BA-CK

So I guess I could have gone somewhere new, somewhere different, and had a new adventure for my last couple of weeks, but Buenos Aires was calling me back. I had friends there (including my good friends steak and wine, and a park full of cats), I knew the area, I had somewhere to stay, and I wanted some “cafe time”. I arrived in the evening and headed to my new neighbourhood of Recoleta where I would be staying with a friend of a friend. Carolina and her boyfriend Fabian were lovely, and my little colourful room was up a spiral staircase. I truly felt like a princess in a turret! It was a great apartment, old and high ceilinged, with just the right balance of crumble and colour, I loved it.

Carolina recommended a Spanish teacher, I checked out my local area and I was soon living my Argentine heaven – cafes and writing, parklife, wandering during the day, Spanish lesson early evening and out with a friend in the evening for dinner and wine.  This was the life!

March 24^th – So long to Dictatorship

On March 24th 1976, Military troops overthrew the Argentine government of Isobel Peron (third wife of Juan Peron) and started a seven year dictatorship.  During this time it is estimated that 9000 people, including a huge number of students, disappeared.  Nowadays a public holiday known as the “Day of remembrance for truth and justice” is held on March 24th. 

‘Never Again’ a slogan graffitied all over the city

There is a huge procession through the streets of Buenos Aires, in which Argentines unite to make the statement that there will never again be a dictatorship in their country.  People walk in crowds showing their allegiance for different political parties by wearing their colours, waving flags, singing chants, and carrying banners.  Although everyone is supporting different parties and ideologies, they are all there for the same cause, and it is a great and friendly atmosphere, akin to carnival.  There are sad moments in the procession though, many people parade posters and banners of their missing loved ones who disappeared during the dictatorship.  The procession for some people is a way of keeping memories alive.

I went along to watch the procession with Carolina and Fabian and was transfixed for hours.  The largest crowd was in support of Christina Kirchner, the current president, and since Carolina is pro-Christina, we joined this crowd as they sang their songs, banged their drums and chanted their way towards Plaza de Mayo.  It was a very positive atmosphere and in the crowded plaza in front of Casa Rosada, with the crowds chanting for Christina, I felt somewhat like I had been transported back 60 years to when Peron himself was in power.

And so the end is here

Some sad family news took me home earlier than expected, and so after 10 days back in Buenos Aires, I bid farewell to the cats in the park (by taking them leftover meat from my restaurant meal the night before), hugged my friends goodbye and took a taxi to the airport. 

Happy cats in the park feasting on prime Argentine meat!

As the taxi drove through the city to the airport, I watched the busy sunny streets of Buenos Aires from the window and I knew I would return.  It’s such a shame Argentina is so far away, but I guess if it were closer it would not hold the same delights and differences. 

I took a flight to Sao Paolo and then a plane home to Heathrow.  I took some medicine to help me sleep but I couldn’t relax.  The last 12 flights I had taken were taking me to new places and new people, whereas this flight was taking me home to my family.  It was a strange feeling for me.  Travelling had become normal life for me, but now I was supposed to be returning to normal life.

A hugely gracious pilot announced our arrival at Heathrow and I was reminded of English manners that had been so distant for the past six months.  Outside the window, England looked wet and grey. 

I had to wait at the open doors of the aeroplane whilst another transfer bus drove to us.  I stood there, looked down at my flip flops and looked out at the cold and wet day.  The BA air hostesses in front of me had this conversation after one of them had decended and ascended back up the staircase:

“You know what? It’s not actually that cold out there.” said air hostess one.

“Yes I think I can see some blue sky in the distance” The other replied as she stuck her head out of the door and her hair blew around in the wind.

“Yeap, I think it’s going to turn out nice.”

This conversation really made me smile as I walked down the staircase in my flip flops, and walked across the wet tarmac to the bus.  A sense of optimism is severely lacking in other countries!  My sister met me at the airport and we headed back to her house for a much needed cup of English tea and a cuddle with my little neice.  Later on that day we went down to see dad and the next day, although under difficult circumstances, we met up with the whole extended family. 

It was good to be back.

Back in England with Isobel

The largest city in the Southern hemisphere – for one night only

On my 7 hour bus journey South from Rio to Sao Paolo I made some friends with the Brazilians around me. They were gay men and a girl who worked as entertainers on cruise boats, and as you can imagine they were quite extravert! I also met a hairdresser who kindly helped me with the underground system at Sao Paolo, and insisted on a photo with himself and I, since he loved blonde hair. He even insisted on walking me all the way to my hostel, very kind.

Sao Paolo is the largest city in the Southern hemisphere and has a bad reputation in proportion to it’s size. My preconceptions were that it would be dirty, dangerous and unfriendly. I was pleasantly surprised. The people I encountered were really friendly, helping me in any way they could, the streets were clean and public transport efficient. Saying this, I only spent one evening there and so have only a very limited insight. I made friends with some people at the hostel and we decided to go out. I rushed out to buy some shoes (in Sao Paolo you CANNOT enter clubs in flip-flops and they were my only shoes!) and we went out for the night. It was a great night of caipirinhas and dancing, and we all arranged to meet up again in Buenos Aires in a few weeks time.

