Blogs from Brazil, South America

It is 2am, Sunday night, and we are in the Campo Grande bus terminal. The Lonely Planet guide said that this is supposed to be fairly seedy at night, with hookers & dodgy characters. But there is nothing that interesting to observe to help kill the next 3.5 hours till our bus. We arrived here at 11.45pm, after another fairly torturous day. Getting to the border crossing at 9am this morning high hopes were held of getting into Corumba, Brazil by 12. We got through the Bolivian side in 2 hours, but the Brazilian side took another 4 hours. Not sure if today was a special day, but there were a lot of Bolivians seeking visas today, the majority on their way to Sao Paulo. There was around 150 people to process, including 5 gringos, and ... read more

From Angra we took a bus to Paraty. After one hour the tire exploded, so in the middle of nowhere, we waited for another bus. After four hours we arrived in Paraty (normally 3hours), a pittoresque charming colonial location at the seaside, having around 50 little islands. It is one of the most cinematic destinations in Brazil. Cobblestones are so oneven that it makes it painful to walk on the streets. We enjoyed a horse trip through waterfalls and rainforest with two americans from NY. After a few days relaxing in the sun on small islands and little boats we took a 24 hours bus ride to Iguazu. It is advised to take place in front of the bus, as in the back of the bus a toilet might annoy your trip. Iguazu is located at ... read more

Friday 10th may we arrived in Angra dos Reis. Little town famous for its many islands, Ilha grande is the biggest. It took us 4 hours to get there by bus and taxi (150km). Nature is amazing over here but the people are not really our cup of tea, having a tattoo is almost standard and the smiling, friendly brazilians are rare.... Also the prices are out of proportion, especially when they notice you are a 'gringo' (= foreinger). They try to rip you of every time again. When we bought fruit (3 pieces) on a local market, the guy asked us 30 reales (= 13 euro) haha, no thank you. We slept 2 nights in a 'pousada' (= relaxed hostel) at the seaside, Guillermo (on old little brazilian diver) was there to guide us, he ... read more

OK, another rapid fire blog post! I've really been slackin' on my blog posts, and since we only have three weeks left on this trip so I figured I had better get my last, very wordy post about our trip cranked out so Sky can start working on our final blog post for our trip! Puerto Natales, Chile After spending a couple of days back in Ushuaia getting my whits about me after Antarctica, Sky and I headed back on the road on our way to Puerto Natales, Chile, the gateway to Torres del Paine National Park. We were headed there to spend 5 days trekking the famous "W" trail. Thankfully our bus ride to Chile was one of the least eventful bus rides we've had to date! Twelve continuous hours of relatively smooth roads, no ... read more

Hi!! rach and I went out to a bar last night with some of the people from the favela-the boys who speak English and kind of 'supervise' our lessons at the school. We had a lot of fun! Their English is amazing, and two of them are really good at street dance-we haven't seen them dance yet, I think they're a bit shy but they have been elected to go to England for massive competitions and stuff. Pretty cool, huhhhh!!! Just a short one as we are off to the beach! Lots of love F & R xxxxxxxxx... read more

North of Rio, the name of the state Minas Gerais means "General Mines" on account of all the gold and gem mining in the area. The colonial Portuguese didn't discover the area's potential there until the 1690s , they exploited the area and those African slaves knowledgeable in mining from the 1700s. By 1822 they had exhausted the gold reserves. It's a beautiful region, green and lush but less 'tropical'. We stayed in Ouro Preto which means black gold, which is equally lovely. Like many of the region's old colonial towns, it has cobbledy streets, main squares with town halls (former justice and prison buildings), pretty churches and jewellery shops. We stayed in the Hotel Grande, designed by Oscar Niemeyer in the 50s, and quite ahead of its time we say, though the locals hate it ... read more