Buenos Aires (Part 1)

We said farewell to the wonderful Iguazu falls and caught a bus straight to Buenos Aires, not knowing what to expect from a city we´ve heard so much about. Unfortunately the sight seeing had to be delayed as I got sick on our last day in Iguazu (the shower under the falls might have had something to do with it!) We therefore "upgraded" to a hotel in central Buenos Aires near the Argentine Congresso National. After a full recover we moved over to a Hostel in the neighborhood of San Telmo.

San Telmo is characterized for being the oldest neighborhood of Buenos Aires and the birthplace of the tango. We often walked around the cobblestone streets to admire its bohemian charm through the colonial buildings, churches, cafes, tango parlors, bookstores and antique shops. We had the fortunate oppurtinity to watch a tango show on the main square while enjoying a couple of beers in the Buenos Aires sunshine. We also really enjoyed the Sunday market where artisans, musicians, performers and antique vendors share their talents and goods on the streets. From gramaphones players to antique passport holders, soda siphons to silverware from the early 1900´s, we were thoroughly pleased with the treasures San Telmo had to offer!

We also spent a lot of time in the barrio of Recoleta. We got lost in the cemetario de la Recoleta, the resting place of Argentina´s past presidents, national heroes, and famous personalities (one of the most famous being Eva Peron, a.k.a Evita). Later we visited Argentina´s largest art Museum, Museo Nationale de Bellas Artes. The museum offered a impressive collection of Pre-Columbian to 20th Century Argentine Art as well as an international exhibition of collections from Middle Age to 20th Century. Afterwards we walked passed the famous Flor de Metal statue (which open and closes with the sun via hydrolic machinery) unroute to the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA). We were most impressed by Carlos Cruz-Diez: Colour in Space and Time exhibition which included the Venezulan´s silk screen prints and room sized light instalations of his experimental works with colour and movement. With our feet sore from walking through Roceleta and the Palermo neighborhood, we ended our day with a short rest at the Jardin Japones.

As we reached our first week in Argentina, we thought we´d take a break from home-made pasta to try out more traditional cuisine...meaning STEAK STEAK STEAK! We quickly made a reservation for a table at a steakhouse along the Puerto Madero waterfront. We took a few minutes to compose ourselves after eating the best steak we´ve ever had, and walked along the waterfront past the beautifully lit Puente de la Mujer (Woman´s Bridge) and managed to get all the way back to our hostel in San Telmo by foot.

On one of our last days we went to visit La Boca, a neighborhood made famous by its Artists, Tango, Boca Juniours Football team, and iconic mutli-coloured houses. Unfortunately the neighborhood is notoriously unsafe for tourist (we were warned not to stray off the touristy route), so just walked around the famous Caminito street. Though very touristy, we really enjoyed the colours of Caminito (attributed to one of Argentina´s most famous artist Benito Quinquela Martine, born in La Boca). We later settled down for a couple of beer at a tango parlor to watch another brilliant live show.
There was so much of Buenos Aires that we enjoyed, and spent many moments imagining living there owning a bookstore while renting a colonial apparment in San Telmo... one can dream hey? We were not too sad to leave as we knew that we would be back in four months time to fly to Sydney. So more time to see all the sights we missed! We bought our train tickets to Bahia Blanca, near the coast to start our journey through Patagonia. On our dark and rickety old train filled with locals chatting away, we managed to drift to sleep, anxious for more Argentian treasures to come...

Check out more pictures from Buenos Aires from my Facebook Album:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.549723549673.39786.223200117&type=1&l=f70264f70a

Iguazu

After the comfort and luxury of Curitiba we decided to ease ourselves back into the travelling lifestyle by visiting one of the 7 natural wonders of the world*, as you do.

After pitching the tent in the garden of a hostel in Foz do Iguacu, we jumped on a bus to the Brazilian side. There isn't really much point trying to describe it, as we'd never be able to do it the justice it deserves (hopefully the pictures will), but things that struck us the most were the sheer scale of the falls, as well as the sound, which you hear long before you get through the trees to see it.

After the falls everything else seems to pale in comparison, but the bird park just outside the visitors centre is still pretty impressive. It's, as you might expect, full of all sorts of exotic birds, including macaws, toucans and flamingos - as well as plenty of lizards and even a boa constrictor.


