Blogs from Brazil, South America - page 632

July 13th-Laura´s Today consisted of mainly relaxing, in fact it was in all a very relaxing and beautiful day! to start off the day me an dom decided that as we were only a stones throw from paradise we should start our day of with a jog along the beach...hahaha okay we sunbathed and paddled in the water but it was amazing...yet i hate to admit this (don´t laugh Claire) my tan is yet to be seen! Crazy i know, maybe its because i´ve been wearing, and forcing Dom to wear, factor 50?!, but there is some sign of tanning, i mean my freckles have come out with avengence! so after relaxing on paradise, i mean the beach we headed back to Robby´s... Dom obviously decided he didnt want to go in as he wouldnt open ... read more

with heavy hearts and heavy heads, oops, thats probably the valium, we must leave Rio for further adventure! How can I possibly sum up this city of cities.....it is indeed a city of dreams, parties and infinite madness! easily my favourite city yet....New York, Paris, Dublin, Copenhagen, Porto, Milan , London, great places put way back in the shadows now! We heard stories of muggings and death....incidently from non-backpackers, but we found a city thats safer then any i´ve witnessed so far! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copacobana and ipanema beachs lay side by side with city blocks towering inbetween....spending days strolling up and down, cold beers always within arms reach....although we did find an area that served cocktails, where we settled down to watch the sunset....only to have our view blocked by young amouress ... read more

phase 1 of our adventure is coming to an end as we have now decided that we will be leaving this tropical paridise on Monday! but its been amazing here! Here are our diaries from the last few days 12th July - Dom´s We wake up early and robby fixes us breakfast. He offers a number of outings for set prices, and we take him up on a tour of the city for 70R$ (1 R$ is 24p). We walk to the local beach and buy coconuts, drinking the milk straight from the coconut, as Robby tells us about his life here in Rio. There is no welfare system here, so when he lost his job he had to think of something. Jobs are scarce, and rich people scacer here. He opened his flat to tourists ... read more

From Tatajuba we travelled up the coast passing through Camocim (eyesore!) , Parnaiba (nothing there!) and Tutoia (really grim!) and eventually ended up in a small town called Paulinho Neves. We werent really sure what to expect - we knew it was a small fishing town on the banks of a river - but it was much much better than just that !! Paulinho Neves is the entrance to the small Lencois sand dunes - the difference from the grand lencois - is that the small dunes have vast green areas next to them making them look even more beautiful. We did a really stunning walk over the dunes - cooling off by swimming in the lagoon. Another day we went with our guide Neilson down the river in a small boat , along the mangroves ... read more

Brazil - 3 or 4 Months Brazil was another country which I visited on many occasions, in fact I think I went to the country 4 times, spending 3 or 4 months there in total. For the first few visits See my "Iquitos to Rio" blog The third time I visited Brazil I entered from Uruguay, with two Friends I was traveling with. We came from Cabo Polonio and hopped along the coast of Brazil stopping in Porto Alegre very briefly and then Barra da Lagoa, a nice town on the island of Florianópolis, sandwiched between two national parks. Here we spent almost 2 weeks, drinking and socialising before heading to the waterfalls at Foz do Iguazu so that I could take my second look at this fantastic location. From Barra da Lagoa I also visited ... read more