Blogs from Paraná, Brazil, South America - page 54

Tuesday it was still raining tropical style. i went to hospital and we ended up talking about where all the transvestites in BA loiter. I went to my other placement, but the bus broke down (very common here) and i had to walk in torrential rain for three blocks. Sat for two hours sodden and cold. Had a good lesson tho. It degenerated into teaching her swear words (its ok, shes 18 and she needs to know these things) and comparing animal sounds. Found myself mooing and woofing a lot, in fits of giggles. Tuesday night, we stayed in with a couple of bottles of fine wine, had loadsa fun just chatting and laughing. Turns out Andys dad is one of the most famous childrens authors in Canada, Robert Munsch. Oh and a new couple, (gone ... read more

Hey all, this is faith writing. i arrived in rio on the 9th and bru and i spent a night in rio. the waves were really big on the beach by our hotel, and there were tons of surfers out. We drove through sao paolo, spent a night on the road, and then arrived in Curitiba, the capital city of the state of Parana. We stayed at a hotel across from a park, and at the end of pedestrian mall. All day and into the evening the mall was filled with people shopping and eating at the sidewalk cafes, even when it dropped to the 50s at night. Good weather for sipping quentao - similar to mulled wine - and people watching. It gets dark around 6pm because its winter, but everyone stays outside to socialize, ... read more

Like I said before, travelling without plans is great, as long as you have enough time to do whatever takes your fancy along the way. Knowing your limits is frustrating. Countless places and activities get left behind with promises of coming back one day. We only had one place which we were desperate to go to: Macchu Picchu in Peru. Which was why our pouring over the cheap tickets to Asunción, Paraguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina came to nothing. Instead we decided to hang around in Foz before heading off in a vaguely Westerly direction. We had been so impressed by the waterfalls the day before that we decided to go back and see them again. We got on the bus with that intention, but quickly changed our minds when we saw a sign to the ... read more

After getting to Foz do Iguacu at 6am and in the freezing cold we weren´t in the best of moods, but still managed to walk all the way to the hostel (which took about 2 hours) to save money. After we got here we settled down and then headed out to explore the town. It´s nothing special, a bit like Curitiba really, but we weren´t here for the that, we were here for the billions of gallons of water that stream down the 250 waterfalls just down the road! A very impressive sight it was indeed, when we finally got there. If it had~´t been for the teenager projectile vomiting it would have been perfect. Best views of Brazil so far! The falls are so incredibly huge and vast, and the rainbows and mist clouds so ... read more

I've heard that the Japanese actually see the world differently (to us Westerners) because of their writing system. Apparently that's why they take photographs of traffic signs, chavs and council flats. That got me thinking about why we travel. Seeing new things and interpreting them in relation to what you're used to seems to make a lot of people happy. I wonder how quickly that honeymoon period would slither into the banal were we to emigrate to the postcard or photograph. The traveller is always seeking new things because they are consistently discontent with the known. Yet sometimes we do miss that known. Most of us find ourselves in McDonalds or Pizza Hut abroad from time to time, even if we don't eat there at home; probably because we're just bored of putting the effort into ... read more