The next day, before moving into Argentina an the neighbouring city of puerto iguazu, we took a trip to see the Itaipiu dam - incidentally one of the 7 modern wonders of the world**. The dam utilises the power of the mighty Parana river to provide 90% of Paraguay's power and 20% of Brazil's, which makes it the single largest producer of power in the world, even more than the Three Gorges Dam in China (take that Hayley). And unlike the Three Gorges (massively sweeping statement about China here) the designers endeverd to minimise the effect on the environment and community though various sustainability projects and creating jobs, although its probably all just propaganda and they actually killed-off a few dozen endangered species.




Then we waved good bye to Brazil and said hello to Argentina. As we rode the bus to between the two border posts, you can really feel that you are changing countries, the smells, the sounds, the people and the landscape all are different and all contrive to give you a real sense of new adventures and endless beginnings - Nah, only joking, its exactly the same . They are just two different sides of a river, what do you expect I guess?

After spending a few days on the Argentinian side of the falls we certainly did notice some differences though. On this side you don´t get the all encompassing views offered in Brazil, but what you get in return is a closer look at some sections, and from others dramatic views from the top where the world seems to be falling away over the edge. As a way to round off the whole experience we took a boat trip to get an even closer view, it was basically the most expensive shower you have ever had, but we enjoyed it.

*actually it's not official yet, apparently we all have to vote to make it happen...
**apparently this one is official.

Curitiba, Churrascarias, and Capybaras

Thida here, up early to tell you all about our wonderful time in Curitiba. Our stay there was particularly special as we stayed with my Uncle Bruce and Aunt Raeann, both working at the international school of Curitiba. Another comfortable 8 hour bus ride, we arrived at the Curtiba bus station at about 6 in the morning. As we didnt want to be knocking on our hosts door too early, we decided to walk to their appartment to kill some time. This ended up taking us 3 hours over many hills (we had assumed curitiba to be flat for some reason), good practice atleast for when we do our trekking in Patagonia.

We had arrived at the appartment, nick named the 20th floor nest, greeted by Raeann, Bruce, and an incredible view over the city. Bruce and Raeann took us to a wonderful Japanese buffet that night (like Soa Paulo, Curitiba is home for a signficant number of Japanese Brazilians). It was a nice change from our new staple diet of rice beans and chips. The next morning we walked through Barigui park not far from the appartment and encountered our first group of Capybaras. Giant hamsters, 140 pound rat, furry sheep, however you want to imagine it, Capybaras are the largest rodents in the world, with its closest relative being the guinea pig. They swim too!

Curitiba is recognised for its sustainable urban planning. What we had heard most about was the city's innovative and highly organised transport system (consisting entirely of buses). We were fortunate enough to be very close to a "tubo station" on one of the BRT lines that have lanes dedicated to buses. For some reason however, we managed to get ourselves very lost in central Curitiba the first couple of days. Fortunately for us, Curitiba has an excellent tourist bus line (and were are double deckard with an open roof, we were warned to to get hit by traffic lights!) Having no shame in looking very touristy, we had visited the wonderful Oscar Neiymer Art Museum (also known as the Eye Musuem due to its shape, designed by the famous Brazilian architect himself).

We later visited and passed by spots dedicated to the cultures of various immigrants of Curitiba such as German Wood Park, The Polish memorial in Pope´s Woods, The Ukranian memorial in Tingui park (also dedicated to the native indians that used to live there) , the Italian neighborhood of Santa Felicidade, and the Arab memorial in central Curitiba. We had also visited the city´s beautiful botanical gardens, wire opera house, and its historical center. We were also treated to an amazing churrascaria by Raeann (A Brazilian steakhouse where various meats from sirlion steaks to chicken hearts are brought to your table every minute until you say stop!)

Due to unfortunate and unpredictable weather in southern Brazil, we had spent a few days longer in Curitiba until it was clear enough for Iguazu falls (who could complain with clean sheets and free internet on the 20th floor!) During our wait, we did a day trip to the river town of Morrettes taking a wonderful panorama train with fantastic views of the mountains of Serra do Mar. Such a wonderful time in Curitiba seeing the sights with the opportunity to catch up with family and see their life in Brazil, it was sad to say goodbye! Thank you Bruce and Raeann for a wonderful time!

Sao Paulo - Friends, Football and Modern Art

All Jack's Picture this time...

