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Arriving into Brazil was easy with our taxi driver who just pointed to where we put our passports and that was it, no searches, no checks and within 5 minutes we were in. By far the easiest border crossing to date! We stayed over night on the Brazilian side of the falls before we boarded our final long distance bus to Florionopolis. We were all excited about this as it meant relaxing on beaches after zooming around Argentina and seeing the other 3 boys who had gone through Bolivia to Brazil for various reasons. As much fun as it was in Argentina with the 3 of us it was good to be back as a 6. The hostel was really beautiful and overlooked a lake and was a 5 minute walk from a really amazing beach. For the week we were there it pretty much involved getting up and exploring various beaches. On one of the tamer beaches we hired a surf board as the waves/current wasn't as crazy as the local beach. I also experienced a first in Florionopolis and that was attempting to skate on a ramp?! I learnt from the boys that Florionopolis has quite a big skate
scene with one of the best skaters in the world living there - Pedro Baros. I have to say, that guy makes it look easy, it is soooo scary!! I managed to skate up and down about a 1/3 of the ramp falling over about 3 times. It is pretty addictive though, I can see how people get so dedicated. I left it to Lanners and Zimmer after that as they are pretty impressive on a ramp. A few of us decided one day to hire mopeds to explore the South of the Island which I am so glad we did as it was beautiful and untouched. We sat on a the beach eating our standard picnic lunch of a roll with cheese spread and all around us was mountain and greenery it was so beautiful. The following morning Lanners and I woke up early and took the bike to a beach I had read about called Moçambeque. For miles either way it was just sand, sand dunes and blue sea with only us on the beach, that was until a guy tried to surf and he got in about 100m to the right of us and then floated across
100m to the left of us within minutes not catching any waves. A strong current and clearly not a beach for beginners but great for an early morning walk.
As our days were quite relaxed we decided on one of the nights to all go out to a beach party, with the hostel organising our transport. This bus was an old American style school bus kitted out with tiny green and red lights built into the ceiling. It was something quite special and not my thing at all! Fortunately, it was a short ride to the beach party which was really busy and had people doing art with spray paint in the entrance which was pretty cool. After an hour or so we left but Zimmer stayed, his first experience of over zealous Brazilian bouncers was when he got a little taser zap for weeing outside in a bush! They then searched him and strangely enough his phone went missing after that, draw your own conclusions! The great thing about nightlife in Brazil is girls either get in free or at least half price which I thoroughly enjoyed.
After a week we decided we
wanted to move onto an Island called Ilha Grande so we prepared ourselves for the epic bus journey, however, it turned out to be cheaper to fly which was such a relief. An hour and a half flight compared to a 17hrs + bus journey was just a dream! We arrived in Rio (as we had to go there first to get a short bus to the ferry port) and we stayed in a hostel run by an interesting Irish guy who was very helpful. A bus and a ferry later we arrived on a an Island that was covered in jungle and secluded beaches. We hiked 2 hard hours through jungle to Brazils second best beach - Lopes Mendes it was really incredible and great to swim in. I'm not sure how they can vote as all the beaches on this Island had calm waters with the backdrop of jungle for as far as you could see. Of course with such a place comes it's interesting wildlife both in the water and out. This was apparent when Lanners went for a swim and kicked a sea urchin with his foot?! 20 or so spikes broke off in his foot,
a trip to the hospital followed where the nurse managed to get a few out but sent us off with a needle and wished us well. This led to hours of painstakingly trying to get the spikes out with tweezers and a needle.
After four days we headed to Rio to explore the city before the boys flew home. We headed back to the Irishman's hostel where we were met with darkness as his electricity had gone off plus he thought his arm was broken so he was In a bit of a pickle! He let us have a night for free for the inconvenience which was a result. We headed up to the infamous Christ the Redeemer statue, one of the 7 wonders of the world I found out later. It was pretty breathtaking as its such commonly used imagery when thinking about Rio. We stayed up by the statue for an hour and a half looking over Rio from all angles. Unfortunately, the clouds didn't clear as much as we hoped so it was a little bit hazy. Even so the views were pretty spectacular and allowed us to get familiar with the various parts
of the city. We also went on a city walking tour, something that I highly recommend in any city you visit. They are tip based and give such an insight by people who are really passionate about their city. We saw some famous streets and great architecture when walking past some churches, government buildings and the theatre. What Rio does have a lot of is graffiti with some of it being impressive pieces of street art, however, the majority was pretty ugly tagging which was on an incredible amount of buildings all over the city which is a shame. The most bizarre part of the tour was when some planes flew overheard and broke the sound barrier making an almighty noise. Some people jumped on the floor and I was pretty sure we were about to see an explosion as I'd never heard that noise before, my heart did jump! Best bit of the tour was learning about the history of Brazil, how it became a Portuguese colony which basically happened because the King of Portugal couldn't make a decision on whether to support England or France in battle so he decided to sneak off to Brazil and take a
few thousand of Portugal's most influential people and set up shop there. Great for Brazils development, not so much for Portugal.
