Long time no mail

Hola/Oy amigos,
How are ya's all ?, fit i hope.
Well it's been quite a while since I did an update, no excuses just been really busy and quite frankly sitting at the internet cafes isn't very high on the priority list eh !!!!

Anyway I'll have a crack at bringing ya's up to speed on some of my adventures the last couple of months...so here goes

Well last time I wrote I think I was bound for an Island about 3 hours south of Rio called Illha Grande, well this place was awesome, a lush tropical island, beautiful beaches, good trekking and diving, no cars, dirt roads for walking around, cool nightlife and great restaurants. We spent about a week here and had a ball. From there it was back to Rio to change our flight dates and to have just one more look at Rio De Janeiro !!!!!! Whooo what a city, everyone must get there one day, Carnival is a party like no other in the world, a week of solid partying, and trust me no-one parties like Brasillians.
Anyway from there we headed inland to a old historical town called Ourro Pretto, pretty cool, really old mining town, we decided then it was time to get our asses back to the beach life so we headed back to the coast and basically chilled out at several small coastal towns, just swimming and hanging out for a month or so, a highlight was a place called Itacare, great surf and a really cool hippy village. I was so stoked to get there as all the previous places didn't have much surf. Anyway day 1 i hired my board and did the 1 hour trek to a quality surf break anyway after about 1 hr in the lineup i wiped out and the fin of the board ran across my foot and gashed it open pretty badly. I was so pissed off my dream of hanging out at the beach for a week or 2 doing nothing but surfing everyday was shattered, anyway I hung around here for a week or so and still managed to have a great time, after 5 days or so I managed to get back in the water and get a few waves in.
From here we headed to a place called Lencois and did a three day trek to the Fumaca waterfall, it's Brasils highest waterfall and at 422m it is quite a sight, we swam at the base and trekked to the top, great trek, amazing scenery and great company. Then it was onto Salvador for a look, great city, massive population of afro-brasillians. Walking the streets at night was quite an experience every second guy would come up to you and harrass you trying to sell you weed or coke or beg for money, anyway this started to give me the shits after a couple of nights so I headed to a more sedate suburb and escaped that crap.
From Salvador I caught a flight and then bussed to a place called Jericocoara, wow what a place, you have to catch a 4wd bus along the beach to get there, if you imagine a tiny town, sand streets, very funky bars on the waters edge, lots of small pousada's (hotels), great beaches and massive sand dunes and a crazy night life , thats sort of what it's like, anyway we stayed here for a week or so, and really ripped the place apart, well dave did !!!!!!!
From here it was onto Sao Luis then onto Belem where the action was all about to begin......
Belem is the city at the mouth of the Amazon river, we jumped on a boat and began our 2 day boat ride up the Amazon to a city called Santarem,
well for starters these aren't normal boats, they are generally all wooden 2 story noisy slow cruise boats, top story is for tying up your hammock for sleeping (very crowded, literally people sleeping above you and below you and right hard up beside you, very overcrowded) and the bottom story is where the kitchen, toilet and storage areas are. This turned out to be quite an experience, for one our boat was a piece of shit and broke down twice, the 2 day trip ended up taking 6 days !!!!!!!!, 1st problem massive engine oil leak, then 2nd problem transmission shat itself (I tried to fix it but the locals didn't seem to like a gringo fumbling around in the engine bay too much!!). Anyway we couldn't have been happier, we had a great crew of gringo's on board, hence we drank a hell of a lot, hung out in our hammocks, swam in the Amazon and generally had an amazing time. The sights you see cruising up the amazon are amazing, the river is massive on average i reckon it was at least 5 km wide, flowing hard. There are these little huts scattered along the rivers edge everywhere, when our boat travelled past them little kids (sometimes naked) would jump into these primitive canoes and paddle out to see us. It was an amazing experience, can't believe how different their lives must be.
Anyway we finally jumped off our boat onto a more reliable vessel and forged our path to Santarem, this city was a real trip, imagine a city bigger than Devonport smack bang on the rivers edge with no major connecting roads to it, everything comes by boats, the Amazon river is literally the highway. Anyway we had a couple of days here, then headed to a small village up the road called Alto da Choa, great place, celebrated Daves 28th here, great birthday party, began at 10am and finished about 10pm.
From here it was back to Santarem to catch a flight to Manaus (the largest city in the Amazon) as we couldn't be asked to get back on another of those dodgy boats, oh i forgot to mention that on our boat we were served the same meal twice a day for the 6 days, rice, beans and this crap they called meat, if i ever see this combination again i wear i could possibly lose the plot.
Well in Manaus we partied it up for the first night then headed to the jungle on a 5 day tour. To be honest I was a little dissappointed with this as I was expecting far more wildlife, we caught Piranhas and a small cayman, saw a Toucan, trekked through the jungle and learnt a lot about the trees and medicinal plants and the like. Swam in Piranha infested waters (massive myth about the Piranhas, fairly passive little creatures) and visted some local tribes living on the side of the river, this trip did show me the shear size of the Amazon region though, so much water it's just crazy even the small tributary rivers are way bigger than anything we have. Then we headed back to Manaus, this is also an interesting city, it's a tax free zone therfore there is major manufacturing operations here, honda motorcycles, harley davidsons, computers and heaps of electrical equipment are made here, massive ocean going vessels simply cruise up the amazon to pick up the cargo then sail onto wherever, quite amazing to think that all this stuff is manufactured deep in the amazon !!!!!!!
From Manaus we travelled up into Venezuala to Santa Elana, which is where I currently am !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here we have just completed a 6 day 5 night terk to a mountain called Mt Roraima (2723m), this is by far a massive highlight of my trip, very hard trek but the rewards were great, the summit is what they say the moon is like, the most amazing rock formations i have ever seen, i was awestruck.
Literally thousands upon thousands of the most crazy rocks i have seen, also whilst trekking the summit we came across a place called crystal valley, literally quartz crystals everywhere, you just walk over them and they are everywhere you look, amazing, so beautiful, if you ever wanted the best wedding photos ever i reckon this is the place. Anyway Roraima left quite a mark on me and has definately set off the trekking bug inside me so from here we plan to catch a bus tonight to a place called Merida (Venezuala) where we will ride the worlds longest cable car to the top of Venezuala's highest mountain (about 5000m) then we head to Columbia to do the Lost City trek, can't wait going to be awesome supposebly like Machu Piccu but without the crowds.
Anyway thats it, sorry for the dodgy spelling and punctuation, have been typing very fast and not really worrying about it.
Also sorry it's so long, left it way too long in between mails

Take care everyone and keep in touch
Over and out from Venezuala
BC
Keep safe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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