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Published: January 16th 2011
The following five days went by without much excitement at all. Our main ambition was to use our time finding a new camera, which unfortunately was without success as we were stranded in Paraty, an expensive tourist town, then realised how expensive electronics were in Brazil, even in Sao Paulo. A brief account of these days precede the real blog.
Someone was still out to get us when we arrived into Paraty from Rio. As we had changed our bus at such late notice we had been unable to book any accomodation. It was around 10pm when we arrived, so we sauntered into the nearest internet cafe and started writing down the addresses of hostels we could try. We asked the nearest taxi how much he was charging to Che Legarto hostel, he said 15 reais. Luke tried to get in but Katie said no way, knowing that the town was tiny. Armed with only our natural instinct we trudged through the dark streets of the tourist town, searching for the hostel. Fortunately we were guided in the right direction by various people on the street, and it turned out to be only 3 roads away, and a distance even
Katie didn't mind walking with heavy bags. We were so glad we hadn't taken a taxi, and appalled at their prices.
Unfortunately as a continuation of our bad luck Che Legarto Hostel had no free beds. The really friendly and helpful man at reception recommended some cheap guesthouses we could try. Cheap being 100 reais a night (approximately £40). We were well above budget here and began to wonder how we had not known how expensive Brazil is. Apparently it has recently had a boom in it's economy, but these prices were ridiculous compared to everywhere else in South America. Especially as Brazil's coast has little to offer in rainy season, and it was rainy season.
We found the guesthouse which was really great, and then went to get take away pizza which was surprisingly cheaper than in Peru and Bolivia. The following day it was raining. We decided to book a bus outta here for the next day as we were really not enjoying Brazil. It was pouring with torrential rain, and there was nothing else to do in Paraty other than go snorkelling. Unfortunately the buses to Sao Paulo were fully booked for the next two
days, meaning that we were stuck (for the first time on our trip) until the 5th. We moved back to Che Legarto where we had been offered the luxury of a private room with ants for £30 a night, and were informed by the receptionist that heavy rain was forecast for the next few days.
The only notable thing about the next two days was that we bought the hardest avocado ever with the intention of making our first fresh guacamole. We set it on our windowsill and checked it at regular intervals but eventually we had to pack it up and bring it with us to Sao Paulo. This was really the most interesting thing of our time in Paraty. We still hadn't been able to find a replacement camera, so we would need to spend a few days in Sao Paulo before heading down to Argentina via the Iguassu falls.
We had agreed to meet Martin in Sao Paulo. We arrived at the Global Hostel after being brave and riding the Sao Paulo metro at 11.30pm in the notoriously biggest city in South America. It was raining again, and again somebody (a missionary this time) guided
us from the metro from to the taxi rank. We are grateful of people's kindness but we really don't understand why they do this, as it is quite obvious that the taxi rank is just outside the exit of the station.
Global Hostel was ok. We had come to realise that Brazil offered the worst standard of hostel for the highest prices in the whole of South America that we had visited so far. The hostel had been awarded over 90% in reviews on a hostel booking website, however, the fact that we were sharing one bathroom between 14 did not make it an award winning hostel for us.
The following day was spent wandering around Sao Paulo, looking for a camera. One that we had seen on the internet for £120 was for sale for 900 reais (about £375) in one electronic shop. After realising we could not afford a camera in Brazil, we decided to cut our losses and returned to the hostel, too hot and bothered to discover any of the things that the city had to offer. We did stop by a large cathedral to look inside on the way back. It was quite
impressive but exactly like any other cathedral we had been in before.
On the evening we decided to go out for a steak. We were accompanied by Martin and an Aussie called Ed that we had recently met in the hostel. We followed directions on Ed's iphone all the way from the tube station to the restaurant, which was 4.5km away. We ended up in a really cool mall, filled with clothes and loads of other things we couldn't afford. They even had a Carrefour where the sales assistants wore roller blades. All the malls in Brazil have been pretty impressive, with one in Rio having a Land Rover showroom on the top floor.
We had to wait for about an hour and a half for our table, and when we were finally served we were more than disappointed to learn that they had ran out of the fillet. The restaurant was called the Outback Steakhouse and was an Americanised Australian food place. The steaks were ok but not the best so far, and the meal came to about £50 for the two of us which was hardly cheap. The following day we just waited around in the hostel,
then took the metro across town for our 17 hour bus to the Iguacu falls.
We decided not to give Paraty and Sao Paulo blogs of their own as we had no pictures, so they wouldn't be very interesting. It was just as well really that it rained the whole time we were in Paraty, and we didn't see much to photograph in Sao Paulo.
Iguacu Falls
The Iguacu falls are a huge collection of waterfalls, surrounded on three sides by Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. They are in the middle of rainforests, where the climate is very different to that on the coast. It was the hottest place either of us have ever been in our lives.
Our bus from Sao Paulo was at 4pm and we were destined to arrive the following morning around 8.30am. The buses in Brazil are also very expensive- this ride cost us about £60 each. The bus was crap with really cramped seats, no food included, and a REALLY annoying child screaming the place down all night, obviously in the seat directly behind ours. We arrived in Foz around 9am the following day to the most beautiful weather- steaming
hot.
