Mexico-Taxco , Panama City, Rio


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Published: June 9th 2007
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Hola amigos!

I can´t believe we´ve been in three different countries since our last blog. If I carry on at this rate, the next blog will be written when we get home! After our last posting, we travelled out of Mexico City to sample the colonial areas. We went to Cuernevaca, which had been recommended to us, but we didn´t really like it. We stayed longer than we should have done there, as it seems to have taken us longer than most to grasp the concept that ´travelling´ means that if you don´t take to a place you move on!

Our next stop was Taxco, which we really loved. It is similar to Positano in that it is set on a mountain and all the houses cling to it. It has windy cobbled streets and all the taxis are white beetles, which dart up and down vertigo inducing streets. The town was built around a silver mine and it is packed with shops and markets selling silver. This made me really miss my good friend and bling shopper extraordinaire, Sian. Bruce did a very good job of accompanying me on my buying frenzy but he can´t really compare to the person who regularly spearheads expeditions to Butler and Wilson! While we were there we spent a bit of extra money on an apartment with a kitchen and stocked up on food from the supermarket. Bruce got all Gordon Ramsey on us and started making all kinds of meals, including one that comprised of 5 different dishes. This was just for him because I had a stomach upset!

We then travelled back to Mexico City to fly to Panama. The airport was absolute bedlam and there was confusion with our tickets so we only got to the gate with minutes to spare and were put on standby. It worked out quite well because we ended up getting an upgrade so we had a highly pleasurable flight, although I was a bit disappointed to discover that the Veuve Clicquot wasn´t available! However, the excitement of being upgraded was rather dampened when we arrived in Panama to discover that our luggage had not made the plane.

When you fly in to Panama all you see is rainforest and it´s hard to believe there´s a city there. It´s quite strange in that the city is really modern and full of skyscrapers, but you only have to travel 15 minutes out of the centre to be in thick jungle. Because of the canal and it´s history, the city is a real confluence of America and Spain. We didn´t really take to the city itself, the business area in particular consisted mainly of casinos and strip clubs, although one particular casino enticed us with its advertising of 'crabs and craps'! The beauty of Panama lies in it´s proximity to rainforest and untouched beaches, and it was hard for us to take advantage of this because we were only there for a few days. It was really hot and the humidity was incredible; it clung to you like a damp coat all the time, and sometimes felt quite suffocating. We spent a day watching boats traversing the canal, which was pretty amazing. It is quite a feat of engineering. Bruce has some very good time lapse photography of a boat passing through the canal that we are looking forward to boring you all with on our return!

On the last day in Panama we decided to go for a hike in the rainforest. We checked the trails before we left and decided that we would do one that led us to a hill that overlooked the city and canal. After about 15 minutes of walking we came to a fork in the road and decided that the path to the right was the one that we needed to take. We followed the trail by looking for pink tags on the trees. It seemed a bit strange at the beginning when we had to practically climb over an upturned tree to get on the trail but we didn´t think too much of it. As we walked we were slightly bemused in that although this was supposed to be a main trail, we were wading through thick greenery and having to climb over things regularly to keep following the flags on the trees. No one seemed to have taken the path for years. After about an hour and a half of walking and still no sign of the lookout we were starting to get quite bemused. We would think we saw some light and were at the end of the trail and then it would take us on a winding path back into deep forest again. At some points it rained but the canopy overhead was so thick that we couldn´t feel it. It was a strange sensation listening to the rain but not feeling it. After about two hours of walking we were getting really worried. We didn´t have a phone on us and didn´t know how to get out. In another hour and a half our taxi would be arriving to take us to the airport. We had gone so far we weren´t even sure we could follow our steps back again. We also weren´t sure anymore if the tags we were following represented a trail or whether they had just marked out particular trees and we were on a wild goose chase! I had worn a skirt because I hadn´t realised we would be doing such hardcore hiking so I had nettle scratches all over my legs and we were both covered in dirt and sweat. Just as I started to get really panicky we suddenly saw a path that led us out of the forest and to the lookout point we had been searching for. We were so relieved. The view was amazing - the skyscrapers of the city sandwiched between the ocean and the rainforest. We soon discovered that we´d missed the trail we were supposed to take and taken some random route through the rainforest!!! We then had to dash back via the proper route to get our taxi to the airport. There were no showers at the airport so we had to endure a seven hour flight to Rio covered in a large amount of Panamanian rainforest!

We loved Rio immediately. It is such a beautiful city - the symmetry of the high rise buildings set against the organic shapes of the mountains and the shimmering lakes and sea is just breathtaking, especially from on high. Even the favelas look beautiful twinkling on the hills at night. It was so exciting seeing Cristo for the first time. Where as other major cities we have been to have had a European or American slant to them Rio felt distinctively Latin American. Although previously we had struggled a bit with the change when we went to new places, here we felt at home straight away. We found an apartment in Ipanema, two blocks from the beach, with a view of Cristo from the window.

We felt a bit overwhelmed with all the things there were to do in Rio and we did lots while we were there, including seeing Cristo Redentor, Sugar Loaf mountain, a football match at Maracana, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Niteroi (the flying saucer in the pictures!), surfing lessons, and tram ride to Santa Teresa. The beach was an experience in itself. People walk past constantly trying to sell you beer, food and souvenirs and Samba players serenade you whether you want them to or not! The men all wear James Bond type speedos and stand up to sunbathe when they´re not showing off their football skills, doing chin ups on the bars on the beach or playing volleyball. The women are all beautiful and have their bikini bottoms so far up their bottoms they are rather redundant!

