Up and other Adventures

Colombia

Exhausted and a bit sad about leaving Bolivia, we landed in Bogota, Colombia. Our first day was met with rain which is quite common for Bogota but still not all that welcome! Bogota is quite a modern city and very very different from Bolivia! It was built in a valley in the highlands making it green and beautiful with a gentle climate.

We filled in our first day at the gold museum, which contains hundreds and hundreds of artifacts worn by the indigenous peoples of Columbia. And yes we were those nerdy kids walking around the museum with headphones on! We went out that night with people from the hostel to what is allegedly the best club in Columbia. Not that this club wasn't cool but expectations may have been unreasonably high! The club is a steak house early so there are tables everywhere along with kitch objects hung from every crevice of the ceiling which was quite entertaining. There are a few small dancefloors inside but I thinks when it's full and not raining (as it was when we were there) then the street behind is the place to be. Regardless of whether or not it is the best club in Columbia it was a very funny and great night out. 

Next day the weather had cleared a bit so we headed up to the cable car in Bogota to the city's famous lookout and church perched on the mountains overlooking the city. Luckily for us Sundays are discounted so we joined tribes of locals at the top taking in the beautiful view of the city. Rounded out the day with a home cooked meal, watching chopper at our Aussie hostel and watching the mighty Dallas mavericks go down to the Miami heat (we jumped on the basketball bandwagon in la Paz and had a very healthy rivalry going with one of our English mates from the hostel).

Next day was a public holiday so we took advantage of the lack of traffic out on the streets and did a bike tour of the city. Our guide Mike was an expat living in Bogota and gave us a great insights into the city and it's history. One ironic story he shared was in a park in the city that had been one of the largest slums where prostitution, drugs, arms and gang/guerilla groups were prevalent. The government bulldozed the area and made a park complete with a statue made from melted down weapons and topped with doves. Sadly however, people who lived in the slums still live nearby and have stolen all the doves to sell for drugs and the metal has quite possibly gone back into weapons.

Bogota and the whole of Columbia is known by people who haven't visited as an extremely dangerous country due to it's recent history. However in the time we spent there all we saw was a reasonably wealthy and safe country, excited to have tourists and asking us to tell everyone at home that Columbia is a safe place now.

Speaking of history we spent our last day in Bogota visiting the police museum before we caught the night bus to Medellin. The police museum was nothing short of hilarious. It's free and run by newly graduated cops who live having the opportunity of showing foreign girls around all day, even wanting photos with us before we left. The museum has old artifacts used in policing and a short description of the police work in holding back and attempting to eliminate FARC and other guerilla group however the main draw card for tourists is the 'crime doesn't pay room'. The room is dedicated to the police's chase, capture and death of Columbia's best known criminal and drug lord Pablo Escobar. They have an odd collection of things confiscated from Pablo's house after his death and to our surprise the jacket he was shot in and a roof tile with his blood on it! That hilariously odd museum visit over we headed to columbia's second biggest city, Medellin. 

After a freezing overnight bus ride and our bus breaking down about 5km away from the bus station we arrived at a hostel, not the one we'd asked for but not a bad one anyway! We got settled and headed out to check out the city. Medellin I'd another big city set in a valley however it' much warmer than Bogota. It's beautiful climate and rich soil make it beautifully green and luscious. The down town is quite cosmopolitan and has shaken off it's dangerous past to become a bright, cultured modern city. The local government has spent lots of money on parks infrastructure giving the city plenty to see and do.   

So we headed down town to visit the 'cultural palace' a stunning and quite odd black and white castle and an art museum nearly. The museum houses both inside and outside a large collection of works by Botero a famous columbian artist who grew up in Medellin. His works are easily recognisable as he has a love of all things volumptuious and curvy.

Next day was spent on the super touristy but incredibly interesting Pablo Escobar tour. Pablo lead an interesting and short life as the richest man in the world, drug lord, politician and evangelist(?) most of which all at the same time. He died in his early 40s, the police claim they shot him but others think he ended his own life instead of going to prison. Our tour took us to one of his homes, his grave, where he was shot and finally to meet his brother Roberto who was the family accountant. Roberto is partly blind and deaf due to receiving a letter bomb while serving time... This was a crazy tour, I'm still nit sure Roberto should be profiting from his brothers actions after his death but I also don't regret and won't forget doing the tour.

