A week in Brazil...

... really isn't enough time to see much of the country! Whilst in Bolivia we had decided we were just going to skim the surface - to really get to know Brazil would take several weeks if not months and would have jeopardised the chances of us making it to Argentina, Uruguay and Chile before the end of the year. So the plan was to stick to a week, see Rio and Iguazu Falls and then move onto the next stage.

As a result I can't really write much this time, any more than someone who has been on a week's holiday following the tourist trail, which I suppose is pretty much what we were doing. We bussed to Rio via San Paolo (the largest city by population) - I remember thinking it was great to be back in a first-world country where the restaurants had something other than fried chicken and alpaca on their menus.... on the other hand everything was back to London prices so I was relieved it would be a short stay as I was rapidly burning through my budget.

I was slightly disappointed by Rio, which I have to admit is largely my own fault. Over the previous weeks I had been busy imagining what this legendary party city would actually look and feel like. In my version the beaches were jam-packed with stunning girls in skimpy bikinis - naturally all smiling and trying to catch my eye - but the reality turned out to be a few hairy men dotted along the sand in speedos that, as is often the case, were a couple of sizes too small... to be fair we had also arrived in a week of cooler weather with a thick haze cloaking the city. I think it gets busier nearer the end of the year and of course for the Carnaval so maybe another time...

On our second day we set off to see the Sugarloaf Mountain, a 400-metre granite peninsula which juts out of Guanabara bay, just north of Copacabana. One of the highlights of my trip was sitting down at the half-way station to watch a ten-minute video on the history of the sugarloaf's cable car company, which is apparently second oldest in the world: I thought they'd leave it out - but no, in the last few minutes they acknowledged the scene in the Bond film Moonraker where Roger battles Jaws whilst suspended in carriages halfway up the mountain. There really is a pattern forming here...

Christ the Redeemer is impressive but I felt it's actually more awe-inspiring to see it from a distance - at the site itself I thought outdoor escalators leading to the statue were taking things a bit far, along with the inevitable busloads of tourists (of which I have to admit I am one) it kind of detracts from the image.

The 24-hour bus journey we took from Rio to get to Iguazu Falls was a memorable one. Apart from shattering my previous long-journey record by a further 12 hours, things seemed fairly comfortable... until about six hours in when two guys got on and sat in the seats behind us. The one behind Bernard promptly unleashed his bare feet from whatever they'd been contained in for the last 365 days.

Now over the years I've been subjected to my fair share of unpleasant foot aromas in the likes of school dormitories, changing rooms and so forth - but the smell here was nearly indescribable. It wasn't just the pungent vinegary odour (as if that's not enough): there was definitely a bouquet of old-and-slightly-decaying-poodle-breath (something I'm familiar with from sitting in cars with some of my older relations' dogs when I was growing up). Of course there were no windows to open and naturally the bus companies are loath to make the air vents or light switches above your head actually work. No matter how much we tried to waft the air, tendrils of stench would find their way back to us rather like a twisted version of the old Bisto adverts. In hindsight I think even if we didn't speak the language, throwing up onto his bare feet might have made a point...

On a more refreshing note the Iguazu Falls are simply breathtaking and don't disappoint. Because they straddle the Brazil/Argentina border, people typically spend one day on the Brazilian side (looking at the Argentinian side which has most of the falls) and then cross over the next day and do it vice-versa. We also took a helicopter ride to see it from above but actually I think it's hard to appreciate from in the air: you can get a postcard photo of the falls in their entirety but you get a much better view when you're actually standing in front of the thunderous roar of water cascading in a panorama around you.

After crossing the border and seeing the sights from the other side, it was time to plan the next part of our travels in Argentina. Once again the scale of this continent was conspiring against us - we wanted to get to the wine region of Mendoza which was about 2,000k away but the bus journey would have taken about 35 hours, something we couldn't face back to back after the other one. We explored hiring a car but strangely out here they add on a charge if you want to leave the car at another location - as it's based on distance this would have ended up being three times more expensive than the cost of hiring the car itself which I thought was rather daft.

In the end we cheated slightly and took a flight, vowing that from here on we'd have to get used to 30-hour bus journeys as a matter of routine, in particular heading to the southern cone.

So that's all for now - I'll update again soon though (I seem to have slipped past a few deadlines in the last few weeks!)

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