 After living a quiet life on the beach for nearly 3 weeks it was a welcome change to get back to the hustle and bustle of a city, and where better than one of the biggest cities on the planet. According to a 2009 UN report*, Sao Paulo is the 3rd largest urban agglomeration in the world, housing over 20 million people, dwarfed only by Delhi and Tokyo. I think it would have been to big to handle if it wasn't for the fact we had our very own local tour guide in the form of Junior (well he's from Campinas, Sao Paulo state which was good enough for us!).

 Junior, a friend Jack and his friends met on holiday in Madrid in 2010, met us at our hostel, which was (on his recommendation) in a good location for the local subway system. Like all good tours we started at the football museum, housed in the Estadio do Pacaembu, which was built in 1940 and hosted several games during the 1950 world cup (although Brazilians don't have fond memories of that tournament). The museum itself was really good, it has a good history of the beginnings of football in Brazil, a library of footage from memorable moments throughout football history, and of course, Pele.

Thida wanted more pictures of her on the blog.

 Next we took a bus to the main street in downtown Sao Paulo, Av. Paulista - no mean feat in itself, and I don't think we'd have managed it without Juniors help -  a wide avenue lined with skyscrapers stretching out for over a kilometer. Here we stopped into MASP, the Sao PAulo museum of art, downstairs was a modern excebition (above and left) and upstairs there was a selection of older paintings and sculptures, from Monet and Van Gough to Constable and Turner.

 After a hard days sightseeing we tucked into some Brazilian snacks (food post pending) and had a few beers in one of the many bars along Av Augusta - one of Paulista's many tributarys. The next day Junior took us down to one of the main parks in Sao Paulo, here we saw the independence monument, and our first Oscar Neimeyer building (Auditorium - Right), as well as the Obelisk of Sao Paulo. Then we headed to the central district to check out a massive indoor market, get some more (amazing) Brazilian food, and get a view of the city from the top of one of its many skyscrapers.

After another busy day, we headed to another bar on Augusta to settle down for the evening. Through out the night we were joined by a steady stream of Junior (and Bruno's) friends until there was a decent sized group of us to drink, chat (mainly about Colgy's drunken antics) and watch Sao Paulo FC play on the bar's big screen. All in all, the few days in Sao Paulo with Junior et al, were defiantly among the best of our time in Brazil so far, not least because we had a very knowledgeable guide and got to spend time with some friendly locals!

 During our last 2 days in the city we were alone, and decided to get to know some of the areas that we had touched upon a little better. We went back to the park and visited the modern art museum, there was some good stuff, mainly in the form of Damien Hurst (who doesn't enjoy his crystal skulls and various farm yard animals suspended in formaldehyde) and also some pretty dodgy stuff - I guess that's modern art for you. One thing we noticed during our wanders was the ubiquity of many painted rhinoceroses around

 the city, a part of a public exhibition called RhinoMania not unlike the CowParade phenomena which (a little research has informed me) has its origins in Zurich in 1998, although I remember it from Manchester, and Thida from the painted cow in her office in London. Our time in Sao Paulo reinforced the impression we have been given of Brazil as leading centre of art and architecture, as much as football and natural beauty - something which we hadn't realized when we planned our trip (although a little research would have shown us) and have been very pleasantly surprised by.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_agglomerations_by_population_%28United_Nations%29

Jack, Junior, Junior's friend (I feel bad as I can't remember his name, but I know he is from the same place as Anderson!) & Bruno!

Paraty

After a week on Ilha Grande we moved 2 hours down the coast to an old colonial town located on the Coasta Verde (Green Coast) called Paraty, with the journey there proving to be a little eventful. As it wasn't too far away, we had the option of taking a local bus or a coach, where the local option would undoubtedly be cheaper. However as we had offered to show some people how to get there we felt bad roaming the streets in search of the local bus and led the way to the coach station, where we found out the price to be R$5 - not a bad price, or so we thought.

Sooner or later a bus arrived and we got on, and were informed that the ticket was in fact R$50! Not having enough money we got off the bus and went to collect our bags, only to be followed by the bus driver who seemed just as annoyed that we couldn't explain ourselves in Portuguese as he was that we had got off the bus after he had written out the tickets. After 5 minutes someone got off the bus and explained to us that the driver was liable to pay the ticket money as he had written out the tickets, we explained that we didn't have enough money to pay for them. The man then offered and insisted that he help us pay for our tickets. Coming from London, we were taken aback by this man's generous offer. Even more shocked when he refused the money we managed to take out once in Paraty and asked that we one day do the same for someone in need. We agreed.... but paid him back anyway!