Spent our last day in Medellin paragliding over the city which was amazing! It is as close to flying with the birds as you can get, so quiet and calm unless of course you're after something a bit more adventureous. I hate to admit it but the spinning made me a bit motion sick so it was mostly gliding for me, a spectaular way to end our time in a very cool columbian city!

On another subarctic night bus we headed to Santa Marta and from there to the tiny tourist town of taganaga for some long awaited beach time on the carribbean sea. Sadly though it was not to be just yet as we slept the afternoon away after the horrible bus ride and then set out to organize our lost city trek for later in the week. When we found a tour company thy were headed out the next day only so the beach had to wait. We had planned on getting ready for our trek and taking it easy but it was saterday night and to boys from bogota convinced us a few beers would be ok. A few beers turned into a few cocktails which turned into a whole bottle of aguadiente (the columbian national spirit which has to be shot until the bottle's empty!) which turned into a late night and a bad hangover for the start of our trek!

After we had met our group members we drove out to a small village for lunch before beginning our trek. I attempted to gracefully exit our jeep however it was not to be. As I jumped out of the truck I felt a belt loop on my shorts catch on something and next thing a knew a was hanging by my arse from the car, grazing my shin on the way down. After unhooking myself ad watching a few people giggle I sat down, a little embarrassed. Then to make matters worse a kid from the village came over with a group of her friends and pointed at me as if to say 'it was that one' and they all tree themselves around laughing! So embarrassing! After a short flat walk we stopped for a swim and I was thinking touselfnhow lucky I was that the first days walk was quite easy and it didn't matter that I was still quite hungover.... I was wrong. After our nice swim was the hardest and longest climb of the whole 5 days. It was torturous! Anyway we made it up eventually and made it to our first camp set in the hills and sleeping in hammocks.

After another full days walk we made it to the base camp of the lost city and after trying some home made spirit with a snake in the bottom of the bottle we headed to bed. Next day we hearded up from the river to the city itself. While the city us my no means the most spectacular ruins in Sth and central America they are in a beautiful location. Steep hills covered in rainforest poring out to circular disks where the indigenous peoples had their huts. The military provides entertainment while we were there as they patrol the area to stop guerilla groups from reclaiming the area. They have very little to do and are always excited for company, particularly female.... had a good but challenging 2 days walk back them we were ready to celebrate!

We spent the next week in tanganga partying with people from our trek, then friends from La Paz and finally waiting to meet up with the lovely meals, Harriet and Sarah one more time before they all departed the continent. While their wasn't much travelling going on my was a great holiday! Highlights include indulging in another bottle of aguadiente with a columbian family we met on the beach, chatting with the man who carried cats around on a tray. Finding a cafe with real coffee, sourdough and amazing brownie! And drinking passionfruit mojotos at happy hour!

So we finally escaped taganga for Cartagena to explore the city and find a boat to take us to panama! Meals came back with us to Cartagena as she had missed out on going on the mid volcano tour. We joined her and had a hilarious time at yet another super tourist activity. We drive out to where the volcano is and then were herded from the bus in only our swimmers up a wooden staircase to the top of the volcano where the mud bath is. from here we were told to jump in and lie down. The mud is so think that you float on the surface and can be easily pushed across the top to the massagers. After an odd mud massage you're then pushed across to the side as the pool fills with more and more people being jammed in like cattle! You have to laugh as it's hard to keep balance and with so many people it's easy to get a foot in your bum or your foot in someone else's! After the mud is done you're then ushered to the river to clean off and where women are waiting to wash you. Meals and I dodged them but kiz agreed to a wash and before she knew it her top and bottoms had been taken off and she was huddling nearly nude under the water! Although i do have to admit that she was cleaner than both meals and I after.