The next morning after very little sleep I loaded myself up like the carthorse I had become (big bag on back, small bag on front) and walked, tubed, and bussed to the airport. I had always known that I had three weeks empty and on my own at the end of my trip, and I had had to make a decision about where to spend this time. So where do you think I decided to go…somewhere to relax, take stock of my situation and indulge myself for a couple of weeks? Read on.

On the last leg with Sara, and Sara on her last legs!

After seven delirious hours in a tiny airport, we finally got our flight to Belo Horizonte, a modern city in the middle of Brazil. We had originally planned to go straight from Belo Horizonte to the quiet picturesque town of Ouro Preto, however after making friends with Tomaz in Rio, he offered that we stay at his home in Belo Horizonte, and since we are such polite ladies, we found it hard to resist such an offer.

It is amazing how trusting people in South America are. We had only met Tomaz briefly in Rio during Carnival, but he not only invited us to stay with him in his family home, but he also left a key at the front desk for us, since he and his family were out all morning. And so Sara and I found ourselves letting ourselves into a lovely modern apartment on the 14^th floor of a grand block in Belo Horizonte, inside breakfast had been set for us and there was a note telling us to make ourselves at home and to eat whatever we wanted in the fridge! What a host – and he wasn’t even there!

I caught up on some sleep while Sara used the computer (which had been left for us to use, yes we could have robbed the place!). When Tomaz came home he drove us out to take a look at the city.

 

Overlooking the city of Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte is one of the youngest cities (constructed in the 1890’s) in Brazil but it feels older, and had a very European vibe to it. With it’s tree lined streets and cobbled pavements it reminded me of Buenos Aires, but it is like Buenos Aires on a slope (or after a heavy night), since all of Belo Horizonte seems to be on hills. Walking anywhere is very hard work and some of the roads give you vertigo, but luckily for us Tomaz had a car and so we cruised up and down hills, which felt like we were on a rollercoaster.

We met many of Tomaz’s friends in Belo Horizonte, we ate fantastic Brazilian food (Muecaca - a spicy fish stew, and Brazilian empanadas from the market) and we even samba’d down the street at their carnival. We felt like locals by the end of the weekend. It had been a lovely taste of home life.

Sara and I with our terrific host Tomaz

Black Gold – Ouro Preto

After Belo Horizonte we took a three hour bus to Ouro Preto, a small arty town perched on some pretty hills. We were staying in an old brick Poussada (bed and breakfast) at the top of a cobbled hill, which looked more like a cliff face. There was a technique to walking in flip-flops on this hill, and it was a technique I didn’t have, and so I looked like a toddler every time I ventured out of the Poussada.  The town of Ouro Preto is covered in hills and the Brazilians say that the girls with the best bums in Brazil come from this town, because of all the hill walking they do!

One of the many churches we intended to look inside, but our religion of Shopping took over

We thought we would be spending a couple of quiet and relaxing days in this charming town, but little did we know… it was shopping heaven! The first day we arrived, Sara had to visit the bank twice to fund her purchases, and I spend about three times my budgeted daily allowance, oops. Still it was well worth it, after all it’s not every day you get the chance to own original Ouro Preto stone soap dishes! That evening we were the only ones at a pasta restaurant with a singer on the stage. Every song was for our benefit until, at last more customers arrived to save us. By the way, this was probably day 12 of our “Cairpirinha a day” diet.

Saint Christopher grants me a wish

That evening, Sara realized she had lost her St Christopher bracelet. Now, any men reading this will probably think “so what?”. But any girls out there who have ever been given a present “for good luck”, will know that this is a bad thing. Earlier in my trip, when I took off my St Christopher for one day, all kinds of bad things started to happen and so I knew how important it was to get Sara a new lucky charm. Since Ouro Preto is a very catholic town and there is religious merchandise hanging from every corner, we thought that finding a new St Christopher would be easy, and so we headed out early the next day, before God could strike us down (he gets up late right?).

So, a question for you… how many saints are there in Ouro Preto? I can tell you… millions! And how many of those are St Christopher? One! It took us all day to find a new St Christopher, and during this time things had already started going wrong for us; the bank wouldn’t give me any money, we couldn’t buy bus tickets back to Rio and had to make an emergency dash to the bus station, I was unable to buy my next flight ticket using debit or credit card and I had no cash, a thunder storm arrived and the little charm I really wanted for my bracelet was just too damn expensive. We were desperate to find a new Saint Christopher, and scoured all the shops, poking our heads into their doorways, imploring them “do you have a Saint Christopher?”, before leaving abruptly. We were girls on a mission, a religious mission, we were missionaries! After hours of searching in every shop, Saint Christopher finally emerged! By this point I think Sara would have paid a months wages for the tiny pendant, but luckily it was only a few pounds. We left the shop with big smiles on our faces and as soon as we did, we walked into the lady selling the pendant I wanted. “You can have it for 60” she said to me; the price I wanted to pay. It was like a miracle granted by St Christopher! Or at least that’s what Sara and I thought.

