TravelStream™ news feed for member jenandnige on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jenandnige en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:40:24 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1229029500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1229029500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1229029500/tpod.html Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:40:24 -0500 South American Travels

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Wellington, North Island, New Zealand

So, 109 days, 6 countries and 2756 photos later, here we are back in Wellington in our own house, with our own bed, kitchen, shower, car - Amazing how much you appreciate the little things once you've been backpacking for a while, like people speaking English, not having to fight for space on the hob to cook dinner, different (and clean!) clothes to wear!  Heaven!In spite of all the Lonely Planet warnings and first hand stories from fellow travellers, we managed not to get robbed, mugged or conned, and didn't get lost or leave important items behind in any taxi or hostel safe like some people we met!To stave off post-holiday depression, we've been discussing our favourite experiences and thought we'd share a few with you:Favourite countries:Jen: Brazil (for sunshine and fabulous friendly happy people and for finally visiting my birthplace) and Uruguay (for clean, safe towns and beautiful sunny golden beaches)Nige: Argentina - Steak, Red wine and football...say no more; closely followed by Brazil.Favourite hostels:Hostel Lao in Mendoza, Argentina - thanks to German, Maria and Astor the cutest dogLighthouse Hostel in Rio, Brazil - fabulous Silvia and her great friendly home-from-home Hospedaje Pehunia in El Bolson, Argentina - hilarious Claudio and his gorgeous family, pastries for breakfast and cosy duvets - what more do we need to say!Favourite places:Jen: Stunning desert, volcanoes and salt on the Salt Flats tour in Bolivia; thundering waterfalls at Iguazu; Totally chilled, beautiful, sandy, sunny Punta del Diablo in UruguayNige: Machu Picchu - little known Inca ruin! Rio de Janeiro - stumbled across this little gem, city by the sea with lots of hills and beaches...could be the new Wellington!Favourite food and drink:Jen: Caipirinhas - how have I lived so long without tasting one?; Delicious kiwi-style brunch at Jack's Cafe in CuscoNige: Argentinean steak, Choripan (chorizo sandwich) and cheap red wine. Brazilian churrascuria, where the BBQ comes to you.Things Nige has learnt: ..drinking everyday, eating loads of bread and steak leads to you putting on a bit of weight...saying you're from New Zealand rather than the UK prompts a far more enthusiastic response...nothing tastes better than a ice cold beer in the morning sat on Ipanema beach in Rio - fact...facial hair rocks!Things Jen has learnt:..communicating with the locals in Spanish is fun and pretty satisfying, but it's nice to get home and speak English to everyone..don't leave buying the local handicrafts until the end of the trip - buy them when you see something you like, however much your husband complains about shopping!..kissing a moustache is yucky!Adios amigos!......
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1228765200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1228765200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1228765200/tpod.html Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:05:14 -0500 South American Travels

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Punta del Diablo, Uruguay

Up the coast of Uruguay, nearly at the Brazilian border, is a tiny remote fishing village surrounded by gorgeous empty sandy beaches called Punta del Diablo (Devil's Point).  We had heard much about it, and about the only hostel in town, El Diablo Tranquilo, so we decided that this would be the perfect place to chill out for a few days, top up the tan and relax before the end of our trip, and so it was.....The hostel was a funky fabulous place full of friendly, happy people, hammocks and cute dogs.  The village had sandy streets, 1 grocery shop, 1 bar and a gorgeous long golden beach backed by sand dunes.  Heaven is indeed a place on earth!  We spent 4 days sunbathing, reading, sleeping, eating and drinking far too much cheap red wine - doh!  We really did mean to walk to Uruguay's only national park, 3km up the beach, and learn to surf, and go bike-riding, honest...we just didn't get round to it!Eventually, once Nige had perfected his tan, we tore ourselves away for one night in Punta del Este on our way back to Buenos Aires.  This is the opposite of del Diablo - a high rise town full of expensive shops, posh hotels, swanky yachts and very rich people from all over the world, come to perfect their tan, and spend their money.  We didn't expect to like it, and it was a bit of a culture shock after Punta del Diablo, but it was still a lovely place, again built on a peninsula, so you couldn't walk more than a few blocks before coming to another beach.  It was ringed by a mosaic-ed promenade all the way round the peninsula, for people to stroll at sunset showing off their golden tans and Gucci sunglasses.We splashed out on a hotel room for only $10 more than a hostel dorm, so felt like we were living the highlife too, if only for 1 night.And then it was off on our very last bus journey, back to Buenos Aires for a night of reflection on our fabulous trip before flying home...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1228330380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1228330380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1228330380/tpod.html Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:04:24 -0500 South American Travels