After a little investigation we booked a boat for our San blas island sailing trip from Cartagena to Panama. So after a sad goodbye with meals we headed down to the dock to board. Our sail boat slept 11 plus our captain Frederico but it was cramped! Luckily for us our group were all great people! Although kiz and I did have one or 2 survivor conversations discussing who we'd vote off if necessary! Our first mate was frederico's adorable dog Raina who I instantly fell in live with along with everyone else on the trip.

First night was an interesting way to meet people as we hit a large storm and half our group ended up feeding the fish from the back of the boat! Luckily it was only rough that one night and the strong winds meant to made a lot of ground.

Our head start got us to the islands early on the second day in time for a swim. San blas is a postcard worthy tropical paradise, beautiful clear water, snorkeling, white sand beaches and palm trees. The islands are a  national park and also a reserve/native title for the indigenous people of the area who moved there after being tormented by the Spanish and afterwards by the African slaves brought over by the Spanish. The live scattered across tiny islands making a living from fishing and selling hand made embroidery to tourists. Unfortunately they do not have a proper waste management system so there is lots of rubbish surrounding most islands or washed away however it doesn't detract too much from the otherwise stunning atmosphere of the place.

We spent the next 2 days visiting 2 other islands, swimming, snorkeling, diving off the boat, making a bonfire, singing campfire songs and making fun of Stephan (e.g. What do a German and a scorpion have in common? They're both not funny!). It was a fantastic few days especially due to Cynthia, Flor, Mike, Lena, Martin the funny Norwegian girls and of course Stephan! So our fun in the sun done for now we caught a ride to Panama city to meet up with the wonderful Lisa!

This is going to be a hard one! So we left Argentina and 51 hours and 3 buses later we arrived in La Paz to try our luck at following in Jord's and Neri's footsteps and joining the wild rover staff for a month or so.

La Paz is a spectacular city built in a valley in the Andes. Down town sits at 3600 above sea level while the outskirts are at nearly 4000. I never got sick of looking around la Paz, probably because it is so so different to any other city at home. There are snow covered peaks in the background, red and yellow stone cliffs in the middle ground and red brick houses which climb up each side of the valley to the altiplano at the top. 

The people are very proud of their Indian heritage and their traditional language Quecha is still widely spoken. The women still wear their wide brightly colored ruffle skirts and pork pie hats over long plaits. The people are poor, the government's corrupt and life is hard but mostly people are friendly, if a bit reserved but even that was a welcome change from the unwanted attention we get from men everywhere else.

So we arrived at the rover checked in and asked to see Jack the bar manager but he was still asleep do we decided that after 51hrs on a bus that now was as good a time as any to have a beer and find the delightful Meals who we had met in BA. By pure coincidence we hadn't been there for long before Timmy turned up complete with a set of boar teeth and a matching leather adventure hat fresh back from his Amazonian adventures. He joined us for beers followed by 2 guys that worked at a hostel we stayed at in brazil and finally the wonderful Gangles who we'd spent a week or 2 with in Ilha grande and Flori. Party complete we spent the night catching up and playing Barry's lethal drinking games.... 

Managed to wrangle ourselves jobs after a few days and spent our time playing pool, sitting around the bar and hanging out with the wonderful Danny Doyle who we met at the hostel. Had a hilarious afternoon shopping for costumes for the royal wedding with Danny and Timmy bing very particular about their shirt sizes and Kiz and I struggling to translate their fashion needs to the lady at the menswear shop.

So we started work. Working 4 shifts a week in exchange for a free meal, free bed, 40% off anything else at the bar and discounts at all the good gringo restaurants around town (this was awesome!). Luckily the work wasn't too hard as we were always drinking behind the bar and if you made a mistake the lovely Jack would pour cachaca down your throat. Cachaca for anyone who doesn't know is a Brazilian spirit derived from sugar cane and tastes like shit. So you tried not to make mistakes but unfortunately after one shot you were more likely make more mistakes.

This next part may not be that interesting as our month was filled with stupid in jokes but if you persevere we'll get back to the travel stuff further down! Firstly I'm just going to give a shout out to all the wonderful people who helped make our month at the Rover so much fun. So to Julio and Mario the crazy cooks, Melly my friend from the cleaning staff who I practiced my Spanish with, Mariana, Suki, Andrea and all the other crazy girls from reception, Ben and of course our bar manager Jack you are all awesome!

