Cataratas indeed

PUERTO IGUAZU, ARGENTINA - 28th February 2010

Seventeen years is a fairly long time, particularly in a lifetime that has been only 5 years longer than that. However, our first family trip after getting British passports - and thus our first holiday to somewhere that wasn't India - remains as clear in my mind as a gallon of glacial meltwater. Its timing being when it was, it involved a couple of weeks bunking of school - something that presumably added to the magnitude of the event for a 5 year old - but there's no doubting the singular part of that 3 week holiday that left its mark on my young mind in a way like no other. Niagara Falls, marking the US-Canadian border between Ontario and New York, were without doubt the most spectacular natural wonder I had ever seen and, the Canadian Horseshoe Falls in particular, would be the most exquisitely beautiful waterfall that I would ever see for a significant period of my life. That period ended yesterday, however, while we were still in Brazil, and came within sight of the jaw-dropping magnitude of the Cataratas del Iguazú.

Photos alone cannot do the place justice - the incessant roar of millions upon millions of litres of water crashing into oblivion is a sound that can only be heard to be believed - but photos can provide some idea of the scale of the place that words can only achieve so well. Again, much to my immediate chagrin, my photos remain locked in my camera memory card forcing to supplant this blog with various bits and pieces borrowed from the net. The below panorama, minus the sunshine, is just a small section of what we could see from the Brazilian side - it is literally a case of everywhere you look, there are waterfalls of every shape and size, some big some small, but all still impressive, crashing down hundreds of feet in amongst the sub-tropical jungle vegetation.



Whereas Niagara has two waterfalls, both of which are massive and impressive, Igauzu has about 300, spread across an area the size of a small city. Turning up from Campo Grande after our Pantanal adventure, we arrived in Foz du Iguaçu - the town located on the Brazilian side of the falls - and headed straight for the Iguaçu Park a local bus ride up the road. Boarding the bus, we aquired ourselves a new travelling companion - Ellen, from Wales but living in Cambridge as a teacher, has done a similar Round-the-World journey to yours truly, but with the difference of having a friend with her for Australia and NZ while doing South America on her own - the opposite of me! A brief chat established that she was booked into the same hostel as us for the night, Hostel Che Lagarto on the Argentine side of the falls, and had exactly the same plan of checking out the Brazilian side in the morning before hopping on a bus across the border.

The Brazilian side is the lesser-visited of the two - the geography of the landmasses in the area mean that Argentina-based vistors can get very much more up-close and personal with the real thundering force of the falls, but what it lacks is a perspective of the size and scale of the whole thing - all the hundreds of waterfalls at once. This is seen brilliantly well from the Brazilian side - the higher hills allow a panorama that fairly takes your breath away, but shortly afterward provides a good backdrop for some cheesy group photos...



To say Anna was excited about crossing into Argentina is an understatement of Herculean proportions. Given her fluency in Spanish, the drive across the border from Portuguese-speaking Brazil represented a jump to easy communication with anyone and everyone for her (unlike me, for whom it might as well all be Italian), and thus goes some what to explaining how I lost count of the number of times comments to the effect of "it's going to be SO nice to be somewhere that speaks Spanish" had come my way. It was this vivacious excitement that unexpectedly secured a mental image that will remain one of my favourite from our time together though - a snapshot moment in time while we were riding in a crowded bus over the bridge marking the border. As I was standing, I pointed out to Anna - who was sitting further back next to a little girl - how the roadside paint colours switched from Brazilian gold and green to Argentine baby blue and white half way along the bridge, so you could tell the moment you crossed. Suitably enough as we crossed the divide, I turned to find a big smile on her face, with hands in the air and a cheery cry of "Yay!"... while in the seat next to her the little 10-year-old girl - unimpressed to say the least - was just looking to her right with a deadpan look of condescention fit for Simon Cowell on X Factor. It took a couple of seconds for the hilarity of what I'd just seen to sink in, but sink in it did - much to my amusement.

The actual process of crossing the border involved some impressive jumping through hoops - largely because of having to get on and off buses at both the Brazilian exit checkpoint and Argentine entry checkpoint to get your passports stamped. This would all be well and good, except the damn buses don't wait for you! Still, we eventually got to Puerto Iguazu (the Argentine equivalent of Foz), and found our way to Che Lagarto. It was nice enough a hostel, although the total lack of water in any form in our bathroom was not what I'd describe as ideal (though thankfully was discovered before the lack of flush caused any major disasters), but provided us with an excellent value homecooked dinner and a good launch point to hit the Argentine side of the falls today before this evening's overnight bus to Buenos Aires.

Unlike the Brazilian side, which has one main pathway running alongside the Iguaçu river by the falls, the Argentine Cataratas del Iguazu Park is a monster, covering a huge swathe of land along, in between and in the middle of a whole series of thunderous waterfalls - culminating in what is without doubt the most breathtaking waterfall-based experience you can have anywhere in the world. The Devil's Throat is the biggest cataract in the Iguazu Falls system, and from the Argentine side a series of boardwalks intersecting outcrops of land allow you to walk right up to the edge of the whitewater oblivion. The noise, the spray, but more than anything the sheer volume of water that incessantly crashes down hundreds of feet is impressive enough from 200 metres away on the Brazilian side, but when you are standing right above the thing, watching its infinite power from a few feet away, it is simply mind-boggling. Just wait for the photos... and better still the video. One day, they will all miraculously appear...

Gai'ers, kitfish, and other tales from the world's biggest wetland

CAMPO GRANDE, BRAZIL - 26th February 2010

The Daily Rod's more vociferous readers will recount many a yarn about animals over the last 5 or so months. There were the tigers in Bannerghatta National Park, 'roos and emus in Werribee, not to mention the domesticated menagerie at my cousins' place in Melbourne - throw in a night safari in Singapore and a couple of aquariums and it's fair to say I've seen my fair share of God's creatures.

It is a whole different ball game, however, when it's you going into their back yard.

This is the Pantanal - the world's biggest wetland, and one of the most ecologically diverse places on the planet. Covering at area just shy of 200,000 square kilometres (about half the size of France), the Pantanal goes from basically bone dry to fully submerged every year, and as a result boasts an ecosystem (or indeed multiple ecosystems) that almost rival the Amazon basin in their diversity. Alongside the 40 million alligators that call the place home, there are over 1000 species of bird, 300 types of mammal including crazy creatures like giant anteaters and capybaras, probably a few billion mosquitoes, and enough piranhas in the water to feed the 5000 a few more times (as well as 400 other species of fish).

Our Pantanal experience was launched out of Campo Grande early on the Wednesday (24th) morning, 24 hours after we'd arrived in the city and bailed on joining the previous day's departure ("bailed" being a fairly accurate way of describing saying "yes", only to have massive time constraints cause stress levels in my young co-traveller soar to levels that would not be fun for anyone to deal with...) - something that worked out nicely as it gave us a much-needed opportunity to do absolutely bugger all for a day. Come Wednesday though, it was up and out - a 4 hour van ride to the edge of the Pantanal region, and another couple of hours from there to our campsite in the middle of the wetland abyss. First impressions were excellent - about a kilometre down the trunk road (glorified raised dirt track) that runs through the Pantanal, we reached a wide river, and were usefully told "the bridge broke, so you've gotta take a boat across". Certainly one of the better off-the-cuff remarks you're ever gonna hear (and very much true, as illustrated by the photo below).


To give some idea of what I mean by "the middle of the wetland abyss", getting to our campsite from the trunk road involved a half an hour walk - but not your average stroll with backpacks and all. No, this was a trudge through the water - when I said the place gets "fully submerged", I was including all paths that aren't the trunk road. A good kilometre through slimy, orange-tinted water was our welcome to the area, but once at the site we were introduced to the hammocks that would be our beds for the next two nights. To say I was delighted is somewhat of an understatement - I love hammocks, and for three years have had the ever-nagging regret of not having anywhere decent in our house to hang the one Simon had brought me back from his South American travels in 2007. A swim in the river before nightfall and dinner was all that came between first introductions and getting properly aquainted with my swinging bed - and it was an excellent night's sleep (although perhaps not for Anna - the fact that it wasn't flat and moved were apparently issues for her).

Waking at 6am is not something I do for fun, and is - at best - a struggle. Not so here, as every creature in a 10 mile radius simultaneously starts squawking, crowing, screetching, yelping or otherwise making such a din that even yours truly, who has slept through burglar alarms in Sevenoaks and fire alarms in Oxford, was up in a flash. And just in case we'd forgotten what an amazing natural environment we'd rocked up into, we were greeted by two macaw parrots - complete with lush red, blue and green plummage - rocking up for their morning feed. Cameras, obviously, were out in force... and one day those photos might appear on here (UPDATE: over 2 months later, here they are...)!