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Montevideo, Uruguay

Another day, another country!  In order to increase our very important 'country count', and also because we'd read and heard great things about Uruguay, we whizzed through Buenos Aires, downsized our bags thanks to the lovely hostel we are staying in on our last night, and headed straight for the port to catch a ferry to Colonia del Sacramento, handily just over the river from Buenos Aires on a 1 hour ferry.Colonia was built by the Portuguese in the 17th century to keep a nosey eye on the Spanish across the river in Buenos Aires.  After hiding in our hostel for the first few hours due to ridiculous amounts of rain, and Nige's reluctance to go out in his uncool raincoat, we ventured out to explore early evening, and discovered a gorgeous little town of cobbledy streets, colourful old houses, little squares with pavement cafes and whitewashed churches.  As it had only just stopped raining, the streets were deserted and rainswept, which with the stormy skies, added to the atmosphere, which was slightly detracted from by the skanky dog which accompanied us on our tour!  In sunshine the next day, Colonia was just as gorgeous, although we spoiled the peace and quiet by hiring a crazy dune buggy to tour the streets (the other option was a golf cart, but Nige opted for fast and dangerous rather than slow and safe!). Luckily there wasn't much traffic as we had no walls or windows, no seatbelts, no indicators and didn't always know which way we were allowed to turn down the one way streets!  Scarily, a skanky dog took a disliking to the roaring engine, and chased us down the road, nearly jumping into my lap and tearing my throat out but luckily we survived to tell the tale thanks to Nige's expert avoidance driving!After Colonia, we headed to the capital, Montevideo, which like most Uruguayan coastal towns, is built on a peninsula, and again, we'd heard great things, but this time unfortunately we were disappointed.  We stayed in a horrible cramped and busy backpackers, the weather was cold, cloudy and windy, and the city was dirty and deserted - not a great first impression as you can tell!  However, just before we left the next day, we found time to go to the Mercado del Puerto for a classic Uruguayan parilla (BBQ), where we sat up at the bar in front of the fire, watching a master BBQ-er perfectly cook whole pigs, chickens, innards, sausages, ribs, you name it, it was there!  We had a feast of ribs and sausage accompanied by chips, bread and a great version of chimichuri, a South American relish of herbs, spices, garlic, chilli, oil and vinegar, and then rolled off to the bus station to head to the beach......
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1227645720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1227645720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1227645720/tpod.html Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:56:07 -0500 South American Travels

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El Bolson, Patagonia, Argentina