A point of note must be our filthy, hilarious staff room. This was where all the travellers working behind the bar slept and was both excellent and horrible! It wouldn't be uncommon to find yesterdays lunch, used condoms and towels all over the floor. Don't get me wrong it went through phases if being clean but there were times we kept the door shut out of embarrassment at the state of it. There were also plenty of movies, family guy in repeat, early morning hilarious recaps of the night before and cliff yelling about whatever had been bothering him. Another point of hilarity was the game 'tell her' where by if comments were made about another person with saying safety before proceeding one would have to approach the person and tell then what had been said about them. This ranged from 'i think you're cute' through to 'are you the one with the big nose' to way more vulgar things that will stay in la Paz! So to my bunk buddies in the staff room Kiz, Caz, Rosie, Liam, Nam, Tommo, Cliff, Alex, Scott/Sheila, Timmy, Connor, Wil, Nick, Alice, it was fantastic, I miss you guys and hope to catch up again v. soon!

When we weren't working, eating, drinking, sleeping or watching movies (which wasn't often, it was just like being back at uni) we did manage to see a bit of La Paz and the surrounds.

Bolivians, hilariously are into wrestling in a big way! So one of the touristy things to do in La Paz is to go to the wrestling and particularly to see the women's Cholita wrestling. This was one of the more bizarre things I've done on this trip. You sit down with your popcorn and watch the matches unfold some with men vs. women some man v man and some man v beast.... Well wolf costume. It had all your cheesy WWF moves and you could throw your popcorn at the baddies an get involved watching the women complete with traditional costume beat the daylights out of their opponents. Sitting up font is a hazard though as the wrestlers were sometimes thrown into the crowd or they threw water, coke or just about anything else at us! It's definitely a love or hate experience and a completely bizarre night out!

After reading the fantastic  Marching Powder in Argentina about a month before I was intrigued by the San Pedro prison in La Paz. The book for anyone who hasn't read it, is about an English guy who was sent to prison on drug charges and describes his experience in the prison to an Aussie who wrote the book. The jail is highly corrupt, you have to buy your own cell, there is a whole class system and prison economy. Prisoners wives and children all live inside and a lot of Bolivia's cocaine is produced inside. They used to run tours for tourists to come visit the prison and plenty of people still try and get ripped off. So all we ended up doing was sitting out the front for a while but was great to check it out after reading so much about it.

Another interesting excursion was to the El alto markets. El alto is a suburb/neighbouring town at the too if the valley. It's where a lot of working class/poor people live and every Thursday and Sunday you can buy almost anything under the sun. I would like to question how much of it was stolen goods but it was an interesting day out particularly when we were in a quite busy part and one of the guys we were with got stuff thrown in his hair and I got spat on. Still not sure if it was a distraction before we were robbed and nothing was taken or they simply didn't like us gringos being there.

With 3 days off from the bar Kiz and I decided to take a break from the Rover and head to Lake Titicaca & Isla del Sol. However poor Kiz had bronchitis so was taking it pretty easy. We headed o Copacobana and from there to the ferry straight out to Isla del Sol. Had a funny trip over with some Israeli hippies then found ourselves a room on the south side of the island near the water. Our room was basic but had the most beautiful views of just about any hostel or hotel I've ever stayed in. We looked out over the lake and had snow capped mountains in the background which I still think are pretty special! After the standard chicken and rice for dinner we tucked ourselves in early and had the most restful sleep we'd had in weeks!

Next day I was up early to hike the length of the island while Kiz rested. Though the distances aren't far the island stands at nearly 4000m above sea level so the sun is fierce and the hills leave you breathless! So I took the day slowly, got a bit lost at one point and soaked up the beauty of the island. When I finally get around to putting up photos you'll notice the huge numbers of photos taken on just one day! I had a very peaceful day to myself then met kiz back in the arvo and we caught the ferry back to Copacobana. By coincidence we ran into friends we had been working with at the hostel who were trying to get to Peru by boat due to road blocks on the Peruvian side of the border. So we had a great final night with them then headed to the hotel before going back to work the next day.