The day was spent on 4x4 safari - Anna and myself joined by three Swiss-Germans; Demian, Karen and Felix - and although most of the day was actually spent sitting around by the Rio Paraguay doing sweet FA, we did see all sorts of the Pantanal's creatures, from toucans to black howler monkeys, kingfishers to jabiru storks, and a fair few of those 40 million 'gators (see below). The latter were seen in force on the shores of the Rio Paraguay itself - I lost track of the number we saw splashing out of sight as we cruised by on our "boat safari". Our boat provided a fair bit of entertainment, what with the engine stalling every 50 metres or so while the inane driver sat shouting absolute nonsense to himself or anyone else - including the lads on a fishing boat we pulled up next to. The humble catfish, for reasons understandable only to those who have partaken in spontanenous "South African socials" over the years (a domain presumed exclusive to a select band of Juddians, but possibly broader), has a near legendary status in a particular social circles - purely down to its name. Seeing one of these fine specimen in their catch, a cheesy photo was nay-on compulsory (again, it will eventually appear!). Meanwhile, crazy boat driver took the liberty of jumping in for a swim, while we went off for 30 minute trek around another wetland field in search of an anaconda. Sadly, she didn't want to come out and play, but we made do with another few hundred mosquito bites for our trouble.


Before and after all this river-based activity, we'd been sitting around at a bar of sorts (basically a shack with a few chairs) on the north side of the Paraguay - where we'd set up shop for lunch. Anna had made herself useful offering her services in the kitchen, and chopped all the vegetables that went into the meat stew while generally befriending all the locals with her beautiful Spanish. Meanwhile, the Swiss guys and I sat outside drinking beer and dozing. For whatever reason (assumed to be laziness on the part of our guide), we spent a ridiculously long time at this little riverside village - and aside from swimming in the river there really wasn't anything to do. Anna's culinary sojourn paid dividends for me later though - I swanned into the kitchen after the boat safari to find she'd befriended some Bolivians who were visiting the area, and who had caught themselves a veritable school of piranhas that they were now cooking up. No sooner had I walked into the room did I find myself with a plate of freshly fried piranha and rice in front of me - despite having quite literally no idea what was going on, I was happy as Larry with an extra meal between lunch and dinner! Piranhas, for interest's sake, may eat meat for fun, but sadly hide it away in their bodies behind a bone system akin to a particularly overgrown set of brambles. Much like eating a crab from first principles, it was a lot of effort for - in quantity terms - minimal reward.

Part the reason we spent so long in this godforsaken hamlet was, as it turned out, due to the 4x4 van that we'd arrived in having broken down (or something to this effect) somewhere between dropping us off and picking us up again. Thus, getting picked up at 5pm turned into getting picked up at about 8 - and it was pitch black darkness that we bounced and rumbled our way through for an hour before getting back to camp for dinner. Having befriended Swiss people, however, there was no way I was going to bed without a game of Ligretto - possibly the funnest card game ever made, but for some reason only known about in Switzerland.

Our time in the Pantanal was "3 days and 2 nights", but the reality of this was more like "1 and a bit days and 2 nights" once you factor in the lengthy journies to and from Campo Grande. Nevertheless, the 6am wakeup allowed us to squeeze in a couple of hours walking trek in the wetland forest (mosquitoes in extremis, though hardly surprising when strolling through hot but shaded forest that's knee deep in stangnant water), a ride in a van/car a few kilometres up the trunk road (9 of us in a vehicle that looked roughly like a 4-door, 4-wheel version of Only Fools and Horses' Trotter-mobile - 3 boys with feet dangling off the back, inhaling gallons of fresh dust kicked up off the dirt road), and a half hour of piranha fishing that saw Anna show her true calling in life - first time fishing, and she caught a whopping 3kg mega-piranha that was, genuinely, massive. A few minutes later she caught another piranha - relatively small compared to the whopper before, but still a great catch - and thanks to a few other catches from the Swiss guys we had ourselves our lunch to fry back at camp.

It's one natural world to another for us though - after the hours of travel from the Pantanal back to Campo Grande, we make it with mere minutes in hand to hop on our overnighter down to Foz du Iguazu - the Brazilian side of the mother-of-all waterfalls.

One gigantic urban sprawl

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - 22nd February 2010

With an hour or so to kill here in São Paulo's "other" bus station , it seemed like a vaguely decent idea to register a blog post from Brazil's biggest city. "Other" may seem an unduly condescending way to describe what, at the end of the day, is a perfectly adequate bus station, but when you arrive inside the gargantuan mass of Tietê Bus - apparently the second largest bus terminal in the world (God knows how that's calculated, but I certainly wouldn't disagree) - perfectly well sized terminals like Barra Funda (where we are now, awaiting our bus to Campo Grande) pale in significance.

Given that the grand total time of our stay here will be under 4 hours, there isn't a great deal I can really say, but one thing certainly stands out. There are something to the tune of 20 million people in this place, and it is not in the least bit surprising. 2 hours before you arrive in Tietê bus terminal, you are in inner city São Paulo - surrounded by street after street of concrete - walls, high rise flats, random junk, and of course a tonne and a half of traffic. And in every direction, it is the same - as you cross the fringes you can almost sense the inevitable march of urban sprawl, gradually eating up all the surrounding countryside in an unstoppable all-encompassing march. It isn't the prettiest sight, and immediately makes you appreciate how the natural barrier of mountains has allowed Rio to avoid the fate of its western neighbour... and what a damn good idea the Metropolitan Green Belt was in saving England's green and pleasant land.

Party with an extra A

PARATY, BRAZIL - 22nd February 2010

It would take very little inventiveness by some money-making entrepreneur to turn a place with this name into a massive clubbing town, complete with corny neon lights and binge-drinking underage English kids. Thankfully, such a monstrous event has not, and seems infinitely unlikely, to occur here in Paraty any time soon.

Having wandered around the streets of Morretes a couple of weeks back with Luis, I largely knew what to expect from a colonial Brazilian town - but it's gotta be said that while Paraty does the same thing, it does so on a significantly bigger, and thus more touristy scale. The "old town" and its cobbled streets begin when you cross some metal chains on the road, and enter into an area that is essentially unchanged in 150 years. Without any traffic except that in human form, you find yourself meandering through a grid system made up of block after block of near identical buildings; colourful and tile-roofed, housing shops generally selling clothes, arts and crafts or other products directly purely at the hoards of tourists - if not they're restaurants (just like the stolen photo, right). We sampled one of the latter on our first night, getting ourselves a good bit of fish that - while good, was not a touch on the previous day's efforts over back at Sobrenatural in Santa Teresa.

The classic combination of general disorganisation and late booking meant we were forced to splash out on a classier double room en suite joint for our first night before moving to somewhere more appropriate (i.e. cheaper and grottier) for the next couple. While this worked well enough, it did involve a suitable awkward morning conversation with Emerson - the owner of Pousada Acquarela - the family-run place where we spent our first night. Fairly enough, we was curious as to why we'd come to the middle of nowhere for just one night... you try explaining to someone that you actually didn't want to stay at his place and it was the only option you had! Still, seeing me wearing the Internacional football shirt commemorating Escurinho that Paulo's family had given me back in Porto Alegre, he gave me the nickname "Moladinho". Hopefully I'll remember to come back to that at a later stage, but it very much appealled to me.

Our two days in Paraty have basically been passed on beaches. The first involved a bus journey north to São Gonzalo - a journey we spectacularly managed to mess up by missing our stop and ending up 20 minutes further up the road and having to wait 40 minutes for a bus back in the opposite direction. However, the São Gonzalo beach was indeed as beautiful and relatively isolated as had been suggested, and better still was Ilha do Pelado - an island planted in the bay facing São Gonzalo beach accessible by one of the flotilla of small boats ferrying visitors from one side to the other. Sun, sand, sea and swimming - the usual beach craic minus any repeats of politico-philosophical discussions made for a relaxing afternoon and beautiful sunset... but then we tried to get home.