As you will see from the pics, Bruce tried out tandem hanggliding and I went with him to watch. He was only just under the weight limit to do it so the instructor was quite nervous. He kept saying that Bruce had to run with him off the cliff because if he didn´t there would be problems. As you can imagine it is very common for people to hesitate and dig their feet in before they run off the cliff. If the people are small this isn´t too much of a problem because the instructor can just drag them with him but in the case of someone Bruce´s size, they would have a serious issue. All the way up the mountain Paulo, the instructor, was repeating to Bruce that he had to run off the cliff and not hesitate. We were so brainwashed that I was starting to think I might run off the cliff! We got to the top and Fred, who was doing it with us, told us that a few weeks ago someone had been hanggliding at that very place and the instructor had forgotten to strap himself in. They ran off the cliff and the instructor had plummeted down and the other guy was left to fly the thing on his own! Fortunately they were okay - the instructor had a parachute and the other person landed in a tree. Apparently it is on Youtube! Probably not what Bruce needed to hear just before setting off though!!!! Anyway, he got all strapped in and I stood there filming. Just before they took off Paulo said, ´are you going to run?´, to which Bruce replied ´I think so´... which concerned us all for a moment, but when it came down to it he ran off the ramp with no problem. The bravest person is probably the person that runs down the ramp and pushes the hanggliders from behind. If he doesn´t stop at the end of the ramp he´s in trouble! I would like to be able to relay some superlatives from Bruce about his hanggliding experience. Fred said that it was one of the most amazing experiences of his life, however, being Bruce, his comment was ´it was good, yeah´.

That night we went with our new friend, Fred, to the most amazing nightclub called Rio Scenarium. It is on three floors and each one is filled with antiques. There are live bands on all floors, french windows that open up to the bustle of the street below and fantastic caipirinhas. When we arrived there was a massive queue and it would have taken hours to get in. Fred ignored the queue, handed the doorman a bribe the equivalent of about a tenner, and we walked straight in the VIP entrance. When in Brazil.... I returned the favour later on by introducing him to someone very attractive. He got her name and number and when he googled her the next day he discovered that she was a supermodel and on the cover of Brazillian Vogue!

Another day in Rio, Bruce got up before me and said he was off to try and get surfing lessons. I said I´d see him later on the beach. I got up, got my orange juice and empanada, browsed a few shops and then went to the beach. Bruce wasn´t there but I wasn´t too concerned as I thought he must be surfing somewhere. I got a free massage from Paulo (In Rio everyone is called Paulo and you have to ask for them on the beach - there´s Paulo massage and Paulo surf at this section!) and then settled down in my sun lounger and other friends joined me. By four o´clock when Bruce still hadn´t turned up I was getting really worried. I knew that surfing was really tiring so he couldn´t have been constantly surfing and even if he´d gone to another beach to get better waves he should have been back by then. I headed back to the apartment to see if he had left me a message and check my mobile but no word. At six o´clock it was completely dark and I hadn´t heard anything from him since 10 o´clock that morning. I was really really worried. He had disappeared in a really dangerous city and I didn´t know what to do. I went to see Fred and he suggested that we went to the hostel that some of our friends were staying at and see if they had seen him. I was so relieved when the owner of the hostel said that he had gone off on a surfing tour with other people from the hostel. I said as much to her and she replied by saying, well he could still have drowned!!! When I got back at about 7, I got a text from him that he´d sent that morning saying that he was on a surfing tour and wouldn't be back until about 8 p.m. It must have taken ages to arrive because the text message was sent to my phone via the UK.

Although we loved Rio, being in a dangerous city could be quite difficult. The British Foreign Office advice for Rio does not make pleasant reading and on our way from the airport on arrival we saw someone being held up by the police with a gun. As with Mexico City, you can't always trust the police either - a friend of ours had money stolen from her by the police in Mexico City. Makes for an interesting situation when you have to go to the police to file a report on it for insurance! You have to make sure that you have 'robbing money'on you because if you don't have anything to give them they might think that you are just refusing to give you anything and hurt you. You also shouldn't take out anything that you can't afford to lose so we would have to just take money out for the day and not our bank card. In Mexico City we didn't keep track of how much we were spending and only just had enough to get home on the bus, which was slightly worrying! We only risked taking our camera when we were doing things like Sugar Loaf or Christo. Lots of people we met had been robbed including someone who was held up by a 10 year old with a gun. We were really lucky not to have any problems apart from being scammed into paying seven pounds for a shoe polish. Someone squirted something on Bruce's shoe without him noticing and it looked like poo. Another person suddenly arrived with a shoe shining kit pointing at it and offering to clean it up. I thought we might as well and didn't ask how much it cost but didn't imagine it would be expensive. He then charged us the equivalent of seven pounds and didn't even do a very good job! His demeanour did not brook argument so we paid up. Probably better than actually being robbed anyway!

While we were in Rio we also did a tour of one of the largest Favelas. You could never go in to them on your own but the people that arrange the tour know them well and contribute funds to the community so it is safe to do it with them. Some parts of the favelas do not have running water, plumbing or electricity and the police have no control over them - it is the drug lords that keep order. In the last few years there have been big battles between the drug lords of the different favelas so it has been particularly violent. As we walked through one of the main streets of the favela there was someone walking along with an a machine gun! Recently they have found landmines in one of the favelas as well, which is particularly scary. One of the most striking things is how close these favelas are to the upper echelons of Rio society. One of the most exclusive schools in Rio is at the foot of the largest favelas and there is a golf course at the foot of another one that is frequented by dignitaries including Presidents of Brazil and the U.S. As you are not supposed to build on the hills and mountains in Rio it is unusual in that the wealthy are all on the ground and the favelas overlook them on the mountains. In fact, they have some of the most amazing views of Rio. Although it is sad, we were glad that we did the tour and saw the other side of Rio life.

There's lots more to tell you to get up to date with what we've been doing but we will save such excitement for another day!!!!

All our love

Helena y Brucio xxxx






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