Of course being in Rio we had to visit some of the most famous sights such as Copacabana beach, which I thought was pretty average after we'd been to such beautiful beaches the week before. Copacabana is surrounded by high rise hotels and on some parts it was sea, sand, petrol station, road, buildings, not for me. Another thing I wanted to do whilst in Rio was go to the infamous Lapa street party that our hostel owner had mentioned previously. It was such a great experience in a district of Rio renowned for being good for nightlife and full of Brazilians partying and it didn't disappoint. People were out lining the street dancing and drinking and having a really good time. But again, like in Argentina, it was all about the music, dancing and socialising so you didn't really see drunk people like I imagine you would if that was a street party in England. The next day we headed West of the city to Barra de Tijuca for the ASP Billabong Surf Pro, which
was a bit of a let down really as the waves were pretty small and the weather wasn't that great. However, it was good to see and be amongst for the short time we were there. We ate some sushi and headed back for an early night.
The boys left to fly home on the Monday and Lanners and I headed back to Ilha Grande to try and do some more surfing and explore a few more beaches which we did. One of the trails led to a waterfall, which after Iguazu falls was very small, but still pretty. We then walked around to another beach which had some cool looking crabs ranging In size with some being quite big. They were fine until two scuttled towards me sun bathing, I was completely oblivious to the crab chase that was going on, it was only when I heard a 'Michelle move' that I realised they were pretty much on me. We got a boat taxi back to the main town and had some yummy ice cream to end a really nice day. A few days later we decided to hike the 8km there and 8km back to
a place called 'Dois Rios' simply translating as '2 rivers'. This place was the weirdest little village, almost like a little ghost town. It had lots of abandoned buildings due to its history of being a prison town. We walked around the prison museum and ruins which were quite interesting, it seemed to house some of the more dangerous prisoners. Ideal place as the prison was miles from anywhere else and surrounded by a beach and rivers. The prison got closed in the 60s I think and therefore the village became redundant. We did our bit and had some chips in the only cafe in the village, pretty sure we were the only customers the old lady would see that day. To finish off our visit we saw 2 random white rabbits on the path, just made the place seem even more eery! On our walk back we had a pack of dogs helping us along the way which was fine, we then heard this horrendous yelping noise which sounded like it belonged to a big animal so we decided to run some of the way home!
We headed further South down the Verde Coast to a
little town called Paraty for a few nights which is a really cute little port town with cobbled paths and white stoned washed houses. Looked a bit like Greek town in its architecture and colour. We wandered around and took some pictures before heading on to a small seaside town called Trindade. We found this amazing hostel set back into the jungle and it had a tree house type of deck with a hammock, it was run by an English guy who had moved there 6 years ago. It was really great to stay with an English speaking owner as he was able to give us some good tips of things to see and answer any questions we had. It was literally a 3 minute walk to the beaches where we had intended to surf but it didn't really happen unfortunately. We did get to see some amazing surfers on one of the more advanced surfers beach. You could sit for hours watching them and admiring their fearless quest to get the barrel that all surfers want. Although this little town was idyllic it turned into a bit of a nightmare for me as I developed a sinus infection and
after a few days of being in so much pain that I couldn't do anything we decided a trip to the hospital would be best. A face X-ray confirmed an infection (all this done through mime as the doctor spoke no English) I then went back in a few minutes later to see another doctor who fortunately did speak English and he gave me some medication. Brazilian healthcare gets a thumbs up, all this for free and done in just over an hour. Life was good again! I've never felt anything like it, truly feel sorry for people who frequently suffer from that.
That weekend we headed back to Paraty for the Jazz, Blues, R&B and Soul festival which the town was hosting. Was an amazing atmosphere with lots happening with little side streets hosting small acts and the main stage featuring some amazing jazz singers. We watched one act from start to finish as she was just mesmerising! Her voice was incredible and her band were crazy good, she sang soul and jazz mainly, the bass player made the best faces which made me laugh throughout! We got home around 4am after a free nights entertainment.
The journey back to Rio the next day was a long one after not very much sleep. We had booked to stay somewhere a bit different as it was our last day there, we decided to stay In a favela. This one was an urbanised one and had been part of the governments scheme to make favelas safer, this basically meant living conditions were much more improved and there was a 24hr police patrol. It was a really lively place when we drove up as the first Sunday of every month they have parties where they played a lot of Baille Funk music. There are lots of offers of Favela tours in Rio, with some still incredibly dangerous places as they are still very much run by drug gangs with many people living in severe poverty. My personal opinion was that I didn't feel like I wanted to take a tour around, what is ultimately, a walk around someone's misfortune and struggle to live. So staying in Vidigal was a happy medium, and it had a place which did the cheap sushi/sashimi so I was in heaven! It was interesting reading about the World Cup preparations regarding Favelas as they
are building walls around many of them, with the government spin being that they are preventing then getting bigger. However, many believe it is to hide them away from the World Cup and Olympic visitors. The sceptic in me would probably go with the latter theory!
That's the end of Brazil after just over a month, a beautiful country with some stunning places and I didn't feel unsafe at any point. There was an incredible amount of police presence in the main areas of Rio and we were told that actually crimes against tourist provided a much more severe consequence. With the police being as, how should I phrase this, forthcoming with their presence, I am sure that is prevention in itself. As we came back into Rio on Sunday, 2 weeks before the World Cup, we did think there is a lot of building work still being undertaken with not much looking like it will be finished anytime soon so that will be interesting. I am sure the World Cup will be an incredible success and if anything it's a good dress rehearsal for the Olympics.
Colombia for 2 days, then Connecticut before
I head home after 10months...
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