You often hear fellow travellers comment that the impression you are left of a place comes more from the people you meet and the place you stay rather than the place itself. Never has this been more true than El Bolson - the fact we ended up there at all was fortuitous as I had mistakenly asked for a bus ticket to El Banos (the toilets) however a toilet it wasn't, El Bolson is quite a pretty town surrounded by hills and as the typical Swiss feel of this part of Patagonia. Even so we had our doubts when we got to our hostel, there were a couple of firsts on the trip, we were greeted by Claudio with a kiss..slightly disconcerting when you go for a handshake and end up with a kiss on the cheek! Then he explained that due to a mix up in bookings our bed was actually going to be set up in the lounge as there were no free beds. As we considered looking elsewhere, something about the friendly atmosphere made us stay and luckily we did as it turned out to be one of our favourite hostels in the entire trip. A Dutch couple and English couple made our stay that more welcome and we stayed up late downing a few bottles of good cheap wine and deciding we were all going to head for the Cajon del Azul as a group the next day.Having not done any exercise since our walks in Bahia, we were puffing and panting as we set off up the river valley that led to the canyon, even more so when a nice lady kindly told us that we were heading up the wrong track so we had to go back down the big hill, over an extremely rickety bridge with lots of missing slats, and up an entirely different big hill!  After that however, the walk was a pleasant 'woodsy' (a favourite adjective in our Lonely Planet bible) stroll up the valley, past a cute wooden house selling home-made beer that we promised ourselves a stop at on the way back, and after a couple of hours the river narrowed and the sides got crazily steep, until we were edging round cliffs and climbing up step-ladders.  Finally we got to a tiny log bridge about 2 metres wide, going from cliff to cliff of a canyon, way up at least 100 metres above a rushing turquoise river.  After a few vertiginous photos, we set off back for a well-earned beer and Claudio's famous asado.The Asado was in full swing when we got back - a big fire blazing in the garden with the embers transferred to the BBQ grill to cook the massive supplies of meat. It wasn't a disappointment either with the meat and salad, along with the potato salad a great accompaniment to Claudio's banter. As he drunk more his English became worse, and although I was convinced my Spanish was getting better, we ended up communicating largely with a series of friendly punches - with Claudio being a big unit I was convinced I'd have a fair few bruises in the morning! The funniest moment was Claudio doing an impression of his experience of people from Chile. Not a big fan of the Chileans - apparently they reckon everything's better over the border - he regaled us with many examples of their rudeness, so much so that a couple from Chile happened to call at the hostel for a room and he told them to bugger off even though they had space!!Next to Bariloche.....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1227836040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1227836040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1227836040/tpod.html Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:35:46 -0500 South American Travels

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Bariloche, Argentina

From El Bolson, we headed to Bariloche, the heart of the Argentinian Lake District and supposedly the Queenstown of Argentina, i.e. beautiful mountain/lake views, lots of action and adventure!  The town sits on the shore of Lago Nahuel Huapi, and our hostel, on the 10th floor of the tallest building in town, had awesome views of the lake and distant snowy mountains, whilst spoiling the view for everyone else in town! The hostel is called 1004, which actually stands for the apartment number and not (which I had assumed) was the number of people in the kitchen at any one time! There was a bit of a culture shock coming from the homely atmosphere from El Bolson to the full on backpacker central of 1004..we were thankful that we had decided on the double room rather than the dorm.Our mates from El Bolson, Rach and Jamie, had recommended a 2 day hike up to a 'refugio' in the mountains, which for some reason Nige agreed to (he must have forgiven me for the Oxfam Trailwalker at last!) and given that the weather forecast was only fine for the next 2 days, we didn't hang around long to check out the views, but headed straight off into the hills the next day.The walk started as a 5 hour trek along a beautiful river valley, on a mainly easy, sandy path, interspersed with logs and stepping stones to balance across bogs and streams plus a very wobbly bridge across the river to keep us interested!  At the end of the valley, there was a steep windy path up to the top of the ridge, and almost at the top of the hill, just as our lungs were bursting and brains numb from lack of oxygen, we came across a crazy river crossing which involved paddling barefoot across the top of an ice-cold waterfall, hanging for dear life onto a rope strung across from bank to bank to stop ourselves being washed away!  Very scary but awesome fun!  Finally we had a 20 minute rock climb before reaching the top...and snow!  As I've missed out on snow for the last 2 winters due to playing footie through the ski season, it was fab just to be able to crunch through snow again, dodging Nige's snowball-throwing!  Then we crested the last rise and saw the refugio, our little wooden home for the night, nestled in the snow next to a frozen lake surrounded by snowy peaks - awesome!The refugio was similar to mountain huts in New Zealand - a dorm/bunk room, a living area and kitchen, plus a toilet block off in the woods, although here reaching the toilet block meant a 10 minute trudge through the snow, but as a reward they were flush toilets instead of the classic NZ long-drop!We reached the hut about 3pm, so had a lovely relaxing afternoon lounging on a big rock overlooking the lake in the gorgeous sunshine, chatting to our fellow refugees, an English and a Dutch couple who we'd seen on the way up, as they overtook us!!  By dinnertime there were 10 of us at the hut and we had a cosy evening eating soup and home-made gnocchi by candlelight and swapping travel stories before a starlit trip to the toilet and then retiring to listen to each other snore the night away in our bunks.The following day we strolled back down as a group with our new friends, taking it easy and revelling in the fact it was all downhill!  I went for a paddle in the river on the way back, but it was unfortunately way too cold for a dip, even for me!We hung out in the Lake District for another few days, the highlight being a beautiful drive called the Siete Lagos (7 lakes) in our wee red hire car Rocky (we named it after its colour - red in Spanish = rojo), which took us through some beautiful mountain scenery and past lots of lovely crystal clear lakes - we counted 9! But soon enough it was time to leave and head back up north - 'Patagonia - done!'
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1227374520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1227374520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1227374520/tpod.html Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:15:47 -0500 South American Travels

