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Published: October 20th 2008
Pantanal
A beautiful area on the border of Bolivia. Bolivia was a great experience, a beautiful country and we absolutely loved it.... but it wasn't always easy and therefore we crossed into Brasil thinking the hard part was over, we can deal with anything now!
Until..... we tried to communicate. Of course we knew people spoke portuguese instead of Spanish, but our Spanish was quite reasonable by now and how different can it be? Well, let me tell you...Very!! On paper it looks quite similar, but as soon as the first person started to talk to me all I could hear was something that sounding like a combination of Swedish, Russian and probably some Spanish. My brain couldn't figure it out and it definitely took us about a week before we started to get somewhat fimiliar with the language. It was a very frustrating experience, especially as everyone was so friendly in this country that you can't have 5 minutes without someone trying to have a conversation with you. But eventually we eased into it and realised with a bit of Portuguese, some Spanish, a lot of hand and foot movements and a big smile (and a few tears) you can get anywhere in Brasil.
What a fantastic
people in this country. In every country we've been so far we've met nothing but friendly and helpful people, but here it gets a whole different meaning, as everyone seems to smile and laugh, greets you and generally wants to interact. So you can imagine it didn't take long before we started to love this place.
There was only one small thing that kept us from going completely overboard...and that were the prices! It is a very expensive country and just taking a bus from A to B blew our daily budget. So we did have to skip a couple of expensive things, but we still managed to spend a good 3 weeks here and it is a good reason to hopefully come back one day. Brasil is so big that we decided to stick with the area above and around Rio. We spent some amazing time in the beautifull colonial towns of the Minas Gerais area. A great step back in time, with their cobblestone streets, cosy little shops and even a real steamtrain to get us from one village to the other. After this we had some time to relax on the georgeous beaches of Saquerema and Bonito
( Brigitte Bardot's favourite hangout) before we finally arrived in...RIO.
The plan was to spent 3 days here, but after one day we realised this was a very stupid idea and quickly changed this to a week. We were therefore very lucky to meet a Dutch guy working for one of the hostels who rented out studio flats in a great area of Rio (for the same price as a double room in a hostel) So we ended up completely settled in a fantastic little apartment 5 minutes from the beach. HOW WE LOVE RIO!!!
It is a city like no other...and it doesn't take long before we started to daydream of a long happy life here. It is a very easy place to like; On the beach, with the mountains and rainforest behind it, beautiful friendly people from all different sizes shapes and backgrounds - but all with the same view of life; enjoy, relax, be happy and dance (and play football!)
So we ended up... dancing the night away on the beat of sambadrums at Lapa (the neighbourhood to go to for a great streetparty), Spending some great lazy mornings on the beach - watching boys (and some
girls) performing their amazing skills at foot volley, peoplewatching - especially on sunday when they close the streets around the beach end everyone is parading up and down in their tiny bikini's - , having a drink in one of the many many bars, having our belly's filled in one of the all you can eat restaurants and cheering on the Rio football team (the football itself was actually very bad and the team lost, but the atmosphere was absolutely amazing and the first 5 minutes of the game we couldn't see anything due to the amount of fireworks.)
Off course Rio, as many big city's, also has his own problems. Petty crime does happen, mainly in the area's where us tourists like to wave our wallets around. Luckily we didn't encounter anything and felt completely safe.
We did visit two of the Favella's in Rio. This is how they call certain area's within and around Rio run by the drugsmaffia. For a long time everyone denied the existence of these Favella's and they are still not made visible on the map. The police doesn't interfere at all and therefore these neighbourhoods developed their own little society where in
the drug baron makes all the decisions. Visiting these Favella's is not safe on your own, but we went with a very knowledgeable guide who knew the local people and was aware of any risks we were in. It was quite a bizarre experience as we received instructions to not take pictures in certain directions (as that is where the drugdealers work) or to get back in the van for safety. But we didn't feel unsafe at all and all the people we encountered were extremely friendly and are keen to change the bad image that has developed. They are all very proud of their society and it is only about 2% of the people that are actually involved in the drugs business. But unfortunatly most people are still involved in violence and innocent people die every day due to the wars between the different favella's. (For people who haven't seen it 'City of god' is an amazing and quite shocking film based on one of the Favella's in Rio)
Knowing we will surely return one day, we decided to travel away from Rio and cross the border towards Argentina. After a 24 hour busride (Distances in Brasil are
absolutely immense) we arrived at the Iguazu Falls. We spent time admiring these massive waterfalls from both the Brasil and Argentina side - definitely worth seeing it from both sides) The falls are unbelievebly beautiful, unfortunately we managed to join hundreds of other tourists on their national kids holidays. But even then it was absolutely worth it and wiith quite a happy feeling we were ready to explore more of Argentina (Apparently research has shown waterfalls make you happy :-)
With not much time left in South America, before our flight to New Zealand, and the fact that it was winter during our time in Argentina we didn't spent as much time in this country as it is probably worth. We did enjoy the two weeks we spent here. The people here are so friendly that every time we opened up our map, we had to hide in a courner if we didn't want a group of locals surrounding us to help. We spent 10 great days in Buenos Aires, again in a nice appartment of our own (great feeling to have a couch to sit on!!, and not having to catch a bus or repack your bag). BA
has a lot to offer and we had still a fairly busy schedule visiting all the museums, strolling through some nice colourful area's, stuffing ourselves with steak (and the tastiest sausages ever), wine and finally some great cheeses (which made this Dutch girl extremely happy)...... but a lot of the times we just chilled. We realised we really needed this break and the timing was just right. Just spending the morning drinking a cup of coffee whilst reading the paper was some days all we needed to do.
But after 10 days, we were both charged up and ready to pack our bags again. The only thing left here in South America was travelling into Chile and catching our plane. We only had one more stop to go; Mendoza at the Mountainous border with Chile, known as the wine region. This short stopover, ended up as a full week stuck in a hostel with a group of about 8 others, all waiting to the border to open up as it was completely snowed under. After visiting absolutely every little attraction (nook and cranny) in this town, it turned out that 3 days was certainly enough and we ended up
in one of those weird situations sitting on the couch with everyone, watching the Olympics and walking back and forth to the bus station for any news.
After 7 days, we finally boarded a bus to Santiago.... this left no time in Chile and we spent 1 day in Santiago and after that found ourselves sitting at the airport waiting for a flight out. Looking back on all these months in Central and South America we felt sad to leave these special parts of the world. We encountered so many friendly people, seen such amazing scenery and did things we never dreamt of doing.
Standing with the alpaca's on a 5000 meter high mountain in Peru and admiring the sharks at 30 m deep in the ocean in Ecuador.
Crawling through a massive cavesystem in Guatemala and feeling like a child whilst rafting in Honduras.
Trying to imagine the amazing cultures of the Inca's and Maya's whilst looking at overgrown ruins of their immense city's
Looking for snakes and tarantula's in the rainforest and standing within the the remains of the largest claycity in the world in the middle of the desert.
Spotting macaws in Costa Rica and
off course playing with those cute sealions in the Galapagos.
And so much more it is almost impossible to only pick just a few highlights. What a great time we had!
We definatly leave this place with a lot of amazing memories.
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