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Published: February 2nd 2007
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Well where do I begin... our entry into Brasil was interesting if not weird. As we came up to the boarder on the bus we had to get off and go through immigration, while the people just going to the falls for the day could stay on the bus. After obtaining our visa´s which requires filling in 5 lines on a piece of paper, and getting a stamp (no questions no bag search´s...drug runners dream) we sat down and waited for the next bus to come along to take us further into Foz Iguazu. As we were sitting there we realised no cars were stopped or searched, it was an open border it seems and anyone could just drive on through. Although there was a wierd thing that occurred, everytime a bus pulled up, everyone had to get off and wipe their feet, once on the Argentine side and then step about 1 metre across and wipe them on the Brasilian side before getting on the bus...really weird.
We managed to get a bus eventually (after about 3 passed us) but we were convinced that the driver dropped us at the wrong terminal, and we were in the middle of
View of the village
This is looking upstream the town with no idea where we were or how to get to the intercity bus terminal. Luckily (i guess) this guy came up to us and tried to get us to stay in his hostel that he was working for...we managed to convince him to tell us where a bank was so that we could get some money (as we only had pesos) so that we could get a taxi to the bus terminal. We had considered walking but luckily we didnt as it was a 15min ride in the taxi to the edge of town, and with the heat and our bags we would have died.
The bus ride to florianopolis was only 16hrs (a small jaunt into the country side for us) and we met a aussie girl on their who was going to the island as well, and we were going to go camping, but changed our minds and went with her to the hostel. On the local bus once in Florianopolis we met an English guy who had been at a hostel we were in earlier in Argentina who had been railroaded by a hustler into staying at his hostel...but the guy was a
Rickty Old Bridge
The only way across the river laugh and entertained us for the 30min bus ride (that would have taken a kiwi driver 45 to 1hr) in which we had the back of the bus sliding round hairpins. We stayed at a beach called Barra da Lagoa on the island of Santa Catarina, which is an island filled with surf beaches.
The place we stayed in was a small fishing village of sorts. And a local past time was standing on this bridge staring at the water below. People stood there day and night for a long time just staring. This bridge though, was a wire bridge with plywood as the floor. It was the lifeline for us getting across the river from the hostel to get to the beach and food. It was a rickty old thing that bounced and swayed at the best of time with just one person walking across it. There was a sign saying that the maximum load was 4 people of 280kg, but did anyone pay attention to it?? of course not and at one point when we were crossing it i counted 20 people on it, and the lovely comforting sounds it made, i just felt so safe :-)
Relaxing having a beer
ahhh what a way to enjoy the afternoon The river that passed underneath the bridge could get a rather strong current running at low tide, especially right under the bridge as the river was at its narrowest point. One day a fishing boat came in from a night out and was trundling up the river and got to the bridge and stopped the skipper gunned the engines to try and get through the rapids, this noise brought have the town out (and the everyone at the hostel looked up from their books as well). The engine was screaming and pouring out black smoke but to no avail, he was going nowhere fast and began to drift towards the rocks. They eventually made it through thanks to a crew member who whipped out a long pole and pushed the boat along (like those canal thingys in Venice)
The Hostel we stayed at was run by Aussies, and was at the end of the beach beside a river that ran back up to the lake in the middle of the island. We were slightly up the hill, so had a great view of the 8km long beach. The Hostel had a deal where if you stayed for 4
days you got the 5 night free, so needless to say Liz and i chose to stay for the 5 days relaxing at the beach. The hostel also worked on an honesty system with the internet and drinks where you took what you wanted and there was this massive blackboard with everyone´s names on it and you just wrote up what you took. The fridge was always stocked full with water soft drinks and beer (well it was drunk empty on one night)
We had great weather except for 1 day beautiful blue skies and perfect sunbathing weather. The English guy who we met on the local bus came to stay with us after 2 nights so we hung out with him and the aussie girl, although we did make friends with pretty much everyone there and it was just one big happy family.
On the first day there, we had lunch on the beach (literally chairs and table on the sand. We ordered a plater of stuff with the aussie girl, and it turned out that what the menu said was for 2 people could have easily done all 3 of us as we had 2 huge
fish, two plates of rice, salad and sauces, needless to say we were stuffed by the end of the meal. For the rest of our meals we usually ate at the hostel as they put on the best feeds at night.. we had a movie night with pizza (probably the best pizza i have ever tasted until last night..but that is another entry coming soon). Another night they cooked us roast chicken with mash potato!!!! mmmmm, lasgna another time, a BBQ. So we ate pretty well :-) for lunch we either went to a Buffet which you paid for by the kilo!! it was good, or we had these hot dogs which i fell in love with. They had, sausage, cheese, onion, corn, cheese, t sauce, mayonaise, and these really small chips mmmmmmm soo good i want to find them again :-)
We also stumbled across a buffet ice cream place that you paid for by the kilo as well :-) so you stacked up your bowl or cone with whatever flavours and lollies and paid for it, so good. You may be asking why am i writing about food and not the place and what we did, well the reason is, the place was heavan srunningly beautiful, and what we did well, sat on the beach and relaxed, and at night we played cards and drank. I would say it was probably one of the best places we have been mainly because of the relaxed atmosphere. We met a number of kiwi´s there as well so that was pretty cool, but everyone was more friendly than at other hostels we have stayed at and no one was left outm if people were off to get food or go to the beach you went around and asked if others wanted to come, it was truely a big family.
We were going to take a motorbike around the island but on the day that we were going to the bus drivers had a strike on so we couldnt get out of Barra de Lagoa and back to the lagoon to hire them. and then the next day we were too lazy and just sat at the beach.
After our long stay at Floripa we decided we should go see Aline (Brasilian girl who came to NZ on a student exchange while we were still at Glendowie) who lives in Campo Grande. We had exchanged emails and had her number so we jumped on a bus yet again and headed out west to the bottom of the Pantanal to see her. The bus ride was a mere 20hrs...............the story continues in the next installment of the adventures of the twins, coming soon to a blog near you (man that sounds lame but what the hey)
Lots of love
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