Albergue da Juventude Campo Grande

... who would be our guide for the rest of the trip, who turned out to be a complete tool (as you will see). He took us out for a night jeep safari (sounds good doesn`t it?) after our dinner, which basically involved us driving back out onto the scrub road in the 4x4 and him shining a big light left and right across the road as we drove. We did see lots of caiman eyes (they glow red at night when you shine a light at them), and got off at one point to walk near a ...

... track and past farm gates into the bush. Funny thing 2 horse rides within 2 weeks for us. The ride is relaxing and we see cattle, birds and at the river the river otters which yelped at us for ages as we were obviously encroaching on their turf. We crossed the river on the horses which was great fun as the water was deeper than expected and lapped the bellies of the horse. The day was hot and finishing the ride about 10.30 was fine as it was getting too hot by then. We had lunch and a ...

... te halen, dus stonden we met zweet op onze rug (van de zware backpacks) en eigenlijk zweet dat uit alle hoeken en gaten kwam, keurig vijf minuten voor tijd te wachten. Helaas, de bus reed niet en ook niet die van een kwartier later, dus we begonnen al met een half uur vertraging. Nice. Aan de grens met Brazilie wilde de buschauffeur (zoals gewoonlijk) niet op ons wachten, maar ik denk dat dat ook niet mag, want snel nadat de bus weg was, kwam er weer een ...

... must of been a massive jerk. Collected some 'tattoo fruit' which you cut open, mash up the inside and put on. Goes onto the skin clear and turns black in about an hour. Lasts for about a week. So everyone got tattoos and went home in the afternoon. Was a good trip, unfortunatelly didn't see much wildlife. Stuck on where to go next, so going to spend a night at the hostel in Campo Grande and maybe go to Sao Paulo again tomorrow.

... no apparently he was serious. After several dubious looks a brave few of us headed into the water encouraging a few more to join us...it wasn`t until we were out of the water that Matt (another tour member in our group) approached Levy and asked for a plaster. Turned out that he had been bitten twice by piranha`s while swimming!!!! Something I`m very pleased didn`t happen to me but makes for a fantastic story. In the afternoon we went horseriding. Something we were all ...

... Grande. When we found it the guy was rushing us because the bus was leaving in a couple of minutes. He made us pay less than what we were supposed to, did not understand why either but did not insist too much and jumped on the bus. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and a guy picked us up with his truck. We drove for a while on the dusty road before arriving at the pousada Tadashi. <br>The lodge was near a river with nothing around, no communication point whatsoever. Very peaceful ...

... hills straght of the sea. We loved it here and wish we could have spent longer. After Valparaiso we got an 8 hour bus to Mendoza in Argentina, it took us through the Andes which was spectacular, We visited the local vinyards while here hiring bikes for the day and visiting one after the other. From Mendoza we got a 14 hour night bus to Buenos Aires which turned out to be amazing, we got dinner with wine and champagne, a seat like a first class airplane seat ...

... The wind got stronger and more threatening lightening and thunder... Someone from the main lodge got up and ran across between the buildings and cut the power.... then pitch black... we waited as the wind got stronger... The rain started and the wind continued to get stronger, we could hear the roof starting to rattle and the mood changed from enjoyment to a twinge of fear. The noise got much louder and I could hear debris flying and scraping ...

... and reading our books with our tour to start the following day. We had a small sneak preview though, because as the sun started to set, the sky was full of birds. Just outside Marcello's house we saw several Toucans and even a few red Macaws just sitting in the tree. Very noisy but great to see, especially the Toucans with their enormous multicoloured beaks. After a good nights sleep we got up early, packed up the van and headed out on our 2 hour drive ...

... wild´ pig (definitely not like the ones at Santa Martha!), snakes...got on a horse for the first time since Colombia and loved it so much did it again. Went fishing-no, I definitely don´t have the patience for it, so ceded my rod to our guide pretty quickly, for which I got to steer the boat, dodging trees at (relatively) high speed, and he caught our dinner. A couple of early starts-ouch-but loved all of ...