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Puerto Madryn, Patagonia, Argentina

Heading South from Buenos Aires towards Welsh Patagonia - a curious cluster of communities formed after the Welsh migrated there ...no doubt in search for a country they could beat at Rugby - we endured another long-haul bus journey..this time Andersmar hosting us for a good 20 hours. Time actually went fairly quickly even including a healthy sleep, the Cama reclining chair and whiskey proving a persuasive couple. The other point of note was finally a decent film being shown..American Gangster. Despite having already seen it, the previous delights of Fools Gold (which the DVD player tastefully cut down to a 10 minute showing), United 93 (as we were on the brink of going over a cliffs' edge), Meet the Spartans (not sure quite what the Bolivians on the bus made of this one) and the pick of the bunch House of Wax (starring Paris Hilton no less and shown at 8am) meant my expectations were suitably low and the joy of watching a decent film couldn't even be dented by following it with yet another screening of the Bucket List.Anyway back to Welsh Patagonia and it seems today shearing the sheep comes second only to fleecing the tourists. I suppose it was our own fault to go to a Welsh community (Trevellin) in search of mysterious and exotic tonics such as tea and cake. 38 peso's later we were presented with a pot of tea and bread and butter, one scone and some Dulce de leche (the ubiquitous Argentinean sweet) - time honoured it might have been, value for money it was not.Ironically the other major attraction nearby (aside tea) is Whale watching and we arranged for a tour to take us from our hostel in Puerto Madryn about an hour round the coast and onto Captain Juan's boat to go in search for the Southern Right whale. Captain Juan did an admiral (if ultimately fruitless) job of not making the welcome speech seem like a pre-recorded message, that said we felt like we had finally arrived in tourist town. The boat was full of like minded, excitable folk who wanted some good clean Whale action, camera's poised ready for Juan hell of a good tour.Within 10 mins of setting off we came across a mother and baby, the baby being excitable enough to jump around a bit and wave to us, while the mother just floated around. Unfortunately although having time to see another 3 or 4 whales, none were as exciting as the first spotting, but all in all in was a decent tour and definitely worth doing. The rest of the tour involved watching some Elephant seals (doing absolutely nothing) and some Penguins struggling up a cliff to their nests. Jen was particularly taken with the Penguins and the whole bus tour had to help to manhandle her onto to the bus back home! The other interesting thing about our stay in Esquel (from where we visited the Welsh town of Trevellin) was that the hostel was completely full of teenagers on a school trip. We were advised at our (late) check in that there were a few children staying but they'd be very quiet. As we came back in the afternoon (not quite) full of bread and jam we were confronted with a mass of kids kicking footballs at each other's heads and generally trying to destroy the hostel...and making a decent fist of it. As such we deided to go out for dinner to miss their manic behaviour and came back again just before midnight to find they were still eating their BBQ and were busy singing, shouting, racing around the place..I think eventually their teachers got them to bed at 2ish, but their noise put even the most party hostels we've stayed in to shame!!  Luckily Jen's Spanish was up to negotiating a discount for our night there, so at least we saved some pennies to compensate!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226955900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226955900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226955900/tpod.html Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:21:15 -0500 South American Travels