Buses run from Angra to Paraty on a pretty regular basis - several times an hour - and São Gonzalo is a stop en route. However, someone somewhere was apparently having a laugh and a half and decided to hijack anything resembling a bus for the best part of an hour and a half - Anna and I arrived at the bus stop where a bunch of fairly rowdy Argentines were having what appeared to be pretty entertaining banter (not that I had any idea - they might well have been discussing particle physics), and after 40 minutes or so the motley crew was joined by an even rowdier (or certainly drunker) bunch of Brazilian locals - cue a fantastic tri-lingual conversation about next to nothing. 40 more minutes, no buses in sight, and the Brazilian locals swan off to the other side of the road and hop on the next bus in the opposite direction - an impressive show of not caring where they went out, so long as they did! As for us... another 20 minutes or so rolled by at it was gone 9pm before an already rammed minibus allowed the 7 of us to cram in. Aside from befriending the Argentines, who were staying at our new hostel ("Backpackers Hostel") as well, it was not one of the better journies, and with my standard levels of hunger kicking in the evening's steak went down a treat.

Day 2 took us in the opposite direction down Trindade - the most famous coastal area in the region consisting of 4 beaches next to one another, but with only the first one accessible. The first one is also that with the biggest surf - its front end had some impressively crashing waves - and thus the main attraction for Anna in her eternal struggle to find somewhere to rent a surf board in Brazil. The only reward reaped from a 2km walk along this first beach was, however, a spectacular stack by yours truly - a stream of water was flowing across some rocks and down the beach, and in my infinite wisdom I planted my right foot bang on the wet, slippery granite. I was down in a second and a mightly splash, plastic bag with camera and books and everything else crashing down next to me, and there was only one way I was going - sliding down on my arse down the steepening rock face, and crashing into the puddle pool formed in the sand at its foot. Imagine all the above in front of a whole bunch of locals... well "embarrassed" sums it up fairly well.

Neither this, nor the total absence of rentable surf boards, was fate's "reward" for walking all this way though - half an hour later after meticulously drying every piece of my camera and ensuring it survived, I discovered my flip flops - the Havaianas I'd finally managed to purchase back in Curitiba - had vanished... nowhere to be seen. I searched all over - even getting the help of a couple of locals to investigate where the stream flowed under some huge rocks, but the damn things were gone, presumed stolen. Unimpressed with adding another name to the ever growing list of Gap Year casualties, leave alone the total waste of time and energy, the trudge all the way back along Beach #1 wasn't a rip-roaring affair. However, some simple munch (pastels - basically little meat-filled pastries) and a bit more walking and we found ourselves slightly lost (you generally are when you're supposed to be an a 1.5km beach but are surrounded by jungle), but in the midst of a cool river and waterfall running down smooth rocks - basically a natural water slide dropping into a tranquil lagoon. Fun times ensued, but the real highlight came later when we actually discovered Beach #3, and thus the rock-enclosed lagoon that sits beyond it off Beach #4. Peaceful and transquil - still, clean water surrounded by massive granite blocks - the photos are great but again, they'll have to wait for another day.

Buses round here don't like us, and we were damn lucky to get on one when we did as half the bloody village was also trying to do the same. All's well that ends well though - after an excellent pizza dinner complete with a selection of 6 olive oils, our dorm room that somehow fitted 8 people in a room the size of a cupboard was the scene of some top drawer shut eye.

Plan C

PARATY, BRAZIL - 20th February 2010

Planning ahead has rarely played much of a role in any of my travels so far, but it seems any possibility of this changing with Anna's arrival on the scene can be safely put to one side. Indeed, our botched departure from Rio and eventual arrival here in Paraty was an organisational maelstrom of almost vintage proportions.

Things began back at Rita's house in Rio where, aftr several days of taking advantage of free board in one of the world's coolest cities (not to mention occupying the only air conditioned room and being chauffeured all over town by car), we were thinking we should really move on and hunkered down to some proper planning (armed, as standard, with the trusty LPGs).

The provisional scheme we had been toying with since a few weeks back (and by "we", I mean "Anna", and by "had been toying with", I mean "suggested") involved heading to the colonial hotspot of Ouro Prêto, a few hours north of Rio, before somehow heading to Brazil's western edge and the tropical wetlands of the Pantanal. However, it had been somewhat assumed that at some stage in or anound Rio, Anna - a massive surfer chick, apparently - would have had her desire to rid some waves satisfied. This assumption was slammed to pieces on the discovery that trying to rent a surfboard anywhere in this part of Brazil was going to go about as well for you as rocking up uninvited to the Augusta National for a cheeky round. Absolutely no chance.

Thus, "Plan A" soon evolved into "Plan B", which involved heading in the opposite direction out of Rio; down the coast to the supposedly lush scenic beauty of Ilha Grande (with more beaches providing more, if still extremely unlikely, potential opportunities for surfing), before continuing further down the coast to Paraty - combining the colonial history of Ouro Prêto with a seaside location that had the added advantage of being further west (and thus closer to our Pantanal goal).

Plan B was signed off by yours truly on Wednesday evening before I joined the Canadian lads (Rita's friend's boyfriend and the latter's brother, last seen up on Corcavado with Cristo Redentor) for a match at the Maracana - local Rio rivals Flamengo and Botafogo goign head-to-head in the semi-finals of the Brazilian Cup. The jist was that Anna sorted out the nitty gritty details of buses, hostels, etc., while I did manly things like drink beer and get far to emotionally involved with the tens of thousands of fellow fans in the Flamengo end, wondering how the hell they'd managed to lose a match in which they'd taken the lead and Botafogo had had only one decent change the whole game. Botafogo's 2-1 win came courtesy of a freak second goal, as well as thanks to Flamengo's inabilty to steer any one of 5 near misses around 6 inches closer to goal. Considering the non-stop noise and general intensity of the supporting masses, I thought they took the loss pretty well.

Getting a taxi home was a job and half but was eventually managed - the same, however, could not be said for "Plan B", which was lying in metaphorical tatters as I returned home. The combination of a total lack of hostels in Ilha Grande, various bus issues between there and Paraty, and the option of heading straight to Paraty being equally stymied for one reason or another, all meant we were forced to overstay our welcome by an extra day and night!

Rita was up early to work on Thursday, while Anna and I eventually made it out into town for a walk around the landmark of the Centro district - the Catedral Metropolitana standing out both for its novel exterior architecture and its awe-inspiring interior ambiance. Heading up to the quiet, arty, hilltop neighbourhood of Santa Teresa was a must, but with the queue for the tram-train that runs up the hill resembling People's Sunday at Wimbledon, we decided to man up and walk. An awesome staircase full of art and colour greets you at the beginning of the climb (its name, Escadaria Selarón, I just discovered finding the image, right) but soon gives way to a more regular street ascending at an impressively steep gradient. Good exercise all round, and soon we were looking down on Rio, and Anna was falling in love with more streets, graffiti, buildings and Rio life. My camera chose an unfortunate moment to run out of battery, but as photos from it aren't getting uploaded any time soon no one's missing out on much.

We stumbled across "Sobrenatural" and it was the venue for an excellent dinner - local fish that was delicious in its own right, but cooked to perfection with fantastic seasoning to boot. Washed down with some ice cold Brahma beer, and we were in fine fettle for our final night in Rio and, of course, finalising Plan C - namely heading straight to Paraty and sacking off Ilha Grande. A couple of gremlins reared their head - we were forced to spend our first night here in a rather expensive place as normal hostels had only single dorm beds left - but come lunchtime yesterday we were in Rio's massive rodovíaria, having said our goodbyes to Rita's family with heartfelt gratitude, and were all set for the 4 hour bus journey to pastures new.

The Rio juggernaut goes on...

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - 17th February 2010

After the epic scenes of Monday (both day and night), it will be scant surprise to hear we were absolutely shattered come Tuesday... after finally rising some time in the afternoon (going to bed at 7.30am isn't ideal for an early start). Feeling somewhat obliged to do something, however, Anna and I hopped into a bus and headed down to Ipanema where, after topping up the energy levels with the delicious açai berry-fruit-shake-juice stuff that is found in the fruit juice stalls that come ten-to-the-dozen all over Brazil, we walked over to Lagoa Rodrigo de Frietas and rented ourselves a couple of bikes to rekindle memories of Oxford as we cycled around the 7.5km path. I'd wanted Anna to see the amazing Ipanema sunset that we'd enjoyed before she arrived, but unfortunately we ended up getting to Ipanema beach about 20 minutes too late... although we still had time to see Anna's compact digital camera (as opposed to her all new fancy SLR one which we left back at Rita's for its own safety) come to a sticky end thanks to an over-zealous wave and the splash of few drops of salty sea water. To say she was unimpressed would be a rather large understatement.

