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Published: September 24th 2008
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Paraty Brazil
Paraty Brazil Well finally we have got round to setting this blog up! Feels like a long time ago since we left London and promised to update all with news of our travels...sorry for the delay, there have been a few technical hitches (like getting our photos burnt onto DVD and finding out that they only have CD readers in the internet cafe - sorry no photos of the first few destinations!!!)
In the last (almost) 3 weeks we seem to have covered a lot of distance yet still not gone very far! Brazil is enormous and it took us more than 2 weeks just to get out of Espirito Santo and Rio de Janeiro... every little stop off sounds too good to be true and you´re always left wondering if you´ve missed something really good... you could easily spend 3 months in Brazil alone.
We started in Sao Paolo and were already revising our travel plans on Day 1 - we've ditched the Angel Falls in favour of spending more time in Peru and we are now looking to push our flight home back 10 days or so if we can (we..ve been thwarted so far in a couple of
Paraty Brazil
Paraty, Brazil attempts due to our complete lack of understanding of the Brazilian phone system aarrgghh!) in order to head to Bolivia (sorry parentals and loved ones...)!
Sao Paulo First up confusion in the booking at our Pousada that turned out to be a blessing in disguise... this city is just one massive sprawling urban jungle and is manic not exactly what we we needed after the hectic last couple weeks packing up our lives in London... this city clearly has great shopping, galleries and nightlife but feels like a lot of hard work for a gringo with no Portugese or time to scratch beneath the surface... We saw some amazing pieces from the impressionist masters which we weren..t expecting but our trek down an 8 lane freeway to get to the one and only significant park space in town confirmed our desire to move on..... we´ve since realised not many others on the gringo trail actually head to Sao Paolo and now we know why....
From there we moved on to...
Paraty Paraty was great an old white washed colonial town that was at one time a major port for the movement of gold back to
Paraty Brazil
Paraty Brazil Portugal... the roads in the old town are all worn away cobblestones and really tricky to navigate in flip flops, the place is right on the water and when the rain comes floods regularly as we discovered on our second day... the area has great beaches but as the forecast was for continuing rain we decided to keep moving north after a couple of days....
Which brought us to the idyllic island of...
Ilha Grande A tropical Island with fine white sand beaches and palms. After a 2 hour walk from our hostel through lush forests with tiny squirrel monkeys we ended up on one of the best beaches we have ever seen... a long curvaceous coast line of the finest white sand we´ve ever stepped on (which squeaked as you went) bordered by tall swaying palms and rolling waves. There was hardly anyone on the beach making it feel that more remote and on our first day there, you couldn´t even buy drink or food anywhere... let alone find a toilet! The 2 whitest people who haven´t been on a beach in ages (yours truly) end up as acting life guards for a rather large fella
Ilha Grande, Brazil
Ilha Grande, Brazil who seemd too lazy to swim and drifted out... luckily El (with no lingo skills) somehow got some surfer dudes to go out and rescue him... although by this stage he had drifted back in and i was standing 10m away in chest high water.... not sure what he was making such a fuss about.... however this didn´t stop us from coming back again....
El´s determination to find a surf board to rent was rewarded when we went back 2 days later and we´ve got some great photos of her coming off the mal.... well she did manage to catch at least one or two waves but my focus was obviously distracted by something else on the beach (and those photos must be on the DVD CD we cant use!!!) .... hehehe... we had also met some really nice couple from Camden (ie down the road from our old place in London) dreds piercings tatts and all... Elena convinced the guy to have a go surfing but was not impressed when he was better than her after just one wave!
Cariocas & gringos... After days of hearing the hype of Rio from the other backpackers on the
Moped Taxi into Favela Rio
Moped Taxi into Favela Rio circuit we rocked up to the "party" hostel and quickly realised that we were unlikely to get ANY sleep or do any site seeing if we stayed. We moved on to a hostel in Ipanema - great beach, cafes and bars. It has a bondi feel to it although the sand was covered in less topless sunbathers and more big butts in very skimpy bikinis - "butt floss". The beach is a real human zoo and you can buy just about anything from the hawkers, from bikinis and binoculars to cheese on a stick... which they bbq in front of you! You´re lucky to get more than a couple of inches between you and your neighbour on the sand. The surf rescue is awesome and more like a joy ride that happens every few minutes! a big chopper sweeps by and scoops up everyone thats been dragged out in a massive net and drops them on the sand by the gawking crowd - it seems like a pretty regular event and not surprising... its the strongest undertow we´ve ever felt going from waist deep to ankle deep in a matter of seconds!
With only a few days to take
Favela Rocinha, Rio
Favela Rocinha, Rio in the city, we did 2 tours. The first was into the infamous Rocinha Favela - a shanty town of 200 thousand. It wasnt quite the action packed street crime image portrayed in City of God however there were drug dealers guarding their corner with machine guns and looking very stoned. Elena was pretty freaked out when one decided to try and kiss her and watched the gun closely as she hurried away down the alley! We visited a child care centre- an NGO organisation and an art project however it was pretty clear that there is little support or help from the Gov in improving the lives of the general population living in the favelas.
The second tour took us to the Christ Redeemer statue which was as impressive as the postcards look. The views from the statue are pretty spectacular, looking out over the city and beaches however we also climbed Pedra Bonita, a large rock in the national park and this really was awe inspiring - from up there you get a great sense of the beauty of Rio a city penned in between the the beaches of the Atlantic ocean on one side and an
Favela Rocinha, Rio
Favela Rocinha, Rio enormous national park on the other - so much more green and pleasant than Sao Paolo that the contrast was striking.
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Anthony Mirenzi
non-member comment
Hey bro
GOod to hear your having a plast!! I will try to hide the jelousy..... ps i wont say anything about the 10 day extension! Have a ball and keep safe