We extended our time at the hostel by a few days so that we could help celebrate Jack the bar managers 22nd birthday. As you can assume this was a disgustingly large night so we were feeling very very dusty as we headed to the airport for our flight to Columbia.....

Headed across the border into chile again... Intentionally this time! However we were required to kiss the border police to get our passports.... Eventually we arrived at a little tourist town called Pucon. Pucon is set against a lake and between mountains making it another popular tourist destination for both chileans and backpackers.

First day the girls had decided to go hydrspeeding. Hydrospeeding for those of you playing at home is when you coast down the river on a body board over small rapids. Sounds like fun except the water ha cone straight off snow covered peaks so was not that warm. So I left them to freeze their bits off while I drank hot chocolate, wrote emails and prepared myself for our next day at the volcano!

Climbing the volcano was one of the coolest things I've done on this trip. Complete with crampons and a ice pick we headed up the mountain. There was fresh snow on the ground which meant that our guides could trek up new paths from the regular which was great so we could go at our own pace and not be stuck in a line with 50 other groups. The walk was hard but you could go at your own pace and well worth the effort. The view from the top was pretty spectacular over the valley and surrounding mountains. Sadly there was no lava the day we went up but it was smoking and smelled like a volcano (bad). The way down was the most fun as we were able to sled down on mats most of the way which was fantastic.

On another deadline we caught the bus that night to stay with our friend Daniel and his mum in Santiago. We were so excited to stay in a house and have a genuine chilean experience! Spent our first day down town checking out some sites in the city before heading back to meet Daniel and Fernando after they'd finished work. After a few more drinks including tequila shots complete with a worm we headed out to a gay party celebrating the release of a new lady gaga track. As you can imagine this was a hilariously fun drunk night! 

Spent the next day with Daniels hilarious mum who took us out to show us the real chile both the wealthy upper middle class and the poorer side that "we'd come to Sth America for" as she liked to joke. After a city tour to a look out and alternative community we headed to the fruit market and a few other stops for our authentic Chilean lunch. Met Daniel's grandma and ate some of the best empanadas of the trip! As well as a crazy peach snack from the fruit markets that I never would have tried on my own. 

We finished our Santiago trip with a self guided tour to every significant building in the cbd, visiting a great art exhibition showing works from modern artists of the Americas from Canada to the tip of Argentina and chile. Finally we also had an interesting coffee stop in one of the malls.... Dying for a coffee we stopped at a walk in coffee bar for a cappuccino. We ordered then waited at the bar for the waitress to make our coffee. While waiting we noticed the very short dresses all the waitresses were wearing, then Kiera turns to me and tells me to look at all the other customers, all if whom were muddle aged men. Feeling like we were in the wrong place we decided to quickly finish our coffees and leave. I though I'd quickly use the bathroom only to find that there were only mens toilets and no womens! Getting condfirmation that we shouldn't be there we quickly left! We later found out that these sort of coffee houses are very popular and we were only scraping the surface! There are loads of these male only coffee houses full of gorgeous young girls, some of which are underground with girls in bikinis and fake relationships/testing etc between the staff and business men, absolutely hilarious!

Our cultural experience in Santiago complete we jumped on a bus to Valparaiso. Valpo is a heritage listed town on the coast west of Santiago. It's steep streets are filled with brightly coloured houses and loads of street art and graffiti. Being a port town it also has a slightly dingy character as well which adds to it's bohemian character. We spent out time there wandering the streets checking put the street art, with the out of the way no name artists impressing us much more than the "big name" pieces. We also went to the home of he famous Chilean poet Pablo Naruda. His house was a fantastically designed nautical fantasy land and well worth a visit despite ne knowing very little of his poetry!

Finally we trekked back over the Andes another time to fit in a visit to Mendoza in Argentina. Mendoza is the big wine making region of Argentina and is well known for it's malbec grape variety. So we spent our Easter weekend drinking plenty of Jesus' blood so to speak. We did the obligatory wines and bikes tour with the famous mr Hugo, and had a few laughs with some Irish girls before heading back to dine at mr dog, one of Mendoza's finest dining! We also on another night splurged on our last argentinian steak which like all the others was mouth wateringly good!

