The Brazil Roundup

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Last stop of Argentina was in Puerto Iguazu from which we visited the Iguazu falls which lie between Brazil and Argentina border. On the Argentinian we hopped on a speedboat which brought us up close and personal with the falls and left us completely drenched. The boat trip only lasted 12 mins, but getting so close to the power of the falls was an amazing experience. We followed the walks along the platforms which offered different views, above, below most just short of being in the water. The last platform of the day was by far the most impressive, where you stare directly into the gushing water at the Devil's throat so powerful you cannot see the bottom of the falls through the spray.

We booked our trip to the Brazilian side from Argentinian as it was oddly the cheapest way to do visit! Our trip included an hour and a half in Cuidad del Este in Paraguay, the duty free town at the border with Brazil. The duty free aspect was overshadowed by stalls of shoddy merchandise each seller insisting that their stock was genuine. I managed to pick up some very genuine orange earphones for my apple Ipod!We felt very rebellious on our visit to Paraguay as it is one a the few countries where Irish citizens require a visa to enter so we were quickly driven through the border to avoid the fee. Our rebellion was not quite as impressive when you realise that we did this ill legal move primarily to visit..... a giant dam.

The Itaipu dam was a joint venture between the Brazil and Paraguay. The very informative video we were subjected to at the beginning of our tour was recorded circa 1980 brought to us in techni-colour, no less. It managed to gloss quite nicely over some very questionable facts. The concrete dam was built on a "drop" in the river (waterfalls comparable to Iguazu) and the indigenous communities affected where "relocated" (Que shot of one man in a boat saving a snake with a net). On the upside it is powering almost the whole of Paraguay and large portion of Brazil. We were then brought on a 20 min drive of the dam during which both myself and Rory managed to fall asleep. Luke was unimpressed by our lack of appreciation for this great engineering feat but in our defence the guides voice was very monotonous and, well, it was 8k of concrete we were looking at.

Initially our transition into Brazil was quite confusing. Everybody was ridiculously friendly and as we were so used to brash, rude Argentinian ways that we were highly suspicious of anyone being nice to us. Plus everybody was speaking Portuguese. We seriously realised how much pigeon Spanish we had picked up when we were back to communicating in hand gestures and pointing!

While the majority of the falls lie on the Argentinian side, the Brazilians are blessed with the fantastic panoramic view (slightly obliterated by the Sheraton hotel). The views were fantastic- indescribable. Only wished the camera was fully able to pick up what we were seeing, and record the temperature we were experiencing. It was so hot we nearly melted!!!

Give how hot it was we decided to head directly to what Brazil is famous for- the beaches. In Florionopolis we rented a car so we could fully explore the Island of Santa Catarina. The car in hindsight was probably not our greatest decision given we spent half our time driving in circles trying to get out of the confusing one way system. We did managed to fit in some beach time. The curse of the Irish was back so we ended up sitting on a beach in Brazil.... IN THE RAIN! Rory still managed to get burnt however.

Next stop was Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, where we were conveniently located next beside the cinemas offering blue films involving animals and transvestites. The city smelt a little too much of urine, but despite this we really enjoyed our time in Sao Paulo. It is one of the view cities in South America with a huge range of cultural activities. We saw a great Yoko Ono retrospective. In MASP (the iconic cube building which stands on stilts ) we viewed the odd work of japenese artist Tatsumi Orimoto whose work involved his mother with Alzheimer's with a tyre on her head. Although it was still a week before the official carnaval period the block parties had already began, so we followed the very scantily clad drag queens around the centre of the city before making our way to Rio for the main event.

Our mood was somewhat dampened on arrival when we tried to check into our hostel. We had already heard about the notorious rip-off accomodation during carnival, which is why we had booked our accommodation last July and had reconfirmed several times before out arrival. In spite of this, we found that the price of the room had more than doubled. Despite arguing with the owner for over an hour we got nowhere as it was the day before carnival and we had nowhere else to go. Even worse "The Girl from Ipanema Hostel" was an absolute dump. The six bed dorm we had booked into had an extra ten beds. The bunks were three tiered lying back to back. I can't imagine when the last time the room was cleaned as it was filthy and at different points of the week we were without electricity for two days and water for another. Pretty annoying when our friends were paying the same amount for an apartment! We totally regretted booking so far ahead.

On the upside we were located close to Ipanema beach and near to where are friends were staying in Ipanema and Copacabana which made it very easy to meet/bump into everyone! On our second day we booked ourselves onto a tour which brought us the Maracana stadium and the Samabadrome. As we paid a man in the street for this tour it should have gone horribly wrong but thankfully it didn't- we had a fantastic day. Our very international group consisted of one English, one American and eh... twelve Irish. At the stadium we watched Vasco de Gama versus Botofogo. The match was great and the fans were absolutely mental- never stopped singing, swinging jerseys over their heads and producing very elaborate flags whenever there was a GOOOAAAALLLL (yeah they really do shout that!).

After the match we went to the Sambadrome to view the second division of the samba schools compete for a place in the final. We had brilliant seats opposite the judges so we good see the elaborate details of the floats and costumes (though you won't believe this when you see the pictures from our crap disposable cameras!) Each school paraded for an hour, and the performances lasted all night. We lasted until four but had to leave due to the absolute downpour.Speaking of rain this leads me nicely onto the myth of Rio. We pictured golden beaches, turquoise water and lots of sun, all the postcards picture the same image. Instead we experienced rain 5 of our 7 days in Rio! Thankfully it didn't manage to dampen the spirit of carnaval which is mostly about outdoor street parties, with extravegantly dressed drag queens, which went on all night. Despite the late nights we managed to to fit in a few tourist attractions during the day. We visited our third wonder of the world, Christ de Redeemer. The views were great once the clouds broke, but the statue itself was not that impressive but just a really tall statue of Jesus.

Typically having not managed to meet Ross, Dave and Deidre all week in Rio, we managed to accidentally bump into them in the Irish bar! We were all there to view the Ireland/Brazil match. It was a great but sad night as it was our final night in Rio, and one of our last in South America. There was a lot of goodbyes.

From Rio we began our five flight odyssey to Christchurch in New Zealand. We had a few days in Santiago but due to Chilean prices and tiredness we didn't achieve a whole lot other than go the cinema a few times. In our final taxi ride to the airport, we were happy to find that the soundtrack was that of our taxi favourites. Songs that have been played in practically every taxi journey we had taken in South America- Hotel California, Linger and the classic Lady in Red. The continent may be keeping Chris de Burgh afloat in royalties but we loved our time there.

New Zealand blog to follow soon.

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