We´re HERE!!!

Hey All,

Well well well, here we go again. its been a long time coming huh?!? 5 days and already SO much to say, how unusual for me. so i guess i better get cracking....

finally, nearly a year after deciding to leave to country, 3 jobs later and several farewell parties and hugs we found ourselves aboard the lovely TAP air portgual 747 headed for Sao Paulo via Porto. the flight took 13hrs altogether (grim, although we´ve now realised that was the shortest journey we´ll do in south america) and was for the main part pretty amicable, save for the disasterous films they played, which included some dreary richard gere flop and high school musical 2! oh god. The food however, was not too bad, and there was masses of it (i think they have a cunning ploy to feed to up to make youre tired because every time they gave us something to eat they immediately turned all the lights out and pulled the shutters down as soon as the last person fininshed their last bite.). you´ll be please to know there was no congealed yellowish custard/mustard or anyother such complaint to be made to richard branson or whoever owns the company. (if you dont know what im talking about then i refer you to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-the-worlds-best-passenger-complaint-letter.html )

Anyway, lets move on. We touched down at 6.30pm local time (at that point we were 2 hrs behind but the clocks went back that night so we´re now 3 hrs behind). took us a million years to get through customs etc and finally got to the Casa Club Hostel Bar at 10pm. oh and it was raining. quite badly. The hostel and people were awesome and we quickly made friends with everyone and was told to dump our stuff, in our small but adequate dorm, and come and start drinking. no need to be told twice, lol. the hostel is primarily a bar and as we got in the band we´re belting out an amy wino cover at full pelt and an england vs wales football game playing. we rocked up to the bar to be presented with 2 amazing caprihianas (the speciality at every hostel so it seems). chatted our way round the bar for the whole eve, muchos fun. luckily everyone could speak english so we were ok. the funniest thing was that you can spot a fresh english person a mile off because they´ll be the only ones smoking tobacco, you cant get it over here. whats even funnier is that the brazillians are facinated by it, because they think you´re smoking a joint. so if you come over here and smoke rollies expect to be surrounded by people wanting you to roll them one for the whole eve so they can look like they´re smoking marajuana. every english tobacco smoker gets it, its hilarious.

the next day was sunday, breakfast was a mixture of tooth rottingly sweet cereal and shredded cheese and ham. yum! lol, it wasnt too bad. we meandered to the metro and went to the main bus station to book our bus to iguacu falls. the metro was clean, easy and much better than our english version. in fact, brazil pretty much is clean and easy. the streets are spotless, they´re well hot on recycling, everywhere has 3 bins for different types of rubbish and can crushers, its a v modern country. and also well expensive. we´ve realised this and therefore also realised we cant go or do as many things as we wanted to, for sheer distance and money. hey ho. i digress. we went back into sao paulo but it was sunday so everything was shut. so we went back to the neighbourhood we were staying in and bumped into a mini carnival warm up. it was so cool, a few floats, all dancing samba and having a whale of a time. they grabbed us and made us join in along the street, as well as everyone else who was watching. yay. we danced our way round the corner and went for some food. the bar was heaving as the football was on (brazil is literally foodball mad, and they know all the english teams too) and sao paulo was playing, and winning! but we ordered, just sort of picked a platter for 2. it was immense, a sizzling plate of grilled cow with breads and salads and olive paste and bread crumbs. mmmm. yummy.

then... it rained, and rained and poured and the skies opened for the rest of the night. worse than ive seen in england and most other countries. although in england we´re usually tucked away coz its cold too. here its hot so everything is still out in the open. we got drenched getting back to the hostel. but it was ok, we dried off, was plied with more booze (i now drink beer, against my will, but its cheap... think i offended one of the staff by saying all the beer tasted the same! but made it better by telling him it was a compliment that i was drinking it at all. i think he was satisfied). we spend the rest of the eve drinking and singing along to rude and crude cover versions of songs and some they´d even made up themselves such as the ´dear penis´song... ill try and put the video up and get the lyrics when we go back there before we fly. the guy that sung it (leo) stays up all night and sleeps all day, think he´s barman/security/drunkard. but hes a lot of fun and keeps everyone entertained and himself clearly.

so on monday we caught a 15hr bus ride to foz du iguacu on no sleep. boo. but the bus ride was ok, we slept. although the coach did stop a lot. think coz they gave people free water but no toliet. good logic! we arrived at 6am and had been recommended a hostel for when we got here. we forced entry into the bamboo hostel, equipped with sofas, games rooms, hammocks, honesty boxes behind the bar and best of all, a swimming pool!! alas, there was no room at the inn, we wept and pleaded and battered our eyelids and threw ourselves to the ground until eventually they gave us a tent out the front. hehe. wé´ve got a room now you´ll be pleased to know. well, a dorm.

the whole point of this 15hr journey to the middle of nowhere was to see one of the wonders of the world and now a world heritage site... the iguacu falls. consisting of 275 waterfalls along a stretch of 2.7kms that straddle the boarder of brazil and argentina these falls are the most spectacular to be seen on earth, higher and wider than niagra. the biggest fall is the devils throat, 82m high, 150m wide and 700m long its everything its cracked up to be and completely awe inspiring. you can gain access to the falls from both countries, the panoramic views are on the brazil side and the close up views on the argentinian side. we did both and went in a boat that took us under some of the falls. they were amazing. it was fun to go to argentina for the day too, they´re an hr in front of brazil and ive got an exra stamp in my passport. the falls are surrounded by jungle, tropical jungle. the national park of iguacu covers brazil, paraquay and argentina, but in each country its run and protected by a different company. if you put all 3 parks together yu would have the largest national park in the world protecting the largest amount of rainforest in the world. impressive eh?! its so rich in life that you feel like you´re surrounded by aminals and insects, great black birds swoop over the falls and butterflies constantly land on you like you´re in a butterfly house. its amazing. and theres loads of massive lizards, and tiny ones. the best creature the~´ve got there are the coatis. they´re the cutiest little things. they´re like little racoons crossed with meerkats and they run up to you in their little armies scuffling at your feet and trying to get your foot or have a general mooch about. and then they scurry off again in search of other tourists to sniff around. they run round in gangs with their tails high. awww. we also went to a bird sanctuary and walked amongst the toucans and parrots and humming birds. v cool.

it took 2 days to do all that. and today we leave for rio. we wanted to go down to florinopolis and to see katia in port alegra but distance and time and money means its not possible. for every place you go to here you need a day to get there. which means we cant go to as many places as we wanted to. dont think we´re going to be able to get up to salvador either. but its all good. the bus today to rio is 24hrs, eek! the longest bus journey ive ever done. should be interesting. but we´re getting picked up at the bus station by the next hostel. the people here are the friendliest, everyone wants to chat and sy hi and go about their days with smiles on their faces.

i want to keep chatting about the people and the country but theres a queue for the computer so ive got to go now.

no doubt the next entry will be after carnival.... im sure they´ll be some stories to tell!
until then boa tarde to you all, stay well, keep in touch and speak soon
xxx

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