Then with 2 days to spare we booked an epic bus ride from Mendoza to tucamon to Santa Cruz to la Paz bolivia in search of work at a little place called the wild rover! 

If I can manage to finish this in a timely manner (which i didnt!) this will be 2 blog posts in 1 month and I will almost be up to date for the first time since Feb (keep your fingers and toes crossed people!)

After Flori we took a bus directly to Montevideo, Uruguay where summer was well and truely over! Spent a few days checking out the city, sampling the Urugay BBQ (delicious!) and checking out the carnival museum. However I have to say that what Kiz and I (and not Timmy) probably liked most about Uruguay was the large number of very attractive men! Probably could have spent days ´drinking coffee´and people watching (possibly dribbling a little). Spent a morning wandering around the quint colonial city of wait for it..... Colonia before catching the very fancy ferry across the bay to Buenos Aires.

Checked in to a slightly quieter hostel than last time as we were headed back to school, back to school for a week of spanish lessons. Deciding to make the most of our week we booked in 5 hours a day in a group (Kiz and our mate Nicki and myself) and had a blast. Our lovely patient teachers maneuvered us through the basics and while I still can´t have much of a conversation apart from where are you from whats your name etc. I am more confident in getting around and if people are patient I can generally get my meaning across. As BA never sleeps we also managed to pack in plenty of other things to do including going to an album launch in a smoky basement of a pub, la Bomba drumming show, finally replacing my stolen camera, a quick trip to La Boca and 3 market trips (which may or may not have hurt my wallet!).

We left the craziness of BA for the more organic delights of Patagonia, the southern region of Argentina. We flew to El Calafate and arrived at the airport, grabbed a taxi and received a tour on the drive in from our taxi driver. Just looking out the window from the cab I was amazed by the beauty and dramatic change in landscape. Beautiful huge lakes and tundra style landscape which I had never seen before. Spent our first afternoon h wandering around town and organising out trip the following day to the Perito Mereno Glacier!

The glacier is one of the most spectaular things I've seen in my life. As the boat approached a huge sheet if ice grew in front of us meters high and a hundred meters across. We spent an hour or so hiking across it feeling like proper explorers in our cramp ons. Listening to chunks fall off into the water. Our tour finished with some whisky and chocolate at the ice bar set up, yet another random end to a tour we've done here! It's sad to think h that all these beautiful glaciers are shrinking all over the world. Next day we hung out around town and I managed to lose my ATM card, other exciting things that happened include us having no idea where to go next and they guy at our hostel suggested we go hiking in El Chalten and booked us on the bus. I am forever grateful!

The next 2 days were probably my favorite of the trip so far. We spent 2 days hiking to the 2 main peaks in the area, Fitzroy and another that I already can't remember the name of! As it was April the leaves were starting to turn which inynopinoonade the landscape so much more beautiful! We were lucky enough to have 2 beautifully sunny days as well with no wind. All the photos look fake with the red and yellow leaves, clear delicious streams and snow covered peaks behind.

After El Chalten we caught an epic bus ride up route 40 to Bariloche. The highway.... If we can call it that is famous as it was the last part of Che guevara's ride from north to south. The route itself is unpaved, bumpy and our bus' air confusingly broke along with the bus so once it got going again it was boiling hot till the sun went down and ten freezing! 30 or so hrs later we made it to Bariloche. Bariloche is argentina's ski Capitol in winter and full of hikers in summer. However in autumn it's quite quiet. Lucky for us we stayed in an excellent hostel, one of my favourites this trip and along with some canadians and caught a bad case of kangoo fever! Kangoo was in fact the name of the 8 seater rental car we acquired ourselves to drive around the 7 lakes and each our way through a kilo of the hand crafted chocaltes Bariloche is also famous for. Had a hilarious day lake hopping singing and accidentally going to chile! A smaller crew of just aussies took another car the next day and we braved driving on the wrong side of the road to see a black glacier. Sadly no one told us that a black glacier is just a dirty glacier and isn't that exciting. Luckily we took some interpretive photos of the process to explain to anyone else we meet on the way.... (these photos are us miming the environmental factors which contribute and ate indecipherable!). Again without plans we decided to follow te canadians to Pucon in Chile to climb a volcano!