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Buenos Aires, Argentina

Arriving back in Buenos Aires meant we could assume an annoying air of familiarity to our traveling friends...almost seamlessly we had whisked them through the maze that is known as the Retiro bus station and after a surprisingly empty tube ride we found ourselves at the hostel (non-party) located in Centro.The day ahead had promised much, we were due to meet up with Jim..a friend from Wellington who was in BA on horse business ( I doubt NZ Equestrianism has ever been in less horse-savvy hands) and fate had smiled on me as arriving on a Sunday meant only one thing..more football.Plan A involved Jim rushing from the airport to meet us at his hotel and going straight to the Boca Juniors game.Plan B involved seeking out Independiente v River Plate as that game kicked off a couple of hours later.Aerolineas Argentinas managed to scupper both plans at a stroke, seemingly forgetting they needed to pop over to Sydney before leaving Auckland for BA, so Jim arrived a good 12 hours late. As it was Plan C was quickly devised and acted upon, that is I would go along to the Boca game with the hostel tour. Just as Plan C had formulated in my head I rushed to the reception to find the hostel group had already left..Plan D then came to my rescue and I ended tagging on to another hostel's pick up and finally I turned up to La Bombonera.Being quite the expert on South American football (see previous posts) I still wasn't prepared for the experience of Boca Juniors. As an Argentinean team firstly and Maradona's team secondly I was trying my hardest to hate Boca, but their amazing ground (thankfully not an oval but a proper stadium with 4 sides) and their unique 80's style of football spectating won me over. A good 2 hours before kick-off the two ends behind each goal were almost full and terracing meant you could move around if you wanted. This became particularly important as another 80's trait meant the unfortunate placing of the away fans (on the tier above) meant the home fans in the uncovered section soon got covered in phlegm, piss and bombarded with ice cubes. After a quick scramble, treading on a few kids as I went, I successfully secured a covered square inch that became my home for the game. Boca were playing to move into first place in the league (only a couple more games remaining in the season) and the capacity crowd made it a great atmosphere before the game, and the impressive part was they managed to go 2 goals down and still the crowd sang and supported. In the end truly awful defending meant Boca lost 3-2 but it was a great game and definitely the best atmosphere at a game that I've been to (Crystal Palace matches aside obviously), hopefully the video above does it justice, although I doubt it.Monday was almost entirely spent with me regaling Jim on how good the football he missed was..much to my amusement, but we did get a chance to have another look around the cemetery at Recoleta, have a beer in the tarted up Port area and go for a steak Argentina style.The restaurant in San Telmo possibly didn't serve the best steak we've had but combined with a great atmosphere the meal (especially the black pudding) was a good pre-cursor to a few beers, caipirinha's and more vino tinto. Wandering home we were treated to some graffiti, Buenos Aires style - a military style operation turned a grubby wall into firstly a white-washed canvas, then a 2D message was painted followed then by someone else adding the 3D effect in a different colour..all done in a matter of minutes!All in all a good weekend in BA and the city continues to grow on us, which is fortunate as we're due back there twice more before we fly home. 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226788560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226788560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226788560/tpod.html Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:58:58 -0500 South American Travels

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Puerto Iguazu, Litoral, Argentina