The story of Saint Christopher doesn’t end there. Sara’s original bracelet turned up by the weekend in one of her wash bags!

Sara’s first night bus

That evening at 10pm, we boarded our overnight bus to Rio. We got cosy in our warm socks and blankets and settled down for the night.

Night night Sara, Mind the bugs don’t bite

Unlike the buses in other South American countries, Brazilian buses do not show films, play bingo or serve food, but they are still a step up from National Express. Despite the comfort I find it really hard to sleep in buses and so I spent the next eight hours pretty bored and restless, and accidentally knocking Sara awake! At Rio, we breakfasted on a couple of cheese monstrosities (that messed with both our stomachs) and boarded a three hour bus to Buzios, the beach resort where Cariocas (people from Rio) holiday.

At last – the beach! Not quite.

Our time together in Brazil had been a real adventure for Sara and I, and we were really looking forward to some peaceful beach time to finish our trip. However the adventure continued! Sara and I had both been bitten over a hundred times by mosquitoes, and whilst my bites were recovering, Sara’s were getting a lot worse. Some of them had really swollen and turned an angry colour, in fact the one on the side of her leg looked as though she had grown an extra knee. She was advised by our hotel owner to go to hospital and so our first afternoon at the beach was spent at the hospital; she was being examined by a hunky doctor (like the ones out of the Brazilian soap operas – so they do exist!) whilst I sat in the waiting room. The doctor diagnosed an allergic reaction to the bites and she was pumped full of drugs, both orally and by injection. Just to note, these drugs did nothing for the bites and when Sara and I went our separate ways she was still looking as though she had been bitten by a monster, not a mosquitoe. But you will be glad to know she has recovered now.

After our visit to the hospital (which we were very impressed by) we jumped on the nearest bus, that looked vaguely like the one we had arrived in. I noted when we stepped onto the bus that there seemed to be a very different passenger on this bus, poorer and darker. As the bus turned off the asphalt road and onto mud tracks, we realized we had most definitely got on the wrong bus. As we bumped along the mud we passed shacks, chickens and poverty. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the favelas of Rio, but it still gave us a real insight into the two ways of life in Buzios; the life that the tourists see, and the life that the majority live.

At last the beach!

On one of our last days together, Sara and I headed to the beach. The beaches of Buzios are stretches of sand dotted around the coast between cliffs and it really feels as though you are on an island, not one of the largest countries in the world.

We chose a pretty bay with a short stretch of sand and… at last we lay in the sun, mosquito bites and all. The sea was lovely to swim in, the people were great to watch, and the sun was shining. It had taken two and a half weeks, but eventually Sara and I were relaxing. Just so you know, the stereotype of beautiful Brazilian bodies is only really true in Rio, where muscle gyms abound, and men and women parade in swim wear you could floss your teeth with. Here in Buzios, the people were all shapes and sizes, in fact just behind us was a woman the size of a whale (who was giving us some shade – sorry, so mean!).

That evening, Sara and I enjoyed a free caipirinha (definitely tasted better than the ones you have to pay for) with a seafood dinner and a view of the sea (Brigittes restaurant), it was very romantic! We then went to watch some locals dancing fantastic salsa, together with an embarrassing drunk tourist doing a chicken impression. We obviously assumed he was English, and were relieved to find out he was in fact American; perfectly acceptable to laugh at. We joined him and his friends at a club and continued to laugh at him until the early hours whilst he did his chicken impression.

So long, farewell

After an early morning bus back to Rio, it was time for yet another goodbye. One of the sad things about travelling is the number of goodbyes. At Rio bus station, Sara and I went our separate ways; Sara to get her flight back to the UK where she could wean herself off caipirinhas and fully recover from her allergic reaction, and me onwards to Sao Paolo.

Not only had Sara been a fantastic Portuguese interpreter for me, she had also been a really fun travel partner. For a girl who doesn’t own a pair of shoes without heels in the UK, and who had never slept in a sleeping bag before, she had been a real adventurer. Chica – it was a hoot!

Adios!

The Pantanal – more than we’d bargained for

 

Lowering our standards

Campo Grande was two flights and an entire world away from Rio de Janeiro.  We were met at the airport and taken to the travel agency we had booked through (the day before, things were happening quickly).  The travel agency had booked us a hotel for the night and after confirming arrangements we were taken to “Hotel Paris”.  The hotel had a flashy name and a flashy sign, but that was where any connection with Paris ended.  When we walked into the room Sara looked shell-shocked and said “are we really staying here, it looks like a prison cell”, her response was priceless.  She was right though, there were no windows and our small room was very basic.  She then pulled back her bed sheets and saw that the under sheet was threadbare with holes.  To get away from the misery of our hotel we headed to the bus station where we needed to call our banks (once again they had cancelled our cards).  Making an international call to the UK from Brazil – easy or hard?  Take a guess.

