The long and straight road that leads to...Bonito

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Late in the afternoon we left Iguacu in a private mini bus to have what we thought we be a safer and more comfortable journey. How wrong we were! Our drivers were very friendly and nice but perhaps just a little crazy. Unluckily we ended out sitting at the front of the bus. This meant that we could read the speedometer and were aware of exactly how fast we were going. I didn´t think we were going to make it to Bonito when we were driving at 120, 130kmh in the dark and pouring rain on unpaved roads. I must explain that this was no highway with paved roads and lighting and little rest stops along the way. This was a bumpy road and every town has speed humps so you can´t sleep. I hate Brasilian speed humps!!!!!! We couldn´t really sleep for the whole 10 hour trip. We arrived at Bonito 5am ready for safe ground and a bed.

After a short nap we got up to go for some adventure, first stop the Grutto de Azul. Basically a cave with a blue pond at the bottom. It was another bumpy drive out there and then we had a guided tour into the cave. I must admit it was quite nice but the time that the guided tour took to get to the edge of the pond was unecessarily long and you didn´t go in very far just to the edge. The rock formations were very interesting and the guide had an imagination when naming different formations which was good.

Second stop was a park that had a river runnning through it. You had to pay to get in and sit alongside the river, something a little strange to Australians. The river was quite nice, a lot of fish in the river. Unfortunately it started to rain so we left and stopped off for icecream. Our group just loves icecream and in Brazil they have self service pay by weight ice cream shops. You can put lollies and toppings and all sorts of things on your ice cream. I think we have been to an ice cream shop in every town we have stayed.

That night Ben and I went out for dinner alone at a great little restaurant. Everyone retired early after a long trip and several of our group members were not feeling so well.

Day 2 Bonito

Snorkelling at Rio Della Prata!
Snorkelling hmm, nervous, never done this before and I have to wear a wetsuit- a rather traumatic but interesting day overall.

Upon arriving at the Ranch where we were to snorkel down the river we had a fantastic gourmet lunch and relax in hammocks. The brazilians love their meat, salad and rice buffets and this was one of the best.

Our tour guide did not really make a good first impression (too long to explain here but arrogant and rude) yet we were all still excitied about the snorkelling. After a near panic attack trying to get my wetsuit on we walked down a mozzie infested path to the river.

For my benefit we had a snorkel lesson. I actually took to it very quickly and found it very enjoyable. We saw a snake on our travels down the river and loads of dorado fish as well as paku, types of catfish and others. The water was quite shallow in places and the rocks were sharp so we had to be very careful not to cut ourselves. The river flowed quite quickly in places so the snorkel finished in no time at all.

That night we went to Sale and Pepe (turn right at the Toucan telephone box). It was great- Japanese! We had gyoza, tempura and tepan. We were in heaven due to the fact we were not having the same old, same old buffet. Afterwards we went to Taboa bar for a party but again to no avail. South America really doesn´t want us to party.

We did however meet up with Stefano a spritely Italian and his wife Adriana a Carioca and their friend from Sao Paolo. They reated us to some lively converstation and dance exhibitions. Adriana gave us a Samba demonstration and Farro demo. She certainly was very extroverted. It turned out to be quite a fun night despite it only being Ben, Geraldine and I because most of the group was tired and or sick.

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Photos

On the road in west Brazil
Lots of red dirt and holes.

Grotto de Azul
The blue cave.

River swimming
Ben and Christian do their best poses in the pouring rain whilst swimming with the fishes (I´m the pasty, chubbier one).

Fun with phones
Bonito liked their animal themed public phones.

Bonito
Nice little town