The Iguazu Falls on the border of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina have been rated by most people we've met who've been there as one of the most amazing sights they've seen.  Lonely Planet says 'stupendous!', 'awesome!' so we were fairly certain when we arrived at the Parque National de Iguacu in Brazil that our expectations were set way too high for a bunch of waterfalls!Luckily our gobs were well and truly smacked when we rounded a corner of the trail and there they were - WOW!  And then we rounded another corner and there were even more - More WOW!  And another...and another...!  Cataratas de Iguacu (or Iguazu in Spanish) is made up of 275 waterfalls stretching a whole 2.7 km over which 1500 metres cubed of water falls per second!  And that's a whole lot of water!  There had apparently been a lot of recent rain, so we were treated to Iguazu at its best, which more than made up for the total absence of water in the Cachoeira Fumaca in Bahia (see 'There be diamonds in them thar hills').Most of the waterfalls are actually on the Argentinian side, but you get the best overall view of them from Brazil and after a 1.5 km walk taking photo after photo of waterfalls plus all of the weird and wonderful bugs and butterflies, racoons and lizards along the path, we reached the climax of the day: Gargantua del Diablo (Throat of the Devil!) This is a thundering two-level horseshoe of falls with a walkway right out into the middle so you can stand at the bottom of 1 level and at the top of the 2nd. It was breathtaking to feel the power of the water right up close and we got absolutely soaked from the spray - it truly was AWESOME!Finally, sadly it was time to leave, but it was OK because the next stop was the Argentinian side of the falls :-)! The following day we crossed the border to Puerto Iguazu in Argentina and relaxed by the pool in our hostel gathering our strength for a full day of waterfall action, Argentinian-stylee!The Argentinian side of the falls has over 4 km of walking tracks to explore, stretching both along the bottom and the top of the falls, and best of all, before we even got to the first view of the falls, Nige spotted a toucan flying past!  We assumed that a quick glimpse was all we'd get as usual, but amazingly it landed on a nearby tree and sat there posing for a good 20 minutes whilst Nige took a million (well 37!) photos!  He was so cute (the toucan obviously!) and we could hardly tear ourselves away but eventually we remembered what we were there for and made it to the waterfalls!  This time we were able to stand right at the bottom of a massive fall, getting soaked again, but we were prepared this time and had our swimming gear on ready, as the water thundered down almost on our heads - more AWESOME!We strolled around the trails in glorious sunshine for the rest of the day, seeing the falls from every angle and constantly entertained by beautiful rainbow-coloured butterflies and cheeky racoons and lizards stealing picnic leftovers.  Another highlight at the end of the day was a mini-train ride through the forest followed by a boardwalk across a huge expanse of brown river to a platform where we could look right down into the Throat of the Devil!  It was an amazing, vertigo-inducing feeling watching all that water pour over the edge and the huge clouds of spray that were sent up as it hit the bottom gave us a nice exhilerating cold shower - again!Finally we had to say a sad Adios to the falls and head back to town to catch our bus to Buenos Aires - here's hoping swanky night buses in Argentina are as good as we remember....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226441460/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226441460/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226441460/tpod.html Sat, 22 Nov 2008 11:32:25 -0500 South American Travels

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Bonito, State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