We managed to pass several hours sitting on the beach, walking up the beach, sitting on the wall while drinking some beers... generally mitzing around the area, before we decided to look into hopping on a metro train home. The metro runs 24 hours a day during carnaval... but unfortunately the powers that be had decided that carnaval refered to the sambódromo (which finished on Monday night), rather than the carnaval de rua on the streets that continues till Tuesday. Bad news for us, and adding to our woes was a complete lack of cash for either of us, and apparently no working ATMs in Ipanema. Eventually we bought a couple of drinks by debit card at an Irish pub and got 100 reals cashback to sort ourselves out... and as tends to happen when you're just seeing where the night takes you, we ended up with an English lad, a Colombian, and some guy who was presumably American, overfilling a taxi to Lapa (the centre of Rio nightlife). Ostensibly we were only heading there to try and get on the metro (as apparently it would still be running further up the line), but once we were out on the crowd-filled streets with the full noise and energy of the last night of carnaval, we were always gonna stay and soak up the atmosphere. Wandering over to Arcos de Lapa - a big viaduct of arches across a public square that, by day, looks like the photo on the right - turned out to be a great move as we found ourselves in the midst of a live performance by some sort of band - a good 10 thousand people dancing away in front of the constructed stage. It was probably about 2am when we decided to call it a night... cue walking around to find a metro station, only to discover that it too was closed! Cutting our losses, we just got a cab.

Today was to be different, however, with Rita driving the two of us down to Prainha beach - a recommended spot due south of Rio; bright sands enclosed by green hills (see right) and with the big surf that seems standard along the southern Brazilian coast. Several hours were spent relaxing; Anna wistfully watching the surfers enjoy what are supposed to be the best waves in Brazil, while dismayed by the total lack of surfboard-rental establishments anywhere in Prainha (or indeed anywhere around Rio); I taking some crappy photos. At some stage, however, I had the fairly unusual experience of being stunned to silence after she recounted her torrid time in India and, point-by-point, presented her case for how - in seemingly every conceivable way - India was a disaster of a country. Normally, it takes barely a flicker of criticism of India for me to launch into a strong-worded and generally over-excited defence of the motherland - a personality trait that has provided much easy entertainment over the years for serial windup merchants like Paul "P Sizzle" Smith. On this occasion though, what hit me wasn't so much a flicker of criticism as a raging inferno of lambastations, denunciations and disparagement whose content might been vitriolic if it hadn't all been built upon experiences that were undeniably Indian, and presented in a manner that was perfectly fair. It was an impressive argument on her part, and it was its volume as much as its content that left my quietly collecting my thoughts for some time - wondering why I wasn't at all offended or surprised, but merely disappointed. The overarching conclusion for me eventually seeped through though - travelling can be wildly influenced by preconceptions and expectations, and if they don't include an expectation for anything and everything to come your way - as much in terms of trival customer service standards as the more serious dangers of theft and illness - then 4 months in India are gonna be tough.

The irony for me is that the vehemence of her criticisms simply highlighted the chasm in my mind between what I consider normal anywhere in the world, and what I consider normal in India, and how at ease I am with this division. Repeatedly saying "it's just how it is" wasn't a particularly strong argument on the face of it, but combined with a sense of expectation and it starts to take a deeper significance. Every time I found myself resorting to the same sentence merely served to confirm the sense of ease I feel in a world that was just so foreign for her.

As we drove home conversation turned to just how fantastic a city Rio is; with everything she would want from a city present in Rio, Anna said she'd certainly be happy to live here. I love the place, but my love of London, Kent and the UK is enough to stop me ever seriously thinking about the merits of settling down anywhere else for longer than a few fleeting moments. What I realised, however, is that if the afternoon's conversations achieved little else, what they did do was increase my desire to one day live and work somewhere in India.

Anna's Baptism of Fire, part II

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - 16th February 2010

Carnaval is a pretty big deal here in Rio. And that might just be the biggest of the many understatements that have (probably) featured on this blog over the last few months. Carnaval in Rio is the biggest deal imaginable. To think cities - London at present being a perfect example - spend years and years planning and organising festivities for the 2 weeks when they host the Olympic Games... and none of them will even come close to the size, scale, or simply fun, that Rio manages to achieve each and every year. Sydney 2000 may be often cited as the "best Olympics ever", but whatever I'd be willing to bet my hypothetical house that Rio 2016 is going to blow it out the water.

Anyway, my pains to stress just how massive carnaval is over here are basically to put things in perspective. Because "carnaval" is 4 or 5 days of street parties, dancing and general revelry, but at its centre - encompassing all of the above and more - is an event that is just epic in every way, from its venue to its duration to its volume of performers. This, of course, is the legendary Samba School parade in the purpose-built Sambódromo stadium, and it is simply mind-boggling.

As an explanatory note, the samba school parade is actually a competition - the 12 samba schools currently occupying the "Special Group" (basically the Premier Division of samba schools) are each given an hour and a quarter to parade through the sambódromo - 6 on Sunday night, 6 on Monday night. Judged on everything from timing to dancing to originality of the theme and music (and 5 other categories), the best school over the 2 nights is crowned the year's champion, and thus gain the right to be the final performing school on the Monday night the following year. The two lowest ranked schools, however, get relegated out of the "Special Group", replaced the following year by the winners from the lower division. Those interested can read all about the history and details here.

In a flurry of internet-based activity shortly after my old camera was stolen in Airley Beach, I splashed out on a couple of grandstand tickets for Anna and myself - at over US$100 they don't come cheap, but I was well informed by countless sources that it was an experience well worth it. "True dat", as they say.

So Anna's already incredible first day in Rio headed for its momentous finale as we hit the metro with Rita and her sister (whose concern for our general safety and scepticism in our ability to find our way on the streets saw them chaperone us to the gates), and soon found ourselves in the midst of thousands of brightly clad, flag-waving and dancing spectators - an eclectic mix dominated by locals whose semi-delirious passion for samba seemed to know no bounds, but with a sprinkling of tourists who were generally found looking semi-awed, semi-bemused by the scale of what was before them. Between the towering stands housing the throngs runs a 750 metre road - the parade route - along which the schools process (fairly well illustrated by the photo on the right). The stands themselves are just big concrete steps, and from the first school at 9pm, the whole thing goes on until sunrise the next morning - a 9 hour bonanza, if you can survive it.

The parades themselves have more colour, more sound, more intricate clothing designs and styles than anything I have ever seen before, or probably will see again. Every school chooses a theme for its parad and, with themes ranging from "the history of the carnival itself" to "technology and its development", produce a line of indiviudual dancers, giant themed floats covered with more dancers, and in between groups - each with hundreds more dancers within - separated from one another by a totally new, different, and equally spectacular style of costume. Mirrors, feathers, metals and gems, plus every sort of fabric under the sun - you name it, and it was on display somewhere. But not just in passing - the colours and the details may all blow your mind, but what left the most lasting memory for me was the volume - the number of performers out there. Each school has some 4000 or so performers... and it is only when you see hundreds and hundreds of them, all out there at once; floats, costumes and all; that you can properly appreciate just how many people that is. And as one school comes and goes, you have the whole shabam again, and again, and again...

By 4.30 in the morning after seeing the entirity of the first 4 schools and the beginning of the penultimate offering, it seemed like a fairly good idea to beat the crowds and make an early exit. For sure, it was not so much for want of departure on my part, but having landed in Rio a mere 24 hours earlier, jet lag, general fatigue and a few beers were all hitting Anna like a runaway train... and the fact that she'd manage to sleep through one and a half schools' parades seemed more than compelling a reason to get back to Rita's for some well earned rest. But then it wouldn't be a Baptism of Fire without one more twist in the tale, would it...?

Getting a taxi was easy enough, and being pre-paid we weren't to bothered about the driver making a royal hash of finding his way to rua Caçhaca de Maria in Méier - Rita and family's abode. Méier, while not the "ghetto", is in the north-western part of Rio that is generally bracketed as the more industrial, working class, and generally rough side of the city (as opposed to the rich half down by Copacabana and Ipanema). The houses are built like Fort Knox, with entrance porches surrounded by 10 foot concrete walls, themselves topped with spiked rails and barbed wire. Can't be too careful...

The problem with all this security, however, comes when you arrive at your friend's house in the early hours of the morning, in a slightly dodgy suburb of one still remains a pretty dangerous city, and ring the bell to find absolutely no answer. Sure, next door's disgusting hounds all throw their nut and wake up the whole neighbourhood, but buzz after buzz after buzz produces no answer from the door. Back home, the instinct is to figure out a way to break into your own home (or, harking back to a memorable night on Bidborough Ridge in December 2008, attempting to wake your passed out friends with repeated mobile calls, throwing shoes at windows, getting said shoes stuck on the roof, and finally cutting ones losses and calling the landline, thus waking up Rob's (very, very angry) Dad, and half of Bidborough, at 5am), but here in Rio those options are well and truly closed (if you value your skin) - as Anna was more than quick to point out upon seeing be eying up the concrete wall. Attempts at phonecalls achieved little except emphasising the ridiculousness of Brazil's telephone system, where telephone numbers change depending what network you are calling from, so it was there we found ourselves - Anna, barely a day in Rio, and myself - paranoid as a pot-smoking teenager at a police station thanks to the newer, even more expensive and even less backed up camera I had on my person - wondering what the f*** we were supposed to do.

