Foz Iguazzu, Florianopolis, Sao Paulo and Paraty

---

Having had an amazing day at the Iguassu Falls, we decided to treat ourselves to a lovely yummy meal in Puerto Iguassu, however the two bottles of wine were not such a good idea and we regretted it the next day and Saint-Sick almost made an appearance. Unfortunately we were too hung over to get our arses over to the Brazilian side of the falls and wasted most of the day, we did however manage to book a bus tour with Green Toad to a couple of places en-route to Rio. The bus was picking us up the next afternoon so we decided to cross over to Brazil and see the falls the next day before we left on the coach! We have talked about the Brazilian side o the falls in our last blog, so I won't go on about it again, it was good, but nothing like the Argentinian side of the falls. After the falls, we headed to the bus station for our over night bus, no more super cama for us, semi-cama all the way from here in :0( bye bye flat beds! The journey took about 14 hours and neither of us got much sleep, however the thought of lying on a beach kept our moods high. When we got off the bus a lady stopped to help us as we must have looked pretty lost, she told us to follow her and seemed to know what she was doing, so we did.... She could have been anybody, but hey we made it after two buses and a walk up a massive hill to the hostel! It was well worth it though, the hostel called Barra Beach Club was lovely and the view was amazing. We settled in then headed straight for the closest beach, unfortunately we didn't have any towels, so we ended up sitting at the beach bar - unlike us, I'm sure you'll agree! Whilst we were there using their chairs we thought it would be rather rude not to participate in a few cheeky beverages. Thinking that it Wouk liven up later on, we got ready to go out and have a few beverages, but quickly realized that the whole town shuts down after 8pm, so we asked where the best place on the island was and headed out. The bus driver recommended a bar en-route by the lake which was nothing short of a trashy football bar with crazy middle aged Brazilians who were singing their hearts out to the band playing, and pulling each other. However, we enjoyed it all the same!! We went back to Barra Lagoa to get some food at the beach, but everywhere apart from one restaurant was closed, so we ordered what we thought was a small prawn dinner to share and it ended up being a feast for 20 people!! And we were trying to eat less to get our beach bods ready...The next morning we were up early for breakie and started to watch the local fisherman haul in their daily catch in the bay below.. Tash was fascinated as she loves fishing and constantly wanted to watch all the locals throw their nets and haul in food! Trace didn't like it so much and just humored her.. The fishermen in the bay got in a big boat and rowed in a semi circle to entrap the fish in their net and it took 30 of them to haul in the catch even though there must have been only 25 fish caught. Apparently their biggest haul has been 15000 fish so it must have been epic! We couldn't resist going down to the bay to see the catch - see photos on Facebook! Great to see.. After that we walked to an apparent natural pool in the Atlantic... Could we bloody find it? Us and about 7 others went but we only came across some huge rocks and big waves and we were not going swimming in there!! We headed back to the main beach and just sunbathed and swam for the remainder of the day after lunch were we had a huge grilled fish between us - caught merely hours ago in our bay!! Yum yum yum. On the beach we befriended a really cute dog (there are dogs everywhere) who we called benji as it reminded trace of her dog. She literally followed us everywhere and barked at anybody who came near us, particularly men and people on bikes oddly enough. She was lovely and followed us all the way home and disappeared into her hostel where she lives when not picking up girls on the beach! Cute. That night we had drinks in the hostel with the other backpackers and met up again with the two Irish lads Kevin and kev... Yes, Kevin and kev. These are not to be confused with doogie and Ben who were our buddies from Bolivia. These two kevs were BIG Irish drinkers and a lot of fun... Trace had offers from them that are too rude to mention here! We played drinking games, put the world to rights and staggered to bed. The inevitable hangover the next day meant only one thing - leaving day. We always seem to have a hangover when it's time to leave and when check out is a horrendous time in morning!! We packed up and spent the rest of the day chilling on the beach with benji protecting us again . Later in the day, we headed off to catch our bus to Sao Paulo - another 12 hour trek! No such luxury this time, just a standard seat but we coped!
Sao PauloWe arrived in the morning with a view to staying 1 night. Trace had the bright idea of storing our bags at the bus station to pick up next day. Great idea as we only had to pack a day bag so we headed into the bustling streets of the biggest city in south america - 19 million people! Compare that to London's 9 million and you get an idea of just how hectic, packed and busy this city was. After 3 days chilling out, the assault on our senses was immense - people, smells, noise everywhere. We headed up to the national bank where you can go to the top and get a great view of the city... It was an impressive view with buildings as far as the eye could see - immense. We then headed to the local indoor market and thought we would buy some fruit for later. We picked cherries, mango, orange and some random other fruit they made us try and we thought it would be about £5 at most.. He saw 'tourist' and charged us £30!! For fruit!!! We politely (well, not so politely) told him no way and trundled off with a solitary mango. Boo! We then had lunch and tried the local favorite sandwich which is about 3 inches deep and full of salty meat. It was yum but it was like eating a handful of salt crystals from the sea... We then decided that whilst we liked Sao Paulo, we wanted to chill out again so we took the decision to get a bus outta there ASAP and head to Paraty a day early. We caught the bus by the skin of our teeth and eventually arrived there early evening and stayed at the backpackers hostel. Nice but we had to share with 5 boys in a dorm - one of whom was an absolute dick from Lithuania. Next day we got up and had a delicious breakfast with cakes and biscuits and yummy things! Beach bod wasn't happening that day either! We had a chat with this Lithuanian guy who started talking about sport. Great, we thought, we know a bit about that! He started saying that he only likes to play basketball as it uses his whole body so Tash said, have you played some tennis? He replied, no I don't like tennis as it doesn't use the whole body... Erm, yes it does she replied, no he says, only the legs and one arm! Tash held back a smirk and both of us secretly thought "dick".. He then started saying how netball was only invented because girls couldn't manage the basketball dribble... OMG! He waffled on about this for a few minutes before Tracy outrightly disagreed with him and Tash in her not so subtle manner said "I need to stop you there - we are PE teachers and have been athletes at quite a high level, I think we know what we are talking about a little bit more than you do". The other guy looked at Lithuania and said, you are on a losing battle here mate... Lithuania spluttered and went a bit quiet after that.. After that we headed off for our boat trip around the islands of paraty... Thinking that the boat was empty upon arrival we thought 'result' but then about 30 other golden oldie Brazilians joined us... Wow. We love the oldies!!! It was a great trip nonetheless and we swam and snorkeled in crystal clear sea in gorgeous bays and inlets and ate some lovely food... A really nice relaxing day! Next day we were heading to Rio baby!!!

---

Photos

Iguazzu Falls - Brazil side
Not bad eh?

Crosland trying to get artistic with the camera
Shame it didn't work!

Us in Florianopolis
Love this place

Crazy Brazilin man
We saw him in his speedos every day

Sao Paulo
Biggest city in South America!

Comments

[Vicki]

IMMENSE!!!!!!!
Looks amazing very jealous as sat here still at work on a friday night. Looks like you are having a fab time cant wait to hear all the stories. Take care