Once we settled into our hostel, we went to explore the historical center of Paraty. Walking down the cobbled streets (with the only modes of transport being foot or a horse drawn carriage) passing beautiful colonial buildings, we stumbled across and huge tent with some photo exhibitions. We quickly learned that we had arrived just in time for Paraty em Foco- one of Brazil's largest photography festivals.

 

We watched an good open source documentary film about copyright infringement called "RIP: Remix Manifesto", and another which consisted of groups of amazingly colourful photos taken of native Amazonian tribes and their villages. The copyright documentary was particularly interesting as it used Brazil as an example of where ignoring copyrights can have very positive consequences, by far the biggest was the Brazilian government violating drug firm Roche's patent on the AIDS drug Nelfinavir in order to reduce it's cost by 40%.

Aside from the wandering around the photography festival, most of our time was spent walking around town taking pictures and sitting in some of the many restaurants and bars that littered the town. One day, and after a lot of rain, the historic town flooded giving rise to all sorts of reflections from the brightly painted windows and doorways - and you can imagine how all those photographers loved that!

Just some of the 1000's of pictures taken by Thida

 

Costa Verde and Ilha Grande

*Disclaimer*

Well we have been pretty poor over the past few weeks with updating on here, mainly due to a lack of reliable internet access and all the fun we have been having, and maybe a little of laziness thrown into the mix as well! We will try and rectify the situation quickly!

We left Rio and took a bus down the coast to a  place called Angra dos Reis. The road from Rio to Angra heads south traversing the Costa Verde (green coast), treating you to some spectacular views. To the right rows of mountains tower above the road, each one painted green with Atlantic forest, and to the right a mixture of cliffs, pristine beaches, an ocean littered with groups of tropical islands, and bizarely lots and lots of oil tankers - I`m only being so descriptive as we didn`t take any pictures!

Once we reached Angra dos Reis we took a local ferry out to the main town on Ilha Grande, the island itself looks incredible, a piece of the Costa Verde ripped off and placed an  hour and a half out to sea. Once we were there we realised that we had forgotten the name and location of our hostel, but after a long walk around town and a trip to an internet cafe we managed to find it - and as we were the only people there we got a ensuite double room for the price of a dorm, bargin.

I won`t go into a lot of detail about what we did, needless to say on a tropical island we went to the beach a lot, but I will elabourate on a few of our more memorable days out. There are no vehicles aowed on the island (and no roads to drive them anyway) so to get anywhere you have to either walk or catch a boat. The first full day there we took the boat around the island to `the best` beach there, and to be fair it was a very nice 2km strectch of untouched coast with nice sand, a warm sea and (for Jack) not too much sun. The way out the sea was very calm, however on the way back it was choppy to the point where the waves were the same height as our (admitadly quite small) boat, and despite only being 20m from the coast it did provide a little excitent - especially when we started taking on water!

Dodgy boat journeys asside, the lack of vehicles provided the opportunity/motivation to walk through the joungle roads. During which we managed to see some natural pools, a waterfall and monkeys, not to mention some pretty nice beaches!

Santa Teresa, Cristo Redentor, and Pao de Acucar

Thida here, writing on behalf of Jack as he gaurds our hostel´s TV to watch Man U. So we moved from our cramped hostel in Copacabana to Catete, across the street from the former presidential palace of Brazil (now the museum of the Republic) and nearby the neighborhood of Santa Teresa which we headed for first. After getting lost in the empty street ( A contrast to what we´ve experienced so far in Rio) we reached the center of Santa Teresa, admiring its views over the city and colourful colonial buildings.

We later headed down to Lapa and Centro Rio, to stumble upon Rio Cathedral, which we had mistaken for a replica of a Mayan temple..

Tuesday, without a cload in the sky, we decided to go to Cristo Redentor and Pao de Acucar. We took a 20 minute train ride up the 700 meters high to the top of Morro do Corcovado through the rainforest. With a view hovering over Rio and the iconic 30 ft tall statue of Cristo, it was hard to decide which was more impressive...

We later headed for the Sugar Loafs to ride the cable cars to the top, a couple of hours too early for the sunset. Needing to kill time we walked over to the ocean thinking we would find nothing out of the ordinary. To our suprised we stumbled upon a fantastic bay right below the sugar loafs. We later went up the cable cars, passing by climbers getting closer to the top, and were once again greeted with some fantastic views of Rio.