Various scenarios were played out. Rita and her sister had said, repeatedly, that they were coming straight home after dropping us off, and to ring the door bell when we got back. There was surely no way they could be at home at sleep through the din caused by the loud buzz and the louder uproar of three deranged dogs, which left the possibility of them having pulled a fast one and run away with our stuff (a suggestion I was quick to strike down on the basis of it being possibly the longest of long cons imaginable, what with tracing its roots back to Australia...), or that they'd been mugged, or worse, or their root home and were in trouble somewhere. Whatever way we looked at it, we had absoutely no idea what the hell we were supposed to do - with no telephones, and all our money and documents inside an impregnable house, and with nowhere to go and no one to call in a foreign city where we don't speak the language... well the shit was fairly close to hitting the metaphorical fan.

Thankfully, an absolute shitshow of a 4 months in India had instilled new nerves in young* Anna, and the two of us contented to pass the next few hours sitting on the side of the road, catching up with life a bit and attempting to create vaguely rationale ideas for what to do next, and when. Sunrise... 7am... our cut-off point for sitting on the doorstep and waiting... and then from round the corner we hear "Dean! Anna!".

From up the street appear Rita and her sister... and to cut a long story short, they'd scored free tickets inside the sambódrome thanks to bumping into well-connected friends after dropping us off. And they, unlike us, had stayed till the end.

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro. Baptism of Fire indeed.

* a whole 7 months younger than me

Anna's Baptism of Fire... part I

RIO DE JANERIO, BRAZIL - 15th February 2010

Today has already been one of the most fantastic days of my life, and there's the small matter of the world's biggest party still to come! My travels take a notable turn today, however, as for the remainder of my journey I will no longer be taking on the world solo - last night I was joined here in Rio by Anna, previously mentioned in Mumbai and various other occasions...

The weekend was passed with Rita and her sister taking me various places that wouldn't be too bad for Anna to miss - beginning with a tour of the legendary Maracanã Stadium. I've seen many a big stadium in my time, and to be honest the Maracanã isn't up to much from the outside. It doesn't have the towering height of the MCG, nor the sheer surface area of Wembley, and looks in many ways similar to the concrete-clad outer face of Twickenham. Through the internal tunnels and changing rooms - all shrines to Brazil's World Cup-winning heroes (all 5 squads of them) - and out pitchside, however, and you realise how this place once held just shy of 200,000 spectators. It is vast. The pitch itself, at 110x75 metres, is a bit longer and a bit wider than average, but for some reason it seems like an eternity from one side to the other - particularly across the width of the pitch. Anyway, I doubt there's ever been a more compulsory place to "Back the Bid".

I sampled the traditional Brazilian feijoada lunch at the Academia da Cachaça in Leblon, including the ubiquitous caipirinha cocktail (savagely strong), and had time for a sunset stroll down Ipanema Beach which, thanks to being arguably the most picture perfect sunset I'll ever see (and anyone who's been reading this blog knows that I've seen my fair share of picture perfect sunsets), brought a degree of wistfullness at my lack of camera. Rio may be one of the most fantastic cities on the planet, but the fact that you aren't safe to take your cameras on the subway metro system is a crying, crying shame. To give you some idea of what it looks like, however, I found the image on the right on Google Images.

Anyway, the fall of night saw Rita, her sister and I take on Lapa - the clubbing district - to great aplomb all round. Imagine the thumping alcohol-fuelled revelry of the Greek clubbing islands, mixed with the sheer volume of people and noise seen in Mumbai, but all moving to the samba beat that is just oh so South American. It may have been after midnight, but in Rio that is when the night begins - and how. Thousands upon thousands of people were just everywhere - you move in a throng and go where the crowds take you. Spontaneous al fresco dancefloors and bars appear on streetcorners where locals have rocked up with their cars and are pumping out tunes - and everywhere you look everyone is having the time of their life. We went into Lapa 40, one of Lapa's samba nightclubs, and danced away several hours watching an awesome troupe of samba percussions, singers, and most impressively, dancers strutting their stuff.

That was Saturday, today is Monday, and it wasn't much more than 18 hours ago that Rita and I, after a day* of Copacabana (compulsory visit to the city's most famous beach), Pedro Bonito (watching hang-gliders float down off a massive hill), and Barra (for an unsuccesful attempt to purchase a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt), were in a taxi home from the airport with Anna safely joining us from London. Despite the knowledge of a 7am wake'up alarm, it won't be much of a surprise that "catching up" chit-chat took us well into the early hours.

My first instinct this morning was one that has basically become foreign to me - feeling damn cold. Parked on the mattress underneat the air-con, it was a refreshing change from the unrelenting 40°+ heat of the day that has been standard issue since my arrival. 7am was, admittedly, a struggle, but by 7.30 we were on the road towards Ipanema to meet up with one of Rita's friends, her Canadian boyfriend, and the latter's brother who was visiting Rio as well. A two car convoy, and we were on our way up to Corcavado.

I've already spoken of the magical aura Cristo Redentor provides as it stands above Rio - but one thing you cannot appreciate looking up at it from the city is just how massive a structure it is. Monumental is the word - trying to capture the whole thing in one photograph is tough enough, leave alone trying to take photos of people... and that's just the physics, leave alone the hundreds of tourists rammed around you all trying to take the same snap. Looking down of the city serves incredible views in every direction, but for me it was looking back up at the statue that sent shivers of excitement down my spine - the simplicity but completeness of the facial details; the holes in his palms; even the glow of the stone in the sunlight; all contribute to making this one of the great works of man anywhere in the world.

Back down the other side of the Corcavado, we were pleasantly surprised by how early it still was and decided to make the most of time by tackling Rio's other famous hilltop - the domineering Sugar Loaf on the other side of town. There's a cable car up to the top, but being intrepid adventurers Anna and I took to the path... and 40 hot, dehydrated and very sweaty minutes later, spent a good hour taking many an identical photograph of the stunning views looking back down to the city. We took the cable car back down, which probably says more than enough about the climb...

Anna got to taste the traditional meat-rice-beans feijoada for herself at Academia da Cachaça, but arguably the most memorable part of her first day here in Rio came afterward, with a trip to one of Rita's friends apartments. We were told it would be a brief trip - Rita just wanted to say hi and bye - but as we walked into a penthouse suite, adorned wall to wall with all kinds of fascinating but random crap, and ascended a spiral staircase to a rooftop terrace complete with swimming pool, meat on the BBQ, and ice cold beers being offered to us... well we knew it wasn't going to be a brief visit. About 15 people were up there just loving life - and both Anna and I were in agreement that coming across a place like this will forever make any other fantastic apartment just that little less special. With legs dipped in the cool pool, sipping on an ice cold sud, with beautifully barbecued beef being offered to me every 2 minutes, I looked across the water to smile at Anna, and then just arched my head upward to find - right above us, with nothing else in between - the open arms and solemn smile of Cristo Redentor. All was good.

* after another late start (breakfast after midday), "day" would really be more accurately replaced with "afternoon"

Trains, Buses and the Cristo Redentor

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - 13th February 2010

Yesterday evening I arrived here in Rio to be greeted by Rita (regular readers may recall the story of our meeting on Fraser Island) - and seconds after emerging from the bus station's multistorey car park I found myself staring through her windscreen down a long street, somewhere at the end of which rose green vegetation up and up and, atop of this towering hill, triumphantly looking down over the city and its millions of inhabitants below, stood the stone statue of Cristo Redentor - Christ the Redeemer - a monument like no other, that I immediately knew would represent my abiding memory of Rio.

Getting to this realisation involved a fair few journies, however, and my last update from Curitiba ended on one hell of a cliffhanger - we'd had a big night checking out some places that were not so much "exclusive" as "off the beaten track". Long story short, it was 5am before Luis and I were rolling back to his house, and it was 7am when our alarms were going off and we were up and out.