So once again I´m a bit behind... but I´ll do my best to recreate te magic of Brazil for you dear reader (and myself!).

Ahh brazil... Not sure I can do you justice as this is written in hindsight and without many photos to jog my memory!
After a slightly scary delay on the way back from the Galapagos we had just enough time to shower, grab our bags and head back to the airport for our overnight multiple stopover flight. Quito-Guayaquil-Santiago-Sao Paulo-Rio!
Arrived at our hostel that we had been "upgraded" to to find no ceiling (there was a roof with sheets draped below so you wouldn't see the insulation) and plastic covers over all the mattresses. Despite this and the incompetent slightly creepy staff we had an excellent week! All the people at our hostel were lovely, hilarious and provided many funny stories which should probably stay at Carnival.

So I should probably actually describe what carnival in Rio is like... firstly prepare your liver, this requires more alcohol than O week. Luckily our 2 months traveling already had given us some good grounding! Secondly find out where the good blockos are: during carnival Rio is filled with hundreds of block parties all over the city which range from small parties with local bands and free samba lessons to huge beach parties at Ipenema to thousands of people following a 40 piece funk band through parkland (my personal favourite!) Thirdly dress up! Costumes range from a set of funny ears through to all kinds of crazy outfits. The Brazilian guys love dressing in drag (as all guys secretly do) so it's easy to be outdone by them! Other things to be prepared for are the smell of urine in the streets, coming home with black feet and having every second person asking you for 'just one kiss'. Highlights were the aforementioned 40 piece funk band, going to the samba parade (not the one thats on tv a smaller but still amazing one), watching fat boy slim play art vs science and managing to fit in one or two touristy activities!

Sadly shizzle had to leave us after carnival was fantastic having her with us and it definitely took a little while to get used to her not being there!

From rio we headed south in search if detox and relaxation! We managed the second one at least! A combination of having no plans, following Timmy and expensive hostels in Rio for the weekend meant that we decided to catch a bus 4hrs south to a town called Paraty. 
Paraty is a beautiful town which has retained it's old colonial town centre with white wash buildings and narrow cobbled streets. The beaches nearby were pretty horrible for both Brazilian and aussie standards but there are several beautiful islands offshore to explore by boat. Sadly the weather and a large hangover (2 hours of all you can drink caprihinias with friends from Rio...) meant that the boat probably wasn't as great as it could have been however there were still green islands, white beaches and brilliant blue bays to explore.

After Paraty we caught the bus 2 hours north to a coast town mostly used by tourists as the launching point to get to Illa Grande. Illa is a beautiful island about 90 mins (possibly can´t remember!) off the coast of Brazil. There are no cars so aside from a few sandy streets near the dock the rest of the island is rainforest surrounded by beautiful white sand beaches. We only had a few days here but I wish it could have been much much longer. Although the weather turning bad did help me to leave. First day Timmy Kiz and I hiked for 2 hours around the island to one of the top 10 beaches in the world. We had an excellent day, hiked aorund via 3 beaches and over 1 mountain through the rainforest. There´s nothing like coming through the rainforest to a brilliant beach (aside from the fact that there were several other tourists already there and guys selling beer...). Had a second day hiking to a waterfall and scaling a steep decent to another beach before taking a water taxi back to our hostel followed by a very enexpected late night with a few aussies from our hostel we barely made it to the ferry the next day to try and get to Florianopolis.

We took a bit of a roundabout route via Rio but eventually made it to Flori for a few more beach days. Had a great time taking it easy hanging out with other travellers from our hostel, beaching it up, and generally taking it easy. Again could have spent longer here and done more than lazing on the beach but hey when you´re away for 7 months I think you´re allowed to be a bum for a week or 2! We left Brazil (mostly due to money reasons!) and headed south for a quick stopover in Uraguay on our way back to the lovely Argentina for round 2!