Mirante do Cafe Ouro Preto

At 12 I’m landing at Cuiabà airport where Celmis, Julinho’s sister is already
waiting for me. We get into the car and drive out of Cuiabà, in reality
of Vàrzea Grande, the sister city on the other side of the rio Cuiabà
where the airport is located. Direction Poconè! Celmis is ...

... Brazilian meal of chicken, rice and beans before driving back to the hostel in Cuiaba. We arrived back at the hostel just before sunset and I quickly packed my bags, had a shower and caught a cab to the bus station to catch my ride into the Amazon. This bus journey will certainly be the longest of my life and could potentially turn into a bit of an epic. Let's just hope we have good weather and don't get stuck in the mud for days!!

Day 71 - 18/03/09 Today I stayed in doors due to the 40 insect bites on my back. Not sure if there're all Mosquito's, maybe something else had a nimble too. A bit of massacre unfortunately so I've been in my air conditioned room for most of the day. The mosquito's in the Pantanal must of bitten straight through my clothing yesterday, the persistent little *******s ...

Day 67 - 14/03/09 Arrived in Cuiaba just after midday after another restless night on a bus. Caught a local bus to the city centre and tried to find the only hostel in the city which proved to be rather difficult. A local guy saw me sweaty profusely with my heavy backpack and holding a useless map, he offered to help me find the hostel. The lonely planet map i was using was completely wrong he said. He rung the hostel from his shop to find out it's whereabouts and then he ...

Day 8 - we woke up early (after a terrible night trying to sleep even though there were some 10 dogs barking all the time) and did some sightseeing in the city of Cuiabá. There's a pretty old town in the city center, but apart from that there's not much more to see in the city itsef. So we decided to rent a car and go to Chapada dos Guimarães, a mountain range some 60 km from Cuiabá. - The views from the top of the mountain range are ...

We knew that today was going to suck.

Our alarm went off at 2:30am, so we showered, packed and staggered out of the hotel still half asleep.

The airport was only 5 minutes walk away; the check-in and security queues were small and the plane left on time, so ...

so,nichts besonderes, habe auch keineLust zu schreiben... Wollte hiermit nur sagen ds jeder der mir seine Adresse schickt ne Karte bekommt...sind dann die letzten die ich verschicke :) nagut, n bisschen schreibe ich doch noch. Das Nest hier war einmal vor langer Zeit die Bevoelkerungsreichste Stadt Suedamerikas mit ueber 100000 Leuten, halt nach Potosi...grund war hier nicht silber sondern ...

« Mais de quoi » me direz-vous ? Je vous propose plusieurs options... Combien d'EGLISES comptez-vous ? Une semaine de découverte des délices de Rio et nous décidons de continuer notre route pour partir à la découverte des délices du Minas Geiras et de la petite ville de Ouro Preto. Ouro Preto ou « Vila Rica ». La « ville riche » où des milliers d'esclaves ont été amenés pour participer à la recherche des précieuses p ...

So after our semi hellish day of waiting for buses we arrived late into Ouro Preto, our real destination. Ouro Preto is a tiny little town a few hour south of Belo Horizonte that was founded and boomed during the gold rush in 1711. (fun facts again!) It is a amazing preserved colonial town set into the mountains with cobble stone streets and a ton of steep hills. Steep hills you say huh? Didn't I just move ...

Leaving Rio had mixed emotions for me - sadness at leaving some great fellow travellers that I had spent the last three months travelling with to excitement at meeting new people and venturing up north to explore more of Brazil. These feelings soon turned to disappointment as my mode of transport, now known as Gus, turned out to be not quite the standard I was expecting, very slow it has meant lots and lots of early morning ...