of screaming kids and normal people and germans who ran the place i we stumble all dirty pitch a tent drink half their beer, played table tennis sang to frogs went on a walk and saw loads of butterflies and dead sunflowers oh yhe why we were there the Jesuit Missions, big bits of crumbling ruins which were pretty impressive and hitched a lift with a guy who looked like Leonardo De Caprio and then met a lawyer whose surname was Benitez and said he could help us out if we got into trouble in Encarnacion, unto which we went, secure in the knowledge that
we could get awya with anything, but there was absolutely nothing to attempt to get away with and now considering suing him for representing such a dull town. So we hastily vamosed to another wierd place with tennis courts, swimming pool beer, football, horses, grasshopeers nesting in their hundreds but there wasnt time to do the ruins not sure why so we went to Ascunsion. after one night in somewhere we felt to expensive we went on a hunt for cheap accomadation, after much searching and not being able to find some place whcih sounded really good we found Hotel Sheik. Was about20quid for 4 nights so we thought brilliant, then my havianas got knicked and the owner said well lots of people come and go in the night, defianltey though you{re meant to stay the night in a hotel then that night there were some women who were definaltey men outside and so we figured we had taken up lodgings in a Gay Sex Motel but nothing untoward happened and it saved a few thousand guaranis. in ascunsion we walked about looked at some sights Ali made us watch Casino Royale but atleast most it was set in South
America which was cool have to say they rehashed a hell of alot of old tricks especially killing a woman by covering her in a suffocating substance, darn Paul haggis and his unoriginal yet popular writings. On our last day we got a steam train which had lots of dressed up people acting out 19th century scenes, apparently they had suglasses and automatic pistols in those days, Paraguays ahead of the times. It stopped off in a town whcih basically sold statues of nativity scenes , met an english chap, i think the only one in the country. Oh and some guy in street asked us where we were from and England was obviously a good response cos he went off a 5minute rant whcih was something to do with communism and how the president should be beheaded, most interesting. then we went to Loma Plata in the middle of the Chaco which is the western half of the country but only has 3percent of the population, that population mostly being Mennonites from German via Russia and Canada (over a long period of time) but they all speak German and are whiter than even though its constantly 40degrees. So we
want ed to spend christmas out of town, though it might be a bit hard to organise but a guy from there who lived in canada and was visiting family phoned a guy got us a lift and we drove off to a watchtower on the edge of some lakes. We pitched tent, had a fire, then took lots of photos, saw armadillos , tapiar, flamingoes, loadsa other birds and dead crocodile, got caught in a thunderstorm whilst trying to find water. Onc hristmas eve were treated to the most spectacular lightning storm ever and saw web of spiders webs which was a bout 5metres across and had 200 spiders on it. then christmas morning we got up horribly early exchanged civilties and presents had crunchy nut corn flakes and champagne for breakfast, drank lots of whiskey cooked sausages with pepper onion garlic chili sauce had a siesta made vegetable soup then had a longer siesta built our second fire of the day and cooked potatoes with mozzarella, onions garlic, then had pears with cheese and watch a few hundred crickets fry themselves fairly crunchy not too much meat, and drank lots of rum. Boxing Day we went back to
loma, mostly slept, next day sat at a service station for 15hours got on a bus went through about 20 police slash passports checks and now we are in Bolivia.
Have a Freaky New Year eveyone happy birthday tweedie
much love
Ali and Tait xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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