After using three international calling cards to basically say “Hello UK!” and have our money run out, we sought an alternative.  A kind lady in a tourist shop sold us an international calling voucher.  One and a half hours later we realized that international in Brazil is not truly international, and only covers the US.  The lady gave us a refund and we used the very expensive method of using a mobile phone to call our banks.  We then bargained hard with a stubborn taxi driver to take us two minutes up the road to Hotel Paris.  It was was pouring with torrential rain.

At the hotel Sara had yet another amusing conversation with a Brazilian (by this point she had decleared them all retarded).  Since there was nowhere nearby to eat, we ordered delivery pizza through the man at reception,  The interaction went like this:

“We’d like to order pizza please”

”OK” as he dials the number.  “What would you like”          

“This one please”

“They don’t have that one”

“OK, this one”

“They don’t have that one”

“How about this one”

“OK, they have that”

“We would also like some water please”

“They don’t have water”…

Eventually we got a pizza and two bottles of coke ordered.  Once the man at reception had hung up the phone, another guest came over and asked for a bottle of water, to our astonishment he opened the fridge behind him and sold him a water. 

“You have water?” asked Sara

“Yes of course”

“But we wanted water, you could have sold us some water”

“Oh, but I though you wanted THEIR water!”

Sara and I ate possibly the worst pizza of our lives, which had none of the ingredients on that we wanted.  (Who wants canned peas on their pizza!)  The company obviously knew that their pizzas tasted disgusting because they supplied us with ketchups and mayonnaise!

A sachet of mayonnaise to go with your pizza madam?

Sara wondering whether life in the jungle is going to be any more difficult than this hotel

Queens of the jungle

After a surprisingly good night’s sleep in our hotel cell, Sara and I were taken to the bus station, for our bus into the Pantanal. The Pantanal is a swampy plain dotted with jungle in the South West of Brazil (bordering Bolivia). It is home to 80 different mammals, 650 bird species and has the highest population of crocodiles in the world. In fact if you are interested, the country of Brazil even has the biggest population of mammals in the world.

Our first bus was large and comfortable and drove us four and a half hours into the wilderness. At this point we were dropped off, and picked up by a jeep. Sara and myself and our new travel buddies; Srikant from Boston, and Leah and Richard from London, sat on the open jeep with all our luggage and were bounced over unpathed roads and rickety bridges for the next hour. The journey was a real eye-opener and we were amazed to see two caiman, a snake, and a family of jungle pigs on the road, together with parakeets in the surrounding trees.

Portuguese Princess hits the jungle

We eventually bounced up to our new home for the next four days, the Santa Clara Lodge. It was like an oasis in the middle of the swampland; a collection of buildings, hammocks and walkways next to a lake. After dumping our luggage and having the first of many showers at the lodge (I think we averaged three per day) we headed to the lake to watch the sunset and to get eaten alive by mosquitoes. One of my resounding memories of the Pantanal will almost certainly be the mosquitoes, I could write reams and reams about how we suffered with them, but let’s just summarise by saying I had over 100 bites by the end of four days and Sara and I looked as though we had some horrific skin condition, with many of Sara’s bites blistering and weeping. (as I write this Sara and I are sat in an airport scratching our entire bodies).

The wildlife living around the lodge was amazing in itself, with many parrots and parakeets in the trees, and a family of friendly tapirs (boars) wandering around the grounds. The friendliest of the boars was Marisa who made a purring noise when you tickled her under the chin.

That first evening, Sara and I met some of the local guides and witnessed an amazing sunset.  After the sun had disappeared we dined, drank caipirinhas, and went to bed, full of anticipation for the next morning’s activity; horse riding.

Cow girls riding across the savannah

At the stables, a friendly parrot took a liking to Sara and tried to rearrange her hair. When we were assigned horses, our guide Levi gave Sara the biggest horse, which worried her. However he was very docile, as were all the horses, in fact it was as though they had been sedated, which suited us just fine. We walked or trotted through the Pantanal in the blazing heat. It was really tranquil until we hit the first water. There had been rain for weeks before our stay and so the water levels were gradually rising and areas were flooding. The track which was normally dry went through long stretches of brown murky water which reached up to our horses backs, we tried to keep our legs above the water but in the end it was futile and so we were wet to our knees. This seemed to make us even tastier to the mosquitoes who had taken a liking to Sara and I already.

Who needs hair straighteners when you have a portable parakeet!

At one with nature, damn nature!