Why, you might ask, would be possibly schedule quite such a ridiculous plan? We found ourselves asking very similar questions, but it was very much a case of one thing leading to another. Flash back to the Whitsunday Islands diving cruise in Australia (where I'd first met Luis and his brother, Guillherme), and conversation about what to do in Curitiba included a "must-do" train ride through the semi-tropical jungle, descending from Curitiba's 1km above sea level altitude down to sea level and the old colonial town of Morretes. Being a must-do, and with the forecast crap weather holding up against the odds, our previous day's tour of the city's sights also included a stop at the train station to book ourselves on the morning's tour train. Departure: 8am. Discussion over whether this meant sacrificing the planned "big night" went something as follows:

Luis: "Maybe this means we don't have such a big night tonight?"
Dean: "Why, what time do you think we'd get home?"
L: "Er... maybe 4 or 5 in the morning?"
D: "OK, so we're gonna have absolutely bugger all sleep..."
L: "Exactly"
D: "Well... we could just man up..."
L: "Perfect!"

So that was that - 7am came with alarm bells ringing and two red-eyed twenty-somethings silently consuming suitably strong coffee; 8am came at we were safely on board the train and safely nodding off to sleep. Come 9am, however, and we were carving our way through some of the most stunning scenery you'll see on any train journey anywhere in the world - for me it immediately sent my mind racing back to the Bangalore-Mangalore train ride up through the Western Ghats back in October. The similarities were everywhere, in the tropical vegetation, the sweeping turns through sheer cliff faces and in and out of dripping tunnels, and all the while views out through lush green valleys, complete with muddy rivers trailing away into the misty distance tens of kilometres away from eyeshot. It is very much a case of photographic overkill, but I had that opportunity snuffed out sharpish thanks to my camera battery dying. Some half decent snaps will hopefully make an appearance on here at some stage... (although I did find the crappy promotional one to the right on Google).

Morretes is a quaint little place - colonial towns like it are found all over Brazil and while the blend of cobbled streets, old buildings and quiet lifestyle is presumably a standard feature, each has its own unique charms. Morretes was nice and quiet on this, a Thursday, but the abundance of souvenir-based shops and stalls made it easy to believe Luis' assertion about the place being rammed with tourists at the weekend. Lunch was a fine affair at a riverside establishment regularly frequented by Luis - sampling the locally brewed cachaça on entry, followed by an excellent mix of local dishes ranging from meat to prawns, all washed down with some ice cold beer. Certainly not the cheapest meal you'll have in South America, but definitely worth the price.

The return bus journey was hella quicker than the train (to be precise, twice as fast), but I would be making up stories of the top of my head if I were to provide any further details about the journey. I barely remember getting on the bus, and remember absolutely nothing else before waking up as we pulled into Curitiba's rodoviária an hour and a half later. With time to burn and refreshed from a good kip, we walked around the city centre - managed to finally pick up a pair of Havaianas flip flops (the ortho-style ones I wanted/need are pretty hard to come by, compared to the normal ones with are sold ten-to-the-dozen in every other roadside store), and checked out the main central square before taking advantage of the city's famed public transport system to bus ride home.

The overnight bus to Rio was booked for 11.30pm, and a few hours kotching and packing left enough time for a final dinner Chez Hanninger, and a final drink with Bruno, Luis and the girls before rocking up for my bus about 30 seconds before it left. Fashionable to say the least.

And then there was the bus. News reports of a landslide on the highway between Curitiba and Sao Paulo, combined with the usual carnaval-related traffic surges between Sao Paulo and Rio, had all in all forecast the 13 hour bus journey taking more like 19 hours. Knowing that Rita would only be able to pick me up after work - around 6pm - this worked out perfectly for me... or so I planned. Sadly, as these things tend to go, the forecast delays were underestimated, and I finally rocked up at about 19:30, knackered (and presumably rather smelly) after a 20+ hour bus-laden extravaganza, and further smashed from the 30 minute walk around Rio's enormous terminal laden with bags trying to find Rita (who, sensibly, was waiting at the "arrivals" hall watching everyone come in. Less sensibly, and for reasons way beyond my understanding, I'd entered through some other door...).

And then we drove out, and I sat transfixed as Cristo Redentor looked down on us around every twist and turn between scenic mountains, golden beaches and raging street parties; all journey-based complaints forgotten as I slowly began to appreciate just why everyone who comes to Rio de Janeiro cannot get enough of it.

Student life again

CURITIBA, PARANÁ, BRAZIL - 11th February 2010

Our road trip back north from Florianópolis ("back" for Luis, Bruno and the car; a whole new world for me) began first with a drive around the northern part of Ilha de Santa Catarina - accompanied for one last hoorah by our loyal Aussie sidekicks. Armed with an excellent addition to his English vocabulary thanks to certain clientelle of Tucano House, Bruno reliably informed us that the north of the island was where "Brazil's rahs" live. It is not hard to see why - the streets are bordered by vast palace-come-mansions running adjacent to the beach, but obviously protected from the riff-raff by towering gateways and spiky-topped fences that give a feeling of The OC mixed with Fort Knox.

We had a walk down the beach and got our one and only "Team Photo" (which will appear shortly), before heading back down the island for an incredibly emotional parting of ways with the Aussies (naturally, we were all in tears). 4 hours up the road - through a mahoosive thunderstorm as we scaled the hills - and we were in the hilltop city of Curitiba, just a shade under 1km above sea level. Yet another wonderful example of Brazilian hospitality came in the form of Luis' mother, who immediately had me feeling right at home with delicious food on the table (including an awesome meat-loaf style dish traditional to her hometown area), clothes straight in the wash, and plenty of good banter. Evening is evening, however, and we were straight out to a bar to meet up with Bruno and a couple girls he knows from the language school where he works/Luis knows through university. Thanks to yours truly, all conversation took place in English, and as the drinks went down and the night went on I found myself in the surreal and slightly embarrassing position of sitting adjudicator in a deep philosophical/moral debate-come argument that, despite its serious content (ranging from homosexuality to parent-children relations to the nature of sex), was taking place in a language foreign to 80% of its participants. A surefire way to make you feel lingusitically inferior.

Somewhere in the middle of all this high-brow chat, however, came the distraction of a bunch of girls singing a Portuguese version of "Happy Birthday to You!" to one of their friends (it never ceases to amaze me how many alternative languages can be squeezed into the same musical straitjacket). They'd all had a few and were generally loving life, but for whatever reason one of them decided to come over and strike up a conversation. Me being English went down amazingly well, and she proceeded to tell me everything she knew about South America to inform my upcoming travels - including "finding herself" in Bolivia's Uyuni desert. Lovely girl, but her excitability soon drew another friend over to attempt to steer her away (I guess she incorrectly thought her friend was annoying us). This latter girl will be remembered for a long time.

I have no idea what the first words she said were, but I immediately was lost for words. She's Brazilian, from Rio, but listening to her speak English was like listening to Kate Winslet or something. I guess it was shock, but I just sat there flabbergasted at this girl who one minute appeared to be like any average girl conversing in Portuguese, but the next minute was talking like a young debutante in Home Counties England. Oh, and she was stunning. It turned out she was an actress - as were all of them - and they were in Curitiba for a few months for a production they were all involved in. Her perfect English elocution made some sense when it emerged that she'd spent 2 years at RADA... but the real surprise came 24 hours later when Luis and I were watching TV - who should pop up in an advert for a prime time serial but the very same girl!!! Amazing scenes... but more memorably, an amazing voice. Arguably, the perfect voice.

Anyway, back to reality and the weather was very much against us, but rain showers would remain the order of the day for the length of my stay. As such, Tuesday saw us take to the city and check out the sights. Most stunning, but for some reason totally ignored by the LPG, is the Curitiba Wire Opera House - a massive auditorium resembling London's Royal Albert Hall in shape and size, but built in the heart of an old quarry, surrounded by jungle and accessible only by a bridge over a waterfall fuelled river, and held together by the intersecting network of wires and glass that allow you to simultaneously feel indoors, but surrounded by stunning nature. 8th May 2010 sees a whole bunch of us Pembrokians graduate, and objectively speaking Oxford's Sheldonian is one of the best places you could hope to have your ceremony. Hearing that Luis' sister's graduation was here, however, made me more than slightly jealous. One way or another, it was clearly a fantastic place for Luis to add some Brazilian Backing of the Bid (right)...

A good walking trek around one of Curitiba's parks saw us encircle a man-made lake and built up a good appetite for another excellent home-cooked meal, and we also had time to wander around the city's Botanical Garden - centred around an architecturally stunning glass house that would be right at home at Kew, and whose two-tiered internal walkways in amongst the palm canopy were a (surprisingly) novel experience. A big Tuesday night was always the plan, however, and we met up Bruno and the girls again before us boys went our own way for a fairly unique sample of Curitiba's nightlife.

As future blogs will make clear, sleep was quite spectacularly thrown out the window that night.