We caught a tiny taxi over to the Supernova Hostel, where we were staying for one night. As we had yet to buy a camera, after showering and an amazing free breakfast of cheese and ham toasties, we had decided that we would take a trip over the 'friendship bridge' between Brazil and Paraguay, into Cuidad del Este for some electronics shopping. We caught the bus, and as it grew later into the day it became progressively hotter. Like ridiculously hot- so hot that sweat was rolling down our faces, the humidity was something we had never experienced before.
Paraguay was a really exciting bustling city, like La Paz on steroids. You couldn't take a step without having somone grab you and shove memory cards (or taizers) in your face. It really was somewhere different. The goods they sold ranged from fleece blankets (although why you would ever need one of those in their climate is beyond us) to the latest iphones and computer gadgets. We spent the whole day trying to get hold of a panasonic underwater camera, the TS2, but it seemed their camera selection was from 2009. We managed to replace the camera
with exactly the same one as we had had previously, with a spare battery and 8gb memory card for about 450USD.
We walked back to Brazil over the friendship bridge, straight past immigration without them batting an eyelid. We had been told back at the hostel that you didn't have to get your passport stamped or anything- you could go into Paraguay for the day freely. We got back to the hostel, and after a trip to the supermarket were able to make our first fresh guacamole. It was still so unbelievably hot well into the night.
After another breakfast of cheese and ham toasties, we headed out to catch the local bus to the national park. It may have been due to the great weather, but the bus was packed. We arrived to the park and had to wait for about an hour just to buy our admission tickets. The trail in the park was pretty impressive with really great views of the falls. However, the walk only took around an hour, and there wasn't anything else to do there. The best part of the park was being able to walk out between the falls on a
gangway, where cooling water splashed all over you.
After the falls we caught the bus back to our hostel to collect our bags, then caught another bus on to the Argentinian border. Here we were able to get our passports stamped pretty quickly, but ended up waiting about an hour and a half for an onwards bus to take us to the Argentinian side to get our entrance stamps. During this time we met two Swedes and another English couple, who we got chatting to.
We eventually managed to get a bus into Puerto Iguazu, the town on the Argentinian side of the falls. We tagged along with the other guys to Bambu Hostel, which was so nice, back to the standard we were used to. Unfortunately they had no room for five of us (the British couple already had a reservation), so the kind receptionist called a few other hostels in the area to see if they had space for us. We negotiated the price of 55 Argentinian pesos each (just over £9)for a 5 bed dorm at Stop Hostel, and when we arrived it didn't disappoint.
After showering and a stressful visit around all the
ATMs in town and finally finding money, we headed over to Bambu to meet the other guys for a drink. We then went for all-you-can-eat pizza for 25 pesos each, not a bad price.
The following day was blisteringly hot again, even at 7.30am when we took our bus to the falls. We were really excited to go to the Argentinian side as we had heard it was apparently much better. This was true. For the same price of admission as the Brazilian side (but price differentiation between tourists and nationals which we thought unfair as we do not operate such scandals back in the UK) we were able to walk many different trails, scale a gangway over the infamous Devil's Throat, and take a mini train through the park. Added to this there were loads of cute little racoon type critters that provided us with plentiful amusement throughout the day shamelessly attacking carrier bags and stealing people's picnics, and we were able to take a speedboat ride under the falls.
The views were more spectacular, we could get closer to the falls, and the scenery was a lot more colourful. We spent the morning walking over Devil's
Throat where people were pushing and fighting for the perfect pictures. After dodging back along the gangway, we caught the tourist train back to another trail where we were guided through numerous impressive viewing points before arriving at the queue for the boat ride. We had paid 110 pesos each for the ride, and were a little disappointed that it lasted approximately 5 minutes maximum. It really did consist of just driving up under the waterfalls. It was really cool riding up into the mist, the sheer power of the water was quite frightening as it pounded on the front of the boat. We had luckily got the front seats, and got absolutely soaked- it was great after being so hot walking around the park.
After a quick (disgusting, worst ever) sandwich for lunch, we headed back to the hostel as we had a bus to catch. We were absolutely beyond annoyed that half of Luke's laundry we had paid to have done at the hostel was missing, and that they had 'forgotten' to do Katie's at all, meaning we had a final ten minute panic. Fortunately they located the rest of Luke's clothes but half of them now
fit Katie, which wasn't too bad considering every single garment Katie owned was still in a dirty washing bag, besides the dress and (still wet) bikini she was wearing. After a quick shower Katie was able to piece together an outfit of Luke's boxers, t-shirt, and a pair of dirty shorts, Luke got dressed in some of the clothes that still fit him, then we ran all the way to the bus terminal, which in the heat made the shower completely pointless. Our cama bus arrived on time, and at 5pm on Monday 10th January we were on the road.
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Zee
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CORRRR BLIMEY BARBARA!!
Those pics of the waterfalls are amaaaazing, ahhh =) And so is your purple dress!! Sorry to hear how grubby and rubbish Rio was, hope you were able to get hold of the insurance company for your camera in the end!! Also happy birthday to luke for yesterday, hope you had a great time! loove xxxxxxxxxxxx