Having decided to miss out on the Pantanal due to lack of time and alleged ridiculous numbers of mosquitoes, we headed to Bonito to get our wildlife fix.  Bonito's attraction is its proximity to lots of beautiful clear rivers full of fish, set in rainforest full of wildlife and, as it turned out, ridiculous numbers of mosquitoes -doh!We arrived at Bonito's Youth Hostel after a 20 hour bus journey from Sao Paulo to find a beautiful pool and shady hammock area - a great place to spend the afternoon recovering and chatting to other travellers.But the next day it was up early and off in a taxi with our new buddies, Winston and Sarah, to Rio da Prata (Silver River), a 50 km drive away along dirt roads, during which we saw our first toucan - so cool!! - who flew away pretty sharpish but got us all very excited, some owls sitting on fence posts in the middle of the day, and lots of ostriches!  At the Rio da Prata centre, we donned wetsuits and set off on a 2.5 km walk through the forest, and because we weren't allowed to wear insect repellent as it would pollute the clear river, I got quite bitten, even though we were walking in single file down the path, monitoring the person's backin front for landing mozzies!  So I blame Winston for the row of bites across my back ;-), oh, and maybe also the cute family of monkeys in the trees above us who may have distracted him from mozzie-monitoring my back!!Once at the river we gratefully climbed into the refreshing water and set off snorkelling down the river behind our guide, using only our arms to propel us so we didn't kick up the sand at the bottom and spoil the amazingly clear turquoise water.  It was a very gentle 2 hour trip down the river, coming face to face with all sorts of impassive Brazilian river fish and waving at massive shiny gold Dorados and big black Bacu's who lurked around corners. We also saw cool underwater springs where the sand bubbled on the bottom of the river just like the bubbling mud back in NZ - weird!It was stunning and so relaxing, especially as the wetsuits kept us buoyant so lots of the time we were literally just floating with the current like huge fish!!  The river took us through pristine rainforest so when we took our snorkels out of the water, we saw tropical birds and butterflies flitting about in the trees.  One cheeky bright orange butterfly even rode on my head for ages - Nige said it was because I am as beautiful as an exotic flower! (Not really - he said it was because I had a sweaty head!!)Back at the ranch we had a huge healthy buffet lunch and then it was back in the taxi home to put cream on our bites and watch a cool thunder and lightening storm from our comfy hammocks...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226264640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226264640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jenandnige/1/1226264640/tpod.html Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:32:45 -0500 South American Travels

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Sao Paulo, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Flying TAM to Sao Paulo allowed us to experience possibly the worst airline food known to man, best described as spam on soggy cous cous, not even the locals liked it juding by the amount that went back untouched. Disappointly as well, the weather was shocking as we arrived so it didn't give us a chance to appreciate the full ridiculous size of Sao Paulo..home to staggering 22 million people, 2 of which were friends of ours that we met on our Salt Flats tour in Bolivia.We got to arrivals to find a sign with our names on, Marco & Tais had sent their flatmates to the airport to pick us up and in the process saved us a R$100 taxi ride. Luis and Marco's brother (we never suceeded in finding out his name) took us back to their flat in quite an upmarket suburb of Sao Paulo and their apartment looked more like a funky hotel. Our timing happened to be perfect as Marco is a Samba DJ and he puts on parties every now and then so we were to be his special guests and we would also get to go to a quality Samba party, bingo! As Marco was busy deciding whether to charge R$6 or R$7 for a Caiparinha we went to a have a look at a nearby fair, although we were a bit late to do any shopping it was still good to sample the atmosphere in Sampa (Sao Paulo) where people were spilled out on the streets drinking and eating from stallholders.After a few pre party drinks of Whisky & Coconut juice we were ready to go out..at 11pm, we were slightly concerned at our ability at staying awake for so long as I was still suffering from too many Caipirinha's the night before and we'd had a fairly long trip from Salvador. All in all the party was a success, around 400 people turned up and as well as the DJ's, a 13-piece band played live - a curious mix of crazy alternative types (clown clothes appear to be in vogue in Sampa) plus a couple of steady looking characters who didn't go in for the whole Waterboys look. Afterwhich Marco did his stuff and the party finally faded out at around 5am, although we were on the brink of sleep from about 3.30, still it was a good night (well morning technically) and we finally got to bed just before 7. The late hour of sleep meant our tourist tour of Sao Paulo was greatly reduced and as we'd booked a bus to leave for Campo Grande at 7:30pm we only had the afternoon to explore - so we did what all good travellers would do and went for lunch! In the end around 15 of Marco's friends came out and we had beers and Steak Parmigiana all round. Massive thanks to Marco, Tais and all their mates for a fabulous weekend in Sao Paulo, for feeding us, taxi-ing us around, and showing us a great night out!  Muiiito obrigado!Now we head to Bonito where we can expect crystal clear waters full of fish, parrots and most excitingly of all TOUCAN's !! Everyone gets excited by Toucan's although seemingly nobody more so than me..my key achievement was to see a Toucan in the wild and not just so I can crowbar a "two-can play at that game" gag. So here's hoping...
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