Brazil ends
Trip Start
Jan 23, 2006
1
27
28
Trip End
Jan 31, 2007
Rio,
Brazil
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Following the delightful little town of Lencois, we bussed down south, regrettably heading towards our final Brazil destination of Rio. More busses, more cramped legs and necks, more screaming kids, more sleepless nights... and the list goes on.
Next stop was the quite little town of Iticare. It is supposed to be a tranquil little backwater, with good surf and beautiful beaches. We found it to be a little different to the lonely planet description. Restaurants and Cafes lined the one road, all were done in great taste, but none got our business. We did a couple of walks, one to a remote beach which was without doubt a top 5 beach on my comprehensive and steadily growing "worlds best beach" list. Lazing around was the order of the day, and a definite highlight was catching up with the obnoxious Cape Townian - see the Salvador travelblog entry. We found him and his Brazilian sidekick strolling down the main road - "Cape Town" he shouted to us... He was a little more subdued this time (but no less enthralling), perhaps the drugs had worn off...
Bussing out of Iticare we headed (on a 30 hour bus ride - damn Brazil is big) to Ouro Preto, an old gold mining town. Nice cobbled streets, no crime or violence and amazing little apartments lining all the steep cobbled roads. Hoping to find some small nuggets of our own, we took a tour to the local gold mine, which was closed for business in 1985. No nuggets were found, despite intensive searching. Quite an informative tour, but I would have liked to set off a couple of sticks of dynamite.
To complete our Brazil trip, we bussed down to Rio in an overnight bus, arriving at the super dodgy Rio Bus terminal. We negotiated our way to our hotel. Our colds had got the better of us, and we spent the day in bed, venturing out of the safety of our room only for a pizza and a stroll along the Ipanema beachfront.
Brazil was absolutely amazing, and I would love to come back some day to do all the places we missed this time. It has so much to offer both culturally and geographically. 5.5 weeks was way too short to see even just the highlights, but we got a good feel for the people and the land, and leave with heavy hearts, but extremely glad for the opportunity to see such an awesome place.
Next stop is Ecuador, to meet Graeme and Kieran and head for the Galapagos.
