The Last Stretch

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Back in the Shire now so just thought I'd complete the last little bit of our voyage, won't say too much. From Buenos Aires went on yet another 24hr+ bus journey up to Iguazu Falls, bordering Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. It is a huge national park with the most amazing waterfalls I've ever seen, they really do take your breath away and give you goosepimples when you first look over the part known as The Devil's Throat. Walked around the park and went on a boat ride up to the Devils Throat and then under one of the smaller waterfalls, which was still huge, and got absolutely soaked! The photos do not even come close to showing how big they are and obviously there isn't the roar of water either. Hostel here was really good as well so spent all the time we weren't at the Falls sunbathing, playing football or drunk. It was also the birthplace of the infamous cocktail "El Beaner Experimento", which can only be made by The Bean with the right ingredients! Armstrong also managed to ruin his knee again, after 6 months of avoiding football, he starts fighting in the streets, and spends the next week or so crippled.

Left here for Ilha Grande near to Rio. Transferred through Sao Paulo with perfect timing, apparently the next day a few Sao Paulo druglords decided that although they don't mind being in prison because the can still run their businesses, they were not impressed with attempts to move them all to different prisons and basically ordered a city wide riot, with about 60 buses being firebombed and God knows how many people shot! Ilha Grande was really nice, tropical beaches and jungle all over again! Nice place to relax before Rio. Went to the nicest beach I've been to yet, Lopes Mondes, just perfect. We arranged for a guy to take us over there in his boat and pick us up at 4, cos we didn't want to have to walk through the jungle for a few hours in flip flops. Come 4 o'clock there is no sign of the guy, so we had to make a move before it got dark and we were really stitched. So quite angry that this bloke has stitched us after paying him, we set off on a long, camera lit trek through a dark jungle. Bit of a nightmare! Only when we got back did Bean realise his camera clock was actually an hour wrong so the bloke hadn't stitched us after all and the walk was pointless! Went scuba diving with Swills, did a shipwreck this time which was cool but vis was only 3m so couldn't see all that much! On the way back about 15-20 dolphins swam and played with our boat which was cool, quite big as well, just gunning along on the bow of the boat- so fast!

Last stop was Rio, did the usual things, Sugarloaf and Christ the Redeemer, Arnie and Joe mixed it up a bit by going to Sugarloaf on the way home from our night out, at 8 in the morning! Views were amazing, Rio is a special place, couldn't place a city more perfectly with mountains and coastline. Naturally went out a few times, last night was spent in Lapa where everybody just drinks in the streets, which was quality. Swills and Bean went paragliding, wandered the streets and beaches for a bit but mostly drank. Went to watch Vasco de Gama against Botafogo in the Maracana which although huge, 155000 people, was under repair so not that many people there, but a great atmosphere and you can drink in the stadium which makes a change, Rio women are generally awesome as well and we went in winter so I can't begin to imagine those beaches at carnival time- think a return trip might be in order!!! Thats it then, no more blogs to endure- thanks for reading!

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Comments

[Sophie Biagioli]

Hello!
Hey Nick! Thanks for giving me the address for this blog! It's hilarious, and the photos are absolutely stunning! All packed now and ready to go, so excited, especially since I've now got an even better ideas as to where I'm heading! Hope you have a great summer too, and good luck in the new job xxx