On our first afternoon we jumped back into the jeep and bounced deeper into the Pantanal with our jungle buddies. Along the way we saw lots of amazing birds, caiman, taranjalas, and also passed a herd of 300 cattle with their cowboys.

Once our bottoms had suffered enough, we left the jeep for a walk through the jungle. Very soon it became apparent that we would need to walk through water in order to follow the track. The water was brown, had quite a strong current and stank (our guide told us it was cow urine). Levi offered to carry us all over, but we all agreed we would cross on our own. It was disgusting and that day marked the end of the road for my walking boots and trousers. I couldn’t help but giggle seeing Sara up to her knees wading through stinking brown water, for a girl who hadn’t worn walking boots before and had bought mini hair straighteners to the Pantanal, she was doing amazingly well. On our jungle walk we saw monkeys, wild boar, and caiman, and were bitten more by mosquitoes and ants (we literally had ants in our pants). It was getting dark as we bounced back on the jeep to camp, and the views of the changing sky were beautiful.

Levi, our guide, showing us the way

Sara and I follow, and get in deep, smelly water

Giving our spotty botties a rest

The next day we were up early and headed to the river for a boat trip. We had been advised to wear shorts, and with our legs on show we were quite the tourist attraction. No-one could quite believe how many bites we had, and someone even asked if they could take a photo of my legs! To be honest (and I probably shouldn’t be sharing this with the whole internet), our legs were the least of our problems, our bottoms were covered in bites, and after a few hours on horses and an afternoon on the jeep our bottoms were really suffering. The boat trip was very picturesque and tranquil and I almost fell asleep a few times, only to be awoken by someone shouting “Tucan!” or “Monkey!”

 

That afternoon we decided to pass on the afternoon activity of a walk, and instead Sara, Leia, Richard, Srikand and I relaxed by the swimming pool. Two Germans went on the walk with our guide and when they came back, the girl who was very tall indeed, had dirty water up to her chest where she had been forced to wade through deep water. When Sara stood next to her, she was completely below the water level, so it was a good job we hadn’t gone for the walk or Sara would literally have been swimming. That evening we drank caipirinhas and learnt how to dance ‘fuohore’, a typical Brazilian dance.

Me - The next Steve Irwin

On our last morning in the Pantanal, we baited out hooks and stood along the river fishing for piranha. It was boiling hot, and since we only had crumby bamboo fishing rods with a few metres of line we didn’t think we stood a chance of catching anything… we were wrong!

Within about an hour, our guide Levi had caught a piranha. He held it and opened it’s mouth to reveal it’s razor sharp teeth. He then threw it on the floor near the river, I had no idea why. The piranha flipped itself over and over on the ground, and then from no-where a huge caiman emerged out of the water to eat the piranha. It was only about two metres away from us, but I was soon to get a lot closer to a caiman!

I was desperate to catch a piranha and so I climbed onto a moored boat to get closer to where Levi had caught his piranha. There were movements in the water and so I was hopeful that something was going to bite. It was sweltering hot and I was being eaten by mosquitoes but I didn’t want to give up. I saw a caiman rise above the water and swim over towards the boat, he then disappeared as he got closer. Having watched a dreadful film about a man-eating crocodile recently, I was a little worried that I couldn’t see him any more, and I searched the water for any signs of him. And then, there was a tug on my fishing line. Was it just a coincidence that I couldn’t see him anymore, and something had taken my bait? No. I had caught a caiman!

He pulled on my line and I stood firm. I thought maybe he would just break the line and swim off, but it turns out that those fishing lines are made of strong stuff, and he wasn’t going anywhere whilst he was attached to my line. I shouted to Levi “Levi, I’ve caught a caiman!” I heard laughing from around the corner, clearly everyone thought I was having a joke. “Really! I have caught a caiman!” I shouted, and very quickly everyone emerged around the corner, to see me on the boat holding a fishing rod with a caiman on the end of it. I don’t think people knew whether to laugh or scream, but when Levi started laughing, everyone else joined in, even me. Levi directed me to slowly climb off the boat and to drag the caiman around with me. He was going to try and take the hook out of his mouth. At one point I had to walk very close to the angry caiman, and my heart skipped a beat. Levi positioned himself by the water’s edge and told me to drag the caiman onto land. I did so and Levi edged close to the animal ready for his Steve Irwin act. Just as he got close, the caiman got scared and whipped his head around with real power, the line snapped and he disappeared into the water. My heart rate returned to normal and we all had a laugh. We couldn’t quite believe I had caught a crocodile!

The caiman I caught

Emerging from the jungle

After hundreds of mosquito bites, sightings of exotic reptiles, birds and mammals, making some good friends, catching a caiman and binning some clothes, it was time to leave the jungle. We bounced out of the Pantanal on the jeep and waited in the sweltering sun for a van to pick us up. It arrived a typical hour late and then drove us to Campo Grande airport, where we had seven hours to wait until our 3.30am flight. The airport had nothing to entertain us and so we divided our time between games, intellectual pursuits (don’t ask), eating, drinking, kinder eggs, and exercise. In the end I think we became delirious and found ourselves crying with laughter at the smallest things. At last we boarded our plane to civilization. Carnival and the Pantanal had been intense and exhausting and we were looking forward to a return to normal life, where we could recover and get some much needed sleep.

