Blogs from Brazil, South America - page 625

In the U.S., dinner at a truck stop means the waitress at a Flying J, Perkins, or McDonald’s counter guy serves you soup from a bag, potatos from a box, and a hamburger from the freezer. Not so here. Dinner at a truck stop means fresh food from their kitchen, usually an-all -you-can-eat or por-kilo buffet. On the hot buffet there will be a few kinds of rice, farofa (like polenta but made from yucca and eaten dry, with beans), beans, a variety of meats, and maybe stroganoff, or lasagna, or fried polenta or yucca. The cold buffet will have arugula (!!!) lettuce, beets, tomatos, onions, carrots....All for a price of about R$4 to R$9, or US$1.90 to $4.50, depending on the excahnge rate. ANd its really good. At some places they cook your choice ... read more

Our visit saw us strolling down the promenade in Copacabana, frequenting the restaurants of the rich & famous in Ipanema, marvelling at the statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado mountain and even more at the view from there of the city of Rio unfolding below you. A trip up Sugar Loaf mountain and a ferry to Niteroi (where Pete's grandparents lived in the early 1900's) completed our whistle stop tour of Rio. Samba lessons will have to wait until next time! Then on to Iguazu (2hr flight from Rio) - calling these a waterfall sells them very short. Cataracts, 3 km long or wide(?) with 4 million cubic metres of water per second cascading over with amazing force - you just have to see this (& feel it) to believe it! Now off to Argentina ... read more

After breakfast, and making our own rolls for lunch, he he, we went for a walk to find a fresh water pool we had been told about. It was about a 20min. walk along the sea front. Found it. It was freezing and sucluded really pretty. Then we found a little beach below the pool and stayed there for the day. It had another pool which was bigger but just as cold! Andy adopted one of the many stray dogs for the day. She was so cute and even followed him into the water. That night we had dinner and met up with Ben and Rich and went to a bar full of locals where they were all brazillian dancing. Kinda cool. We all tried to join in a little. I (mel) even got to have ... read more

Wow, just check out this for a waterfall. There´s been a fair bit of rain around in the last week and so it was really pumping. The Brazilian side has a smaller area available to the public than the Argentinian side but both are well worth the visit. The falls tend to attract some crazy groups. The Lonely Planet guide reported there were a group of Brazilian guys in red speedos on the day that they went to the falls. On the day I went to the Brazilian side there were about 20 guys and girls dressed up in traditional German outfits getting soaked under the sprays. I chatted to one very friendly girl and learnt that they were Portugese speaking, German dancing Brazilians out for a day of fun. I did the Argentinian side with ... read more

So we went on the Favela tour. Wicked!!!!! We learnt so much and we are now going to try and tell you it all. We went to the biggest in Rio, Rochina, over 60, 000 people. A favela is thousands of self built houses crammed together with tiny alleys between them on the hills where poor people live. These work in Rio as maids and stuff. They build them on the hills because if nowone claims the land you are on in 5 years it is yours. There is over 600 in Rio alone! All run by different gangs and in charge of by drug lords. You´re safer there than in the city itself as there are rules set by the drug lords that they all abide by. They don´t steal up there just in the ... read more