Adventures and Mishaps

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After a thankfully uneventful journey on the so called "Death Train" (people smuggling contraband on the roof of the train in the 80's often fell off and died), I was ready to cross the border to Brazil. At the border I met a guy called Indi (he's mentioned in the lonely planet, as he said to me about 10 times!) who ran Crocodile Indi tours. I was feeling lazy, it was a free taxi into the town, and he had already recruited a few other 'gringos', so I decided to go on his tour to the Pantanal for three days.

The Pantanal
We had a great group of people for the Pantanal which was a very international mix of Israelis, German, Canadian, Swiss and Czech. The two Canadians were great - they were in their 60's, had met on the internet and married six months later. They now spend 2 months every year travelling through South America - it gives me hope that this year will not be the end of my travels for a very long time to come!

Our three days in the Pantanal were great, though primarily due to the group of people and the guides rather than the Pantanal itself. We went on night and day safaris, went horse riding, went on boat trips, fished for Piranas and went tubing on the river. However, I didn't see as many animals as I expected. What we did see was caymans, piranas, deer, armadillo, monkeys, and lots of beautiful birds. I had expected to see more to be honest, but I think you would have needed to go much further into the Pantanal and spend a lot longer in order to see more wildlife. Unfortunately I was the main attraction for the mosquitos and as one person said, "You have been violated"! It was an itchy few days! I had a great time though with lots of laughs, a great three hour long sing song, as well as beautiful sunsets and sunrises. Not a bad way to spend a few days - its better than....whats that word?....oh yeah, work.

Iguazu Falls
Myself and Ellen, the German girl in the group, set off on a 20 hour bus journey to our next stop - Iguazu Falls. We booked into a lovely hostel which had a pool - a big treat after the terrible hostels in Bolivia. We met another Polish couple and a Dutch guy and set off as soon as we arrived to see the Brazilian side of the falls. The falls are absolutely amazing and kept me entranced all afternoon. There are so many small individual falls and then one huge waterfall which is far bigger than the one I had seen in Niagra, which had imazed me then. We took a 20 minute boat tour and got thrown under a few of the smaller waterfalls for 5 minutes for the grand sum of 35 Euro. I thought I was back in Ireland for a minute! Definitely not worth the soaking! The following day we crossed the border for a few hours to Argentina. This side of the waterfall was even more amazing as you can get right up close to the falls. You really get to feel the size and power of the falls - the noise and spray is unbelievable! A definite highlight of my trip.

Rio de Janeiro
Next stop, following a 30 hour bus journey, Rio de Janeiro. What a cool city; with mountains, beaches, nightlife.....it has everything. Unfortunately its one downside is that it is pretty dangerous with the whole city surrounded by Favellas (shanty towns). I opted not to go on a favella tour as I thought I had chanced my luck enough in Bolivia! My Saint Christopher medal will only get me so far!

I spent many a happy hour on either iPanema or Cocacabana beach enjoying the 'Walking Buffet' and of course the famously good lucking Brazilian men that ran by! They love themselves way too much for me though! Needless to say I partook in the nightlife that Rio had to offer, which again often involved watching the sunrise on the way home. I won't be able to finish up at 2am in Ireland when I get home! We also went on a boat party for the day that went out into the bay. Was such a fun day with free Caprinhas (the cocktail of choice in Brazil), a free BBQ and lots of dancing and swimming around the boat. Unfortunately the day ended badly with very bad weather conditions on the way back causing the life raft to fall from above onto poor Ellens hand breaking it. We spent a few hours in the hospital waiting room that evening, but poor Ellen has since had to have an operation and will be in a cast for a while. Not a nice end to her trip.

I promise I wasn't completely uncultural in Rio! I went on a tour around the city where the first stop was the football stadium and putting my feet in Pele's footprints. He had quite small feet actually! We then went to see the Lapa Steps which are tiled with pictures and has a tile for every country in the world. I made sure to find the Irish one! Then it was off to the Cathedral, which doesn't look remotely like a cathedral from the outside. However from the inside it is amazing with beautiful stained glass windows all the way up the roof - its beautiful. It was funny when Ellen was kicked out for wearing too short shorts! Thankfully I was being a good Catholic girl that day and had my knees covered. Final stop was the infamous Christ the Redeamer which overlooks the city. It is the highest point in the city and has the most beautiful views. We managed to make it back down in time just before the rain started lashing down and a 3 hour long lightening storm lit up the city. The building next to the hostel was hit and the whole hostel shook - it was cool! A whirlwind day of culture in Rio before moving on the following day to the island paradise, Ilha Grande.

Ilha Grande
Well I nearly didn't make it to Ilha Grande. Due to the lightening strike the phones where down on the island and I couldn't organise the hostel to hostel transfer which is the easiest and cheapest way. However, thankfully I met two guys from Oz that were far more adventurous than I, Jimmy and Joel. We decided to go anyway and hope that when we reached the town where the ferry went from that we would be able to catch a fishing boat across. We did manage to hire a fishing boat in the end and arrived in the dark to a pitch black island with no electricity - a great start! We ended up having a lovely few days. The first day we went hiking to waterfalls which weren't quite Iguazu - it was tiny! It started lashing and getting back was interesting - I spent a long time slidding down muddy hills on my bum! Afterwards I just walked into the sea in all my clothes! The following day we went on a boat trip around the island. It was a gorgeous day and we spent it climbing down into a cave and going snorkelling. A nice end to a relaxing few days.

Florianopolis
My final Brazilian stop was Florianopolis, again another beach hang out. I still was with Jimmy and Joel, as well as Zora who I met on the bus, 4 other people I had met in Rio, and 3 other people we met in Florianopolis - so we had a massive gang, which needless to say led to great parties! Our time in Florie didn't involve doing very much to be honest. We went to the different beaches around and chilled out, had all you can eat barbeques and partied a lot! The best party we went to was a big beach party called P12 which was at a fancy resort and had a big dance tent. A day of dancing, sunning myself and swimming in the pool - I was definitely not homesick that day! The only bad element of my week there was that I did have a run in with 'Natasha' who I definitely think had something to do with me spraining my ankle on the steps in Sunset Hostel on my first night there. To clarify, Natasha being a 3 Eur bottle of vodka!. As you can tell it didn't stop me living it up! I got all the typical names from the gang - hop-a-long, limp-a-lot..... - a bunch of comedians. A great few days and would have loved to stay on longer, but unfortunately I was way off schedule and Argentina was calling me.....

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