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Published: December 2nd 2011
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I can´t believe the date already!! This is probably my final entry whilst away, reality is starting to bite again.
Anyway, enough of that, what´s been happening? It rained, rained, RAINED on my last day in Iguazu, and everywhere on the coast in Brazil was forecast rain and thunderstorms and there´s not much point going to a beautiful beach if it´s raining. So I bought another ticket and went to the only place that had sun, the Pantanal, said to have as many animals as the Amazon, and in fact I saw more animals on my first morning than I did in the Amazon.
After a 16 hour bus ride into Brazil, and a 5 hour mini bus ride, we arrived at our camp where a hammock was to be my bed for the next 3 days. I loved the place so much I paid for an extra day. I had wanted to go here, but reading the Lonely Planet they said that at this time of year the rainy season starts with a vengence, roads and camps were closed due to the weather and the mosquitoes are out in force. I hadn´t wanted to end my trip covered
The Pantanal
Caiman sunbathing in bits, as mossies and I are old friends, so had discounted gonig there, but I´ll take bites over rain any day, and I am SO glad that I ended up there. The noise of the birds and the monkeys all day was great, though they are noisy buggers when the sun comes up at 5.30 in the morning! Macaws and toucans flying through the trees and loads of caiman (small alligators) in the nearby river. I went on a boat ride, walk through the jungle, night safari and horse riding, I ended up staying an extra day as it was so beautiful.
This followed a long journey back to Campo Grande, one night there, checked the weather at the beach, thunder, thunder, thunder so booked my bus to Rio. My last 24 hour bus journey and even though I hadn´t wanted to stay a week in the city, figured there is loads more to do even in bad weather. I have found the best hostel and it´s actually really nice to know that the next time I pack my bag it will be for the airport and it´s good to be in one place for longer than 2
or 3 nights. It is really friendly here, the owner of the hostel is opening up his bar tonight, so for the last week he has been laying on free caipirinhas every night so his bar staff can practise making the cocktails, worth every penny alone!
Rio is A-Mazing!!! I really must find another adjective to describe how great something is, I´m using amazing and awesome and fantastic far too much. Maybe fantasicazing! Anyway, it was pouring with rain on my arrival and most of Monday, so I am now the proud owner of an umbrella. We went for a ferry ride to see an art gallery, but all museums and art galleries are closed on a Monday, but the building is really interesting and it was nice to see a view of the city from the water. There were clouds around Christ the Redeemer (Christo to his friends) and the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain and the weather was forecast to be the same for the rest of my trip. I would have been devastated if this was the case, but luckily the weather people are consistently rubbish the world over. They have the world´s largest floating Christmas
The Pantanal
My bed for the next 3 nights tree here, though it´s not a tree, it´s manmade but they light it up at nighttime and it looks incredible. Luckily the rain had cleared that night so you could see Christo lit up overlooking the tree, I had a few words with him about the weather and the next day the sun was shining - thank the lord! I really felt that I had arrived to Rio, what a difference good weather makes. About 20 of us went to the beach, Copacabana beach if the famous beach of Rio and is lovely, full of posers, they really let it all hang out here and it doesn´t matter what shape or size you are, it´s all about the thong.
Wednesday I went to visit one of the favelas. They are the slums of Rio and are famous for being ruled by drug barons, very poor and very dangerous places to be. Kids are recruited into gangs and they are given guns at a very young age. They are now trying to improve the standards in their, the police go in and clear out the drug lords, bring electricity, internet and job opportunities to the people and schooling for the
The Pantanal
Our neigbours children. You can do an organised tour and I felt very safe, the most uncomfortable thing was thinking that you are going to the zoo, looking at where these people live and it was strange walking through with cameras etc when these places are still so poor. You had the opportunity to buy some art from local artists and money from the tours goes back into the favela and the scenery of how it is put together is quite something, but you can´t quite believe that people are still living like this so close to such a rich and diverse city. At nightime you can see the lights of the favelas on the mountains and they look so beautiful. They are now starting to ´cleanse´some of the other favelas in time for the World Cup in 2014. Only last week 30,000 police went in to caputure the boss of the favela, he managed to escape but was caught trying to cross the border in the boot of the car. He offered the police $1,000,000 in bribes to let him go but they refused. You can see that being a drug lord in a favela is a very lucrative business!
The Pantanal
2 blue macaws that came to visit camp, the largest of the parrot family. Yesterday, woke up and the sun was shining so a few of us went to Christo - wow, wow, WOW!! Can´t really say much more than that. It seemed as though it was the final destination that I had been heading too, I know that it is as it is my last city before home, but everything had been leading up to being up the top of that mountain. I am not religious at all, but there is just something that gets me everytime I look at him, maybe it´s because it is such a iconic view I don´t know. We wanted to do Sugar Loaf mountain, there is a cable car that takes you up to the top and you can see Christo from the other side of the city, but a storm came in, the weather changes so quickly.
So now we´re up to date!!! Tonight is the famous Lapa street party, which just happens to be at the bottom of my road, all the bars open up on the streets and there is samba there all night long until the sun comes up. It´s raining today so nothing much happening today, saving energy for tonight, hopefully
The Pantanal
One day my prince will come.... the sun will come out tomorrow so we can do Sugar Loaf mountain and then hopefully tickets to a football match on Sunday followed by a favela party Sunday night, that will be a great final day.
Hope you´re all good beautiful people, and am really looking forward to seeing you all again. Even though I do NOT want to come home and start sorting my life out, I can´t wait to see everyone.
Loadsa Love
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