The most annoying person ever?

FLORIANÓPOLIS, ILHA DE SANTA CATARINA, BRAZIL - 8th February 2010

Although my original post from Floripa has now been suitably backdated, the unexplainable rush to publish the "Swimsuit Edition" of the Daily Rod (which remains in no way a result of peer pressure from certain Australians and/or Brazilians) has still left a blank or two.

Saturday night (6th Feb) saw our motley crew (the Brazilians, Luis and Bruno; and Aussies, Mitch, Scott; and yours truly) head out to a nearby club to sample the "Magic Island"'s nightlife. My first experience of a proper South American club, it was an experience right from the entrance - passing through airport-security style metal detectors in addition to full-blown identification formalities. The big difference is the payment system - when you enter you are given a form whose number is linked to your name and ID details on the computer. You don't pay for any drinks all night, but just hand over your form and have whatever you've bought checked off on it... and then you pay your whole tab at the end. An efficient system, yes, but for certain friends back home whose control over their credit card is known to become somewhat liberal after a few drinks (mentioning no names, Charlie Spencer), it would be a total disaster.

The club inside was equally surprising. As Mitch beautifully put as we sat in the huge cosy armchairs of the bar room under a vaulted ceiling complete with ornate carvings - "We came out for a pretty standard couple of drinks and a dance, and have ended up in the classiest place in town"* Either they do clubbing very differently here in Brazil, or this place was something a little bit special. The bar room I mention would be right at home in the drawing rooms of central London old boys' clubs, and while the main dancefloor itself was your standard issue mix of lights and noise, the lobby area reinforced the upmarket feel of the place with a big new car to be won on display alongside a stream of massive bouncers. Anyway, the usual blend of drinks and dancing had the added feature of a samba performance by the local samba school, and shortly before we left a guy from the VIP area trying to start a fight with a "common" lad - the former getting razed by the bouncers for his effort. Classic.

Jump 24 hours, and an amazingly relaxing day just kotching on Praia Mole and enjoying the sights was followed by a nice Mexican dinner with the guys (Brazilians and Aussies), before chilling out back at Tocano House and catching the SuperBowl on TV. The evening has taken an unfortunate turn for the worse, however, which is the reason why I am sitting writing this rather than getting some much needed shut eye.

It all began a few hours ago as I walked past the hostel pool, out of which comes the nasally chirp of the archetypal California "Valley" accent that is synonymous across large swathes of the world with stupid blonde girls who can't locate France on a map of the world and think Germany is part of the "Axis of Evil".

"Oh my God! You're Dean? WOW, oh my God, I've heard SOO much about you! Hey, gimme five!"

Standing at the side of the pool looking down at the massive bulk from which this startling introduction had emanated, and having glanced over to Luis whose expression more than confirmed that "heard so much about you" was actually more like "heard your name briefly mentioned", I didn't even know what was going on before a soaring, fat-reinforced, dripping wet right arm came soaring towards my general direction. Great.

Unwilling to engage any sort of conversation at this stage, I sauntered inside to find Mitch and Scott doing exactly the same - I think their exact words were "I don't think I can stand another word with that woman... she asks you a question and after you've said one word, she'll launch into another half an hour of non-stop crap". This, combined with the continued presence of the oh-so-annoying rahs of Sloane Square outside (whose performance the previous evening had done little to endear themselves to the Aussies thanks to incredulous questions like "England owns Australia, doesn't it?"), meant we stayed lodged indoors for as long as possible. The time was passed easily enough, however - American football's unique need as a sport to stop for a commericial break not just at intervals, but seemingly every minute and a half or at any feasible from a point being scored to a ball being caught, meant the histrionics and general pantomime of SuperBowl XLIV went on for AGES. Eventually, however, it came to bedtime, but passing outside both Luis and Bruno were engaged in flowing Portuguese conversation with Miss California who, apparently, had "totally embraced Portuguese culture and everything and just loves speaking the language and conversing and the whole romance and passion and everything." But then her attention turned to me.

"Right then Kent (clearly the "so much heard" included the county I live in) - go upstairs, shit, shave and shower, and come back down so we can have a proper conversation."

I genuinely could think of few things I'd rather do than that, but with Luis and Bruno more than keen to be in her company I felt socially obliged to head back down after my shower. This was a bad move.

Among a ridiculous diatribe about the not understanding English people, English people being "so cold", not understanding English humour, not understanding why I would feel awkward about spontaneously hugging her - a total stranger, and various other things she didn't understand, the sole conclusion in my mind was that she was unbelievably annoying. It is hard not to when you have to sit and listen to someone state a series of statements that are somewhere between insane stereotypes and full-fat bullshit - unable to get a word in edgeways because of their unrelenting verbal diarrhoea, and when you try and dissect their fallacies into simple reasons why they are totally wrong, you are met with an "oh my God, I can't deal with logic - this is exactly what I'm on about - I'm all about passion, not logic".

What she's all about is crass, loud, insatiable idiocy but, in a silver lining of an otherwise shocking dialogue, it is good to know that her oh-so-upsetting experience of England (apparently she thought everyone was just really mean because she didn't have the mental capacity to understand British ironic humour) means that - if nothing else - I can sleep easy knowing there is one less moron potentially landing at Her Majesty's shores.

* slightly paraphrased as the exact wording has been lost with the sands of time.

Swimsuit Edition

FLORIANÓPOLIS, ILHA DE SANTA CATARINA, BRAZIL - 7th February 2010

Consider that people come from all over southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina to bask in the sunshine of Ilha de Santa Catarina's gorgeous beaches - with January-February holiday period being the absolute peak season. Further consider than Praia Mole (Mole Beach) has established a long standing reputation throughout the region as the "beach for beautiful people".

Take five 20-something-year-old guys, put them on Praia Mole for the day with an ice box full of beer, and arm them with a high quality digital camera with an 18x optimal zoom lens. And voíla:












Surprisingly enough, the soundtrack to the day was Lady Gaga's "Papa-Paparazzi"...

Oh and of course, we couldn't miss a great opportunity to get some locals Backing the Bid...

The Magic Island

FLORIANÓPOLIS, ILHA DE SANTA CATARINA, BRAZIL - 6th February 2010

Picking up the tale in Porto Alegre, the guacho Brazilian barbecue that I had been so looking forward to came across a slight but significant hiccough that began, quite literally, just as I'd finished with that day's blog. First came the sensation of aching bones and neck... soon followed by a rising temperature... and gradually a stomach turning to jelly. 4 months of my travels have seen no form of illness strike me down worse than an evening of sniffles back in Fox Glacier in New Zealand, so I was in no mind to let some stupid germs get in the way of what was going to be a delicious dinner with Paulo's family. Sadly, the germs fought a tough fight and, even with Fernando (Paulo's nephew) dashing off mid-dinner to buy me some paracetamol, my consumption of some insanely delicious steak (a particularly fine example of which I took the liberty of photographing, below) was disappointingly low - and punctuated by regular strolls to the bathroom and back for now other reason than to cool my head with water and walk off the bloating sensation that was welling up inside me.



Nevertheless, dinner was very enjoyable with the Caldeira family and I was bowled over by their present to me once we were home - a limited edition centenary shirt of Internaçional, Fernando (and all the family's) football team. An amazing souvenir to take onwards in my travels, reminding me of a stay in Porto Alegre that - despite its brevity and hijacking by unknown illnesses (the night's sleep involved multiple bathroom visits), was a wonderful introduction to Brazil and, in particular, the warm-hearted generosity of Brazilians.

6 hours on the bus from Porto Alegre to Florianópolis passed, thankfully, without great incident - I was still feeling rather delicate after the previous night's digestive fireworks. Meeting me at the Rodoviaria (bus station), however, were Luis and Bruno - and an opportunity to recount my amazing good fortune across 4 days in Australia. First, Fraser Island, and fate's decision to have me in a van whose 7-person group included Eduardo and Rita - brother and sister from Rio de Janeiro, the latter on holiday visiting the former, who now lives in Sydney. At this stage of January - a month ago today - the plan to meet Anna in Rio for Carnaval was in disarray due to the combination of a total lack of accomodation, and insanely prohibitive prices on what little was available. The mention of this state of affairs set things in motion, and in one fowl swoop, however, we went from having nothing and no plans to having no just accomodation in Rio, but for free! Things got better still just 2 days later on the Whitsunday scuba cruise, when I befriended fellow divers Guillherme (Gilly) and Luis - brothers from Curitiba, Brazil; both on holiday, but the former from his work/studies in Bonn, Germany, and the latter from his studies in Brazil. Again, one thing led to another and my non-existent plans suddenly had amazing shape - I was now going to meet up with Luis (whose university semester only begins after Carnaval) in Florianópolis, and then head up to Curitiba with him to stay at the family home in Curitiba. Fate was dealing me some particularly good cards at that stage...

