Greetings from the Girl (and Boy) from Ipanema

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Hello from Rio and long time no speak. Since arriving here, we seem to have become infected with a serious case of what doctors would call ´Brazil-itis´. The symptoms are: not getting out of bed, wanting to go to the beach every day, eating and drinking too much and generally behaving like tourists on a two-week holiday, rather than travellers who have to make their life savings stretch over a year.

If ever there was a place to blow the budget, however, it´s here. Rio is an incredible city, with lovely beaches, gorgeous weather (even in so-called winter) and beautiful people, most of whom seem to have forgotten to wear any clothes. Seen from the statue of Christ the Redeemer that towers, swan dive-like, over one side of the place, it sits in a stunning crucible of mountains, natural lagoons and rather less natural harbours - and it´s difficult to argue with the locals who claim it´s the best-looking city on earth.

We have entered into the spirit of things by spending roughly four times what we normally would on a rather damp room in Ipanema, beside the prettiest of the beaches, and living it up in fairly large style. We won´t be able to carry on like this or we´ll be home by Christmas, but it would be fun while it lasted.

It doesn´t help that there is lots of great stuff to do around here. We spent our second night (and much of the next morning) watching the weekly samba practice for the Carnaval - a chaotic, drunken festival of booty-shaking that whole districts turn out for. It´s a serious business, because Carnaval doesn´t take place until next easter, and the dancing is amazing, although I consider myself lucky to have escaped without being forced to ´perform´, unlike some fellow English types who had to show the locals their moves.

The following evening, we went to watch a game at the iconic Maracana Stadium between Flamengo and Botafoga - bitter rivals from the suburbs of Rio. The football was frankly rubbish - even Brentford could have given either side a pasting - but that wasn´t the point as far as the crowd was concerned. They spent the 90 minutes dancing, chanting and 5ft-flag-waving so much that you couldn´t really see what was happening on the pitch anyway. Even though the stadium was barely half-full the noise was incredible and - Mum and Dad, look away now - we even got tear-gassed at the finish to complete the authentic terrace-dwellers´ experience.

We´ve also been for a meal at a local churrascaria, a meat restaurant where they served you piles of grilled stuff until you are literally begging for mercy. But the thing we´ve done that´s left the biggest impression is a favela tour - a visit to one of the 800 slums in Brazil where people erect their own houses on land they´ve squatted on.

We were in two minds about going, because we were concerned we might feel like voyeurs snooping on other people´s misery (and I did enough of that at work, ho ho). But we are enormously glad that we did, because nothing could have been further from the truth. The two favelas we went to were amazing communities; notwithstanding the fact that the police don´t go into them and drug lords rule the roost, the people who live there are full of life and cheer. They want to dispel the impression that favelas are crime-ridden hell-holes; many of them choose to live there, even though they have made enough money to move out, and the schools and local community projects are really inspiring to see.

We are entering our fourth week in Brazil now and our third month on the road, but we currently seem incapable of getting moving again once we arrive somewhere - probably because getting to Brazil from Bolivia was a three-day enduro that involved a 24-hour bus ride from La Paz to Lima in Peru (dictated by our super-cheap round-the-world tickets), followed by two further flights. After that little lot we were knackered, not to put too fine a point on it; and maybe as a result, we didn´t particularly take to Brazil when we first arrived here.

We started off in Salvador, a mad, intense city on the north-east coast given to riotious partying at the drop of a hat (and for some reason, always on a Tuesday). It was great in small doses, but on reflection probably wasn´t what we needed after doing so much travelling. Added to that, spoken Portugueuse was a real shock to the system. We thought that learning Spanish would help us (in hindsight, a pretty dim point-of-view), but the way that Portuguese is spoken at you here is so fast paced and nasal that it´s completely impossible to get your head around. We ended up taking a day´s lessons in a bid to catch up; the net result, unfortunately, is that we can now speak neither Portuguese nor Spanish properly, but I guess you live and learn.