Service station in the Pantanal where we waited in the sweltering heat

Goodbye to the friendly creatures of the Pantanal

Carnival Queens!

Our first taste of Rio Carnival was Friday night when we donned out carnival masks and headed down to Ipanema. 

 

Feeling cheeky and ready to party!

There are two events during carnival week; the official street carnival at the Sambadrome, and the unofficial street parties or “blocos” that happen all over the city.  Both are centred around samba schools that parade around the streets, playing music and dancing, but the official parade is on a very different scale, as we were to find out.  As soon as you go out of your house during carnival week, you can’t ignore the party atmosphere; people are dressed up in costume everywhere and enjoying themselves loudly.

When we got out of the metro (which once again puts the London system to shame) we encountered a very scary scene.  Teenagers drunk everywhere, sucking each other’s faces off, falling over, shouting drunken abuse, it was like being in Brighton centre on a Friday night.  It was not the carnival we were hoping for!  Luckily, this was an exception and not the rule and soon we had found a much more sociable (and mature) bunch of people – we had found the gay centre of town!  We sat in an outside cafe that was cordoned off from the road by a barricade.  Here, we could happily sip caipirinhas and meet people on the other side of the barricade with a safety barrier in between us.  At other times during our trip it would have been nice to have a constant safety barrier around us! Whilst we sat watching the half naked men around us dancing to the samba beats, the only people we knew in Rio walked past – our fellow house guests Joanna and Bernard.  Small world!  We drank with them before heading home for an early night (about 2am) ready for the big carnival day ahead of us.

The next day we woke to the sound of rain, and it didn’t let up all day long.  Sara and I had presumed that Carnival in Rio would be hot and sunny – how wrong we were.  Within about an hour of walking in the rain, our legs and flip-flopped feet were muddy and wet, and our hair beneath our carnival masks was soaked.  We walked up the hill towards Santa Teresa at about 10.30am and decided there was only one thing to do… drink.  We started with Smirnoff Ice (we are too girly to drink beer and this was the only other option), but by mid afternoon we had moved on to caipirinhas.  The weather was miserable, but the people were happy, drunk and dancing.

Something you might wonder about is; with all that drinking and dancing in the street, where do people go to the toilet?  Well, civilised people queue for the portaloos, which are luxury compared to those at Glastonbury.  We discovered what the less civilised type of person does, just as we walked towards a restaurant for lunch.  There, right in front of us on a busy road, was a grown woman (about 50 years old) squatting in front of a parked car and urinating.  We averted our eyes (like proper ladies) only to see another woman next to her pulling up her knickers, from that point on, as we approached the restaurant, everywhere we looked there was a woman or man urinating.  And Sara and I were wearing flip-flops! 

At the restaurant, we had a lovely meaty lunch, sitting next to a large hairy man dressed in a pink leotard and tutu.  If that wasn’t enough another man walked in with his father (making presumptions here, it could have been a different relationship!), and the younger man was wearing a complete bunny girl outfit.  He was a stocky stubbly man in his twenties with glasses, and he was wearing a skimpy leotard, fish net tights, bow tie, long black gloves, and bunny ears.  The leotard left nothing to the imagination.  He sat down with his father and seemed to have a very serious conversation, with nothing strange in the fact he was dressed like a female tart!  It was very amusing.

That afternoon we followed the blocos of Lapa and Cinelandia, and then headed to the gay bar where we felt safe.  Being blonde in Rio brings quite a bit of unwanted attention, especially during carnival, and so it was nice to relax somewhere where we were going to be ignored, not that we were ignored, and within a few minutes we had made some firm friends.  With our new bunch of 8 gay friends we felt confident hitting the streets of Copacabana, and here we danced along the sea front, with little hassle, Carnival queens with a bunch of queens!

We got home that evening at about 1am after 14 hours of partying.  We were exhausted and tumbled into our blow up mattress for a couple of hours sleep.  Did Newton discover his first law whilst sharing a blow-up mattress???  Here is a picture of how disgusting my feet were after carnival that day:

The next day was a big day for our host Cris.  It was her birthday and 30 people from her family were coming round to celebrate.  I got to use my limited Portuguese to all of them “Hello”, “I don’t speak Portuguese”, and “It was a pleasure to meet you”.  They were all lovely people, and although I was somewhat limited in my ability to communicate it was a lovely afternoon spent with a very kind and loving family.