More pictures of our time in Brazil so far can be viewed on my facebook album

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.547219238333.39162.223200117&l=62282f6ae4&type=1

Nese. Nese.

So after a few days of rest we decided that it was time to get spending and start seeing some more of Rio. So we packed up and moved all of 5 roads down to a hostel which had more people, less space, but more importantly it organised tours to lots of Rio`s most popular sights.

On Sunday, Brazil stops as it`s Citizens go to Worship. Apologies for the cheesy line, I pressed enter before Thida could stop me!

We decided to take advantage straight away and went to take part in something everyone in Brazil enjys, football. The game was on of Rio`s 4 teams Fluminese who were to take on Corinthians (Junior has told me to say) Sao Paulo`s second best team - City if you will.

Before the game, and because there is no alcohol allowed in the stadium, we went to a street near to the stadium to soak up the atmosphere. It wasn`t too dissimilar to what you woud expect in England, the street was a seam of the red, white and green of fluminese, the fans all chanting and eating and drinking courtesy of stalls lining the road to the stadium. We were told that Flumines usually play at theMaracana
stadium - a Cathedral of football built to host the 1950 world cup final (which Brazil lost to neigbouring Urugauy), but as it is closed to be upgraded for the 2014 World Cup finals the game was held at the stadium of one of Fluminese`s local Rivals, I can`t remember which though.


Once inside though, the fans went crazy, smoke grenades, inflatable banners and no concept of seat numbers. The chorus of chants (the only one we could make out was a shortening of the clubs name, hence the post`s title) and abused directed towards the away supporters - and the match officials` decisions - was non-stop. I made the mistake of trying to beat the half-time toilet queue, a mistake for 2 reasons. Firstly the isle was non existant, instead hundreds of fans had decided to stand there for the whole game making it imposible for me, or anyone to get through for the 90 mins, and secondly because I`m not sure if it was a rouge smoke greneade or the (soft)drinks vendors trying to create customers but it was pretty much impossible to breath in the toilet.

I could see the relief on the many a Policeman`s face when the game ended 1-0 to Flumines (OK I may be exadurating a little bit.), all in all though it was great fun and a brilliant way to cap our first weekend on the continent, We will definatly be going to some more games soon!

At the Copa. Copacabana

Having got to our hostel at about 10:30pm while everyone there was drinking, dancing (presumably) and having fun, social party animals that we are, we took a beer to our room then went to sleep.* So having woken up early, to early, and refeshed we went out for a bit of an expore.

It turn`s out that our hostel is next to a Favela, which isn`t really much of a surprise as most places seem to be. We are equidistant (10-5 mins) from Copacobana and Ipanema Beaches, so headed out to Ipanema to catch the baking hot Rio sun. Thankfuly at 11am at the tail end of winter the sun isn`t that bad although I did manage to get sunburnt on my foot.


To be honest that`s all we have done for the first few days, just chill and wander through the very nice surroundings, that and find an English bar so I could watch United hammer 5 past Bolton, and accidently pay for an all you can eat Pizza place in Brazils answer to Frankie & Bennies.

*The next day the hostel was empty, and for the rest of the time we were there...

Finally* off to Brazil.

So with our bags packed, goodbyes said and a little bit of a hangover (see previous) we headed to heathrow. There isn`t much to be said for the journey, and Thida, seasoned traveller that she is, wasn`t sure it waranted a post, but as it was my first long-haul flight I was quite excited....

Excited as I was, I think we were both expecting a bit of a nightmare which thankfully, didn`t materialise. The train was easy, the terminal was empty, the plane food actually tasted OK and watching 5 films in a row is probably what I would have done with my day anyway. Aside from some horrifically fast driving from our taxi on the Rio end, it was all very easy and comfortable. Plus Heathrow T5 didn`t even loose our bags, which must make us some kind of QM fluke.(Crack!)

J

* The fact that I had to google the correct spelling of this doesn`t really bode well for the writing on this blog, consider this and apology for any and all future offence caused by my awful English.

Goodbye!!!

After 2 years of saving up enough money to go on our trip, we decided to spend our last night at the salisbury to spend as much money as we could, saying goodbye to (some of) our lovely friends.

Not really much more to say except that we are going to miss you all a lot! - as well as green lanes, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of... how rio will compare, we have no idea!

(Below - just a small selection of photos/people from that night. Goodbye dance video pending...)

J&T

Hello World!

First ever blog post, this is emotional.

OK, so pictures work...