Fast forward one month, and Luis had driven down to Floripa (as the cool kids call it) with his friend Bruno for a long weekend of sun, sand and partying with yours truly - though my internal state meant the first night was a bit of a knockout. Florianópolis is actually just the gateway city that links Ilha de Santa Catarina with the mainland, but for whatever reason people just take Floripa to mean the whole island, a.k.a. "The Magic Island" (apparently). Day 2 saw us shift from one hostel (a temporary fix) to the one we actually wanted - Tucano House comes massively recommended on Hostelworld and has apparently been ranked "best hostel in Brazil" and "second best hostel in South America" over the last few months. It goes without saying that it is, to use a piece of Kiwi English that I took straight to heart, "sweet as".



It was not even 2 minutes after we'd set foot in Tocano House that who should show up but Mitch and Scott - the Sydney boys I'd met back in Montevideo. Introductions to Luis and Bruno were made, and before we knew what was going on we had ourselves a little crew and were finding out that I was not alone in my ailments - both the Aussies had been struck down with identical symptoms, suggesting that the culprit could well have been a certain Montevidean roadside burger...



Anyway, catching up aside the crew were trekked off towards Joaquinha Beach for some sandboarding down some pretty massive sand dunes. It sounds cool, and it is when you go down. However, the negatives stacked up - after a walk that took AGES in boiling heat (40° wouldn't be far off), climbing back up a massive sand dune, with the sandboard you've just ridden down, is cardio-vascular exercise like nothing you can imagine. Throw into the mix three suspect stomachs, and you have 15 minute recouperation intervals between each 30 second ride!

Knackered, hot and sweaty, we sauntered over to the actual beach and spent an excellent couple of hours enjoying the sunshine and incredibly cold water, as well as some pretty impressive surf (mastered by the dude to the right). Sugarcane juice was downed for energy, before trekking back up and over the dune hills for a very late fried seafood lunch that us three infirms really could not do justice to (a fact that annoyed me just as much as in Porto Alegre), and in true Latin style we all crashed out for siestas in some shade on the shore of Lagoa du Conceiçao. The lake is the biggest on the Ilha de Santa Catarina, and has the most ridiculously warm water I have ever known - I certainly have been nowhere else where emerging from the water into 35+° heat leaves you feeling a bit nippy.

Back at the hostel, the swimming pool was commandeered, although it took some work as we initially found it armed with a veritable possy of upper class England's finest - apparently all residents of either South Kensington or Sloane Square (London's equivalent of Manhatten's Upper East Side) and the like, here sat a group of 15 or so Brits whose quintessentially Public School accents (the girls in particular) were not even half as annoying as their fantastically condescending demeanour. Some of my closest friends from Oxford are products of the likes of Eton and Harrow, so I have nothing against the Public School crowd per se - but these guys were disliked by all 5 of us from the word go. Thankfully, our paths diverge tonight as we head to a local place that supposedly specialises in hip-hop style music - while seemingly everyone else has splashed out on a R$50 round tour to some electro-techno affair 45 minutes away by bus. Shan't be missed.


The DAILY ROD's Top Travel Tips:
#14 - However many beers you've had, roadside food in Montevideo should be avoided.

Brazil, and não falo Portuguese

PORTO ALEGRE, RIO GRANDE DO SUL, BRAZIL - 4th February 2010

It's never a comfortable experience to have one's passport taken away from you, but what with not being able to speak a word of the language and the general nodding faces of all the bus company's staff around me, it seemed I had little choice when checking into my intercity coach from Montevideo up to Porto Alegre last night.

Even before this stage it had been a pretty grim journey - after a cheap but nice, albeit fairly rushed dinner with Oli and Becca I had to take on an absolute deluge of rain getting back to my hostel, and had just enough time to ram random pieces of clothing into my bag before running back downstairs to grab my taxi. Except that downstairs in the pouring rain, no taxi awaited. Figuring it was a total waste of time to head all the way back upstairs with bags and all, I just took on the downpour for a few more minutes and eventually got hold of a new cab... and once again got charged a handsome "gringo" excess rate for what should have been a US$2.50 journey.

My first experience of proper intercity bus travel in South America was, however, a resounding success - the seats are big, spacious recliners with legs rests that fold out, and the journey includes a plate of dinner with sandwiches, fruit juice, yoghurt and dessert. Given the crap I managed to sleep in in Australia, I was out like a log as soon as the grub was down my throat.

I woke briefly at some ungodly hour when, much to my confusion, I was handed back my passport to find SALIDAR - URUGUAY and ENTRADA-BRASIL stamps lodged inside. No face-to-face, no nothing. But at that stage I was off with the fairies so didn't give it a second thought.

Heading out of Montevideo at breakneck pace is not, thankfully, part of some aimless travel plans, but the second stage of a surprisingly well planned trip up through south-eastern Brazil to get to Rio de Janiero by about the 12th February, both to meet up with Anna, and of course for Carnaval. Porto Alegre, as well as being perfectly located en route, was chosen for a stop thanks to a generous offer from Paulo, one of my Dad's colleagues at CVCI and son of the town, to stay at his parents' place. With both an address and a phoenetic Portuguese description of how to say "two blocks on from the Encol Park", the taxi ride wasn't too big an issue - but it was an amusing development to discover that neither of Paulo's parents spoke English! I can honestly say that my Portuguese is infinitely worse than my Spanish... and I do not speak Spanish...

I've often wondered, particularly at many of the indigenous exhibhits over in Australia and New Zealand, about what efforts both natives and colonists like Captain Cook must have gone to in order to understand one another when they met out of the blue. But when you throw yourself into a situation where neither you nor the person you are talking to understand what each other is saying, it is amazing how easily you can manage to communicate. Things like my Spanish phrase book were useful, but in general a combination of arm signals and particular buzz words meant that we had a great time - clothes were put in the washing machine, breakfast was enjoyed with fresh hot coffee and a selection of delicious home-made jams (including an excellent fig one and something that was similar to, but apparently not, orange), and lunch featured an excellent meat-and-sauce dish that I believe is traditional to the Rio Grande do Sul southern Brazilian area, although for obvious language-related reasons I can't be sure!

The federal state of Rio Grande do Sul is fairly marked in its cultural identity - plenty of what I have read suggests the state's relationship with Brazil can draw many parallels with Scotland's relationship with the United Kingdom and Westminster. Geographically situated at the very foot of the vast Brazilian landmass, the area's history is one of guachos (cowboys) that arguably has more in common with its Argentine and Uruguayan neighbours than its Portuguese Brazilian brothers. As such, the region has had elements of separatism in the political sphere, but at the very least maintains a proudly independent culture.

I will be lucky enough to sample the cuisinery elements of this culture this evening, as Paulo's sister and her son will be joining us out for a traditional gaucho-style Brazilian barbecue - an awesome affair involving every kind of meat under the sun, served fresh at your table, with limitless supply. It goes without saying that I am exceedingly excited.

In the meanwhile, however, Urbes (Paulo's father) took me into town for a bit of tour - though not before a thoroughly entertaining trip to the bus station to try and book a ticket to Florianópolis tomorrow afternoon. From the internet, I knew exactly what bus I wanted, its number, departure time - the works... but I couldn't express any part of this in Portuguese, resulting in a ridiculous exchange involving pointing at watches, exasperated eye rolling, and eventually just writing it down on a piece of paper. With the ticket printed and all the details correct, all's well that ends well!




Porto Alegre, as the state capital, houses Rio Grande do Sul's government and legislative offices, most of which are around Praça da Matriz - a sort of central piazza. Dominating the southern façade of the square, however, stands the Catedral Metropolitana, whose stunning frontal architecture complete with frescoes (above) is only topped by the beauty of its interior. I don't really like taking photos inside churches, but there are some good ones you can see on the cathedral website and on the Portuguese Wikipedia. From there, we went into the legislative building next door and had a wander around - an absolute highlight being on the second floor, where a group of dressed up dancing girls were strutting their stuff while a quartet of guitarists and drummers jammed some tunes. Right in the middle of the corridor between the offices of the Finance Minister and the State President! Somehow, I can never see it catching on in Westminster...

Spending most of the day inside with the air conditioning, it was immediately obvious that today was a scorcher when we stepped outside. However, it was only when we got back in the car that we realised quite how hot it was... the dashboard tells a fitting story - especially when you note the time (even if the date is wrong!)...