That evening, although we were exhausted, we decided to try and get tickets to the official part of the Rio Carnival; the parade at the Sambadrome.  We arrived at the metro station to be met by a mix of policemen, ticket touts, vendors selling costumes and drinks, and party goers.  The sambadrome is in a poor area of Rio and was quite intimidating at first, but then you realize that everyone is in carnival spirits and is there for the same reasons, either to have fun, or to make money out of the tourists!  We were approached by several ticket touts and ignored all of them until we saw a trustworthy-looking man.  We were ready to bargain hard, all of our Brazilian friends said we would be paying hundreds of Reais for a ticket.  However, the man only wanted 50 reais (about 18 pounds) and agreed to walk us to the stand, and so we agreed.  There was an orderly queue at the entrance to our sector and once inside (yipee – the tickets were real!) we were handed free programmes and a triple pack of condoms!

So, what happens in the Sambadrome?  Well, there are nine different sectors of concrete stands that surround a long stretch of road.  Each Samba school starts it’s parade with a set of fireworks at one end, and then their particular song is blasted out along the whole stretch.  They start dancing and moving up the street from sector to sector and it takes about an hour for one samba school to go from one end to the other.  It is huge, and extravagant and over the top and you can’t help but dance, it’s contagious!  Also the song for each samba school plays continuously until the samba school has passed all the sectors (well over an hour) and so even if you don’t speak portuguese, you are singing along by the end.  During the performances vendors walk around the stands selling cold drinks and burgers so that you don’t have to leave your seat.  I had a very embarrassing moment when I went to pay an elderly man for my can of drink and instead of pulling cash out of my pocket, I threw three condoms at him!  He must have thought he was being propositioned.

My favourite samba school was Sao Clemente, and to this day I am still singing the song.  Take a look at their performance:

We watched three samba schools parade past before we headed home at about 2am.  There were three more schools to parade but we had partied long and hard since arriving in Rio, and we had a flight the next morning.  We were basically dead on our feet.  Carnival is so much fun, and a complete sensory overload, but it is exhausting.  Leaving carnival is a bit like leaving Glastonbury, it is so much fun, but you desperately need some sleep and a wash!  The next day we had booked a last minute flight to Campo Grande in the Pantanal where we were going to have a four day tour of the jungle, were we ready for the jungle???  Let’s look at the facts… Sara had never worn walking boots before and had also never slept in a sleeping bag, we were in for a treat!

Her name was Rio

Wow!  Rio kicked me in the teeth as soon as I arrived.  Firstly, it was raining, yes the wet stuff that falls from the sky was coming down in Brazil as soon as I touched down.  Not quite the carnival weather I was hoping for.  However, very soon a little sunshine had entered the grey morning, in the form of a little Portuguese Dynamo – Sara!  Sara and I were staying at her friends’ (Cris and Vince) apartment in Tijuca Rio, and as soon as my very friendly (and well paid) taxi driver dropped me off, I got straight into bed for a few hours sleep.  After that Sara and I headed into Rio to have a look around.

We had coffee and cake at the famous Confiteria Comple before having a wander around the city centre.  Rio is a mix of quaint cobble streets, noise, smart shops, and roads you really shouldn’t even consider walking down.  I felt a little useless in Rio, since I speak no Portuguese and my Spanish was getting me no-where.  Luckily Sara was by my side and always ready to be my native voice!

We queued for the famous Santa Teresa tram (or Bondinho) up the hill to Santa Teresa.  The queue was very long and we had a lot of time (probably too long) to talk to the artist in front of us in the queue.  He was heading up the hill to sell some of his work to the shops up there.  He talked us through two photo albums of his work, while we queued.  Did I mention how long the queue was?!

The tram is a fun way to travel, and well worth the wait.  It costs about 20p and winds its way steeply up a hill that passes amazing colonial houses left to crumble with age, the houses are covered in plants and flowers and look like the kind of places you might find a Brazilian Miss Haversham.  We stopped for lunch and got quite a surprise.

More for lunch than we bargained for

We found a restaurant on the hill and shared a lovely meal of beef, rice, yam, and beans.  Behind us a large group of Brazilians were clearly getting very drunk and Sara and I had to talk very loudly just to be heard over the racket.  As we were finishing our meal, one of the men from the table came over and introduced himself.  Guillaume, was very drunk, but still quite charming (to begin with) and we said that once we had finished our meal we would, of course, join him and his friends to chat.  I hadn’t lifted another fork of food to my mouth when the next man from his group came over.  Less drunk and more charming than Guillaume, this man insisted on buying us both a shot of Cachaca which is potent stuff! (spirit made from sugar cane)  Then a very girl came over.  All of them were insisting very loudly that we join them at their table, in fact by this point they could hardly stand they were so drunk.  Just about all of the restaurant were looking over.