Things improved hugely at our next stop, Lencois (pronounced Len-Soice), where we went trekking in a national park called the Chapada Diamantina. We spent two days diving into swimming holes, climbing dried-up river beds and sleeping in a cave as we walked to Fumacao, Brazil´s tallest waterfall. It was dry when we got there, but no matter - the whole place was mind-blowing. Given how lazy we´ve been ever since in Rio, we definitely need to get some more exercise on board when we leave tomorrow morning for the island of Ilha Grande. Given that it´s home to what´s meant to be Brazil´s best beach - some claim in a country with 4000km of coastline - I am not counting on it.

Before we go, there is something else we should get off our chest...

BOLIVIA - AN APOLOGY

In previous entries, we may have inadvertently given the impression that we didn´t think much of Bolivia. Looking back, we can see how phrases such as ´...the Bolivians are such hard work...´, ´...sullen and uncooperative...´ and ´...God, what a complete bunch of tossers...´ might have led you to believe this. However, we are now happy to state that nothing could be further from the truth. What a wonderful group of people, salt of the earth, won´t hear a word said against them etc etc etc...

Well, perhaps we wouldn´t go that far, but our final week in Bolivia before we came to Brazil was the best of the lot; and maybe the best of our whole trip. We went to an absolutely amazing place in the south-west of the country called the Salar de Uyuni - a few thousand square miles of salt plains, with the most remarkable landscape we´ve ever seen. Everything is eerie glinting white as far as the eye can see, to the extent that it´s impossible to retain any kind of perspective on the landscape and you feel you could lose yourself in the salt if you didn´t keep your wits about you. (We took some terrific pictures, too, only you can´t see them at the moment because we´ve managed to lose them - hopefully only temporarily).

Anyway, we ended up going on a three-day tour of the salt plains and the surrounding desert, which stretches all the way out of the Chilean border and is full of bizarre rock formations, lagoons and volcanic geysers. It was spellbinding by day and oh-my-God freezing at night. The front seats of our 4x4 were occupied by an extremely amusing group of Italians who cheerfully spoke Italian too us (and didn´t seem to mind days of non-commital shrugging and smiling by way of response) and taught us a terrific parlour game which involved, er, being completely silent. The first person to speak loses and has to sit the rest of the game out. To my amazement, Adele was a natural at this, whereas the Italians were incapable of going longer than about 30 seconds without uttering some sort of curse or exclamation. (Remind me if you fancy a game when we get back - the long winter evenings will just fly by...)

But it was a terrific experience, and one that made us look upon Bolivia in a different light. We were sad to leave in the end, because there´s nowhere like it on earth - even if its geography, climate and dismal economy make it the harshest of places in which to live. For example, we ended up getting a public bus back from the Salars to La Paz - an unremittingly miserable all-nighter which took 12 hours on often-unsurfaced roads in below-freezing temperatures aboard an MOT-less, legroom-free hellcart. It was the most uncomfortable trip of our lives, but it´s par for the course for most Bolivians, and with that in mind, it´s no bloody wonder that so many of them appear miserable. In fact, the only thing we can´t forgive them for is their folk music, which sounds like a string of Kenny G ringtones being played on Fisher Price instruments by the mentally ill. I wouldn´t be at all surprised if it was used by the US Government during rendition of terror suspects.

Anyway, that´s enough verbal diahorrea. If you´ve made it this far, thanks for reading.

Love
Rob and Adele x

CATCHPHRASE OF THE WEEK - No7
Adele - ´Oh my God, there was a dog back there with shoes on...´ A typical scene from the mean streets of Rio

OBSERVATION OF THE WEEK
Brazilians are like some Americans (but only some, Tamar) in that they seem to think that no other country exists in the world other than their own. This may go some way towards explaining why, at a local level, they have ABSOLUTELY NO SPATIAL AWARENESS WHATSOEVER. It´s comonplace to be embroiled in a frontal collision with your fellow pedestrians at full speed. (This isn´t always a bad thing on the beach, since the ladies carry their own airbags, boom boom.)

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Photos

Ipanema Beach
'What are they doing at work right now...?'

Christ the Redeemer
Swan-diving champion of Brazil

Rio
The most beautiful city in the world

Samba madness
Just another Tuesday night in Salvador

Swimming hole
Rob and his new, younger, laydee friends

Chapada Diamantina
We climbed that!

Brazil´s highest waterfall
Our Brazilian trekking buddy who reckoned that the English were crazy!

Chapada Diamantina
Monument Valley crossed with the Lake District