Because Sara and I were making no moves toward their table, Guiellaume practically picked me up and transferred me to a chair on their table.  At the same time he smashed a glass on the floor and a gypsy woman came over to try and sell me a necklace.  She was selling at the top of her voice, while the drunks were all introducing themselves to me at the top of their voices, and whilst this was going on I looked around and saw Sara gesturing for all her life was worth to get the bill.  The waiting staff at the till were all laughing at the situation, as was I, but everyone else in the restaurant looked astonished at the rowdy crowd, and Sara was getting distressed.  When the bill was eventually paid, we practically ran out of the restaurant with the gypsy woman running after us, shouting to Sara “Look after the gringo, take care of her, she’s sensitive!”

When the gypsy woman finally gave up chasing us, Sara and I couldn’t stop laughing, it had been such an odd lunch, Stupidly, Sara had given the drunk girl her phone number with the promise of meeting up for carnival on Saturday.  We really hoped she wouldn’t call.

When we made it down the hill we headed to “Amareliho”, a restaurant/bar on the Cinelandia square, where we enjoyed a couple of caipirinhas (cocktail made from Cachaca, lime, sugar ad ice).  It had been such a lovely day catching up with Sara, and getting into bother, we had a feeling there would be many more strange encounters to come.  That night back at the apartment we met Vince’s brother Bernardo and his girlfriend Joanna, they were also staying at the apartment for Carnival – it was a full house – Bingo!  The next day, carnival would begin for Sara and I, we didn’t really know what to expect, and were excited by the prospect of our first Rio Carnival!

Long journey to the beach

Once James and I had said our goodbyes, we ate some mysterious food from a kiosk (and hoped that it's mystery contents would not reveal themselves on the bus journey), and got on our 7 hour bus back to Lima. A few hours into the journey and we were entertained with a game of Bingo, which James won! It was hilarious to listen to his speech on the microphone, it went something like this: "Ladies and gentlemen, thank you, I am learning spanish, thank you."

A few hours later we found ourselves in a static bus in a heavy blizzard. James and I amused ourselves by listening to his film podcasts, playing the "who am I" game, talking rubbish, making bets on how long it would take to get out of the blizzard (I need to stop being so optimistic when gambling!) and sleeping. We were on the bus all night long, and rather than being a 7 hour journey it lasted 22 hours. It was a relief to finally disembark at Lima, late and tired, but in one piece. At Lima, James and I said goodbye before heading our separate ways; him to Columbia and me to the beach for a few days. Adios Amigo!

From Rags to Riches

After one night in Lima, I took a taxi out to Boca Leon; the beach where I would be staying with my friend Amber for a few days. Amber is an American who has been living with her boyfriend and his family for the last few years in Lima. This year, the family invested in a beach house for the summer, much to my benefit!

When we pulled up at the private beach resort, the taxi driver looked shocked, he had never seen so much wealth before! Amber met me at the door of their amazing beach house. In my move from Huancayo to Boca Leon, I had truly risen from rags to riches.

My new home at the beach

As soon as I arrived, Amber and I headed to the beach with a cool box of beers. The beach was only 5 minutes from the house and every household on the resort had it's own bit of beach. We soon made ourselves comfortable and started a routine that was to last us the whole long weekend; head to the beach and lie in the sun until it gets too hot, take a stroll in the water and cool off, lie in the sun and drink beer/wine, fall asleep, wake up and walk drowsily home, shower and then go for a walk to see the sunset, which was stunning every night.

Amber and I sharing a romantic sunset!

And another:)

Tsunami drill

The only thing that really disrupted the sedate routine we got had used to was a Tsunami drill that occurred after dinner one night. A car went around the estate with a mega phone announcing that there would be a Tsunami Drill in 30 minutes. In typical South American style we took note of this announcement and chose to ignore it, as we tucked into our dinner on the terrace. Thirty minutes later and all the lights went out.

Using the light of Gustavo's iphone to guide us, we walked through the streets of the complex, and then joined the crowds to ascend the huge staircase that took us to the top of the cliff. In theory we could watch the tsunami below us from this point. As it was, we had a great view of the thousands of stars above us. On the way home, Gustavo, Amber and I came up with some fantastic ideas for Tsunami iphone apps. I would share these with you, but the patents haven't been granted yet:)

Leaving Luxury

Our last day at the beach house was actually the last day of the entire rental period and we had to empty the house. We drove an hour back to Lima with Amber on my lap and a stepladder wedged against me. However, I was used to this kind of ride in Peru, in fact one of my taxi drivers in Huancayo fitted 8 other people into his taxi with me!

Leaving behind the peace and tranquility of the beach was a shame, but it was necessary, as any more time and I was at risk of becoming a total beach bum. It was back to Lima for a night, and a final delicious lunch of ceviche (see below), before getting an overnight plane to Rio de Janeiro, where carnival was just beginning. Lucky I got some sleep at the beach... as I was soon to be very deprived of it!

A typical Peruvian meal of ceviche and Inca Kola

A huge thank you to Amber, Gustavo and Gustavo's parents for making me feel like a friend not a foreigner in Lima. And also for introducing me to the real Peruvian cuisine:)