Brazil's north coast to the mouth of the Amazon

Olinda, Brazil - Just out of Recife we got to another colonial town. Olinda was also the first capital of Brazil. I again walked around the town looking at the buildings and churches but I was getting a little colonial-towned out so spent the rest of the day in the hotel pool.



Praia de Pipa, Brazil - It was then off to the real small beach towns of Brazil. At Pipa I went dolphin watching just off the surf beaches and saw several dolphins playing and chasing fish. The rest of the time was spent swimming and sun bathing and watching the marmoset monkeys playing in a tree in town. I also had my first go at surfing, ever. First go I got up on the board and surfed the wave. Admittedly it was white-water but I made it up. I surfed the white-water for another 40 minutes with mixed success and then went and recuperated afterwards with a beer or two.



Canoa Quebrada, Brazil - Saturday and onto another great beach town. At the campsite the girls made some homemade caipirinhas, then some of us went into town and partied up large. Next day we went on a dune buggy adventure along the coast out to the pink sand dunes. On the way we stopped at a spot where there was quicksand and Brendan (Exodus tour leader) and I jumped in to experience it. It was weird and the guides with us told us that 5 people had died in that hole we were in. Me and a couple of the boys spent a day chilling on the beach and then went sand boarding. It wasn’t as fun as Peru but we still had fun going down the dunes on a board. At the bottom of the dune was a waterhole that we would slide into. After a few days of relaxation on the beaches and checking out the sights it was time for a couple of long truck days.



Parque Nacional de Ubajara & Parque Nacional dos Sete Cidades, Brazil - Away from the beaches we went to a couple of National parks where we went into a large cave system at Ubajara and amazing rock formations at Sete Cidades.



Belem, Brazil - Then it was the end of another overland trip and the end of South America for me. I finished in the city at the mouth of the Amazon river. We went out for my birthday on the first night and I spent the next day walking around the Amazonian botanical gardens and zoo nursing a bit of a hangover.



Overall my trip to South America was absolutely amazing. Over the 4 months I saw and did so many wicked things and had very few troubles at all. I definitely recommend everybody else to go even for just one month. The language is not really a problem. Just the basics can do and sign language and pointing works wonders, most of the time. It is a continent of wonders and contrasts and is particularly cheap which is always a bonus.

Eastern coast of Brazil after Rio

Even though the tour was over I decided to stay in Brazil and jumped on an Exodus overland tour that went up the coast of Brazil.

Ouro Preto, Brazil - So back on another truck with a new group of people we headed out of Rio absolutely shattered and went to the colonial gold mining town of Ouro Preto. The new truck had 18 people on it including the 2 tour leaders, from Spain, Canada, Wales, England, South Africa and NZ.

While in town we went on a mine tour and went 350 metres a hill to have a look. While there me and a couple of others went swimming in an underground pool. The guide advised us not to put our heads under the water due to the massive levels of arsenic. After a 10 minute swim we went on a tour of the town and its churches.



Bahia beaches, Brazil - We then headed back out to the coast where we spent several days camping near the lovely, tropical beaches of the Bahian state. Still trying to recover from Rio, we spent most of the time relaxing on the beach and swimming.



Salvador, Brazil - After a long drive day and a ferry ride with the truck we made it to supposedly the city of most muggings. Salvador has a strong African influence in its culture and capoeira (Brazilian dance/martial art) is very popular. Salvador also has a lot of old colonial buildings so we spent a couple of days walking around town and checking out the markets and we went out on the town at night. On our last night there we went to a local dance show. It was amazing and the guys who did the capoeira were so fast and skilled. They were extremely muscly and capoeira is done topless so the girls were very pleased. We all left Salvador without getting mugged and came away with a lot better impression of it than we started with.



Maceio, Brazil - Back to the beach for a day. Most of us went on a morning boat trip 2 km out to a reef with ‘natural swimming pools’ where we went snorkelling for about 10 minutes. After seeing the few small fish that were out there we swam over to the floating bar that followed us out and started drinking cheap caipirinhas (Brazil‘s national cocktail: limes in a glass and crushed, sugar, ice and cachaça which is a spirit made from sugar cane). For the next couple of hours we sat in the water as a storm came through and drank caipirinhas until we were quite drunk by 11 a.m. When it was time to go back I stupidly decided to swim the 2 kms back (possibly brought on by the alcohol). So I swam back with my mask and snorkel on. With a short way to go to shore, I stood up and stood on a sea urchin getting 8 spines in my toes. I made it to shore, got the spines dug out and we jumped on the truck to head north again.

Carnaval in Rio

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Time for the tour with Bukima to end and to party up large to finish the tour. We arrived on Friday afternoon for our 5 days of fun. On the first two nights, in between seeing the sights like the beaches and Christ statue, we went to a couple of street parties. The first night was just groups going through the streets with massive drums and people doing samba in the streets around them.



On Saturday we went to Maracana Stadium (one of the largest football stadiums in the world) to watch a local derby between Fluminense and Vasco da Gama. The stadium only had 13,000 in attendance but there was still a lot of atmosphere, especially from the Vasco supporters who were the home team. It was a good game that ended in a 4-4 tie when Vasco tied it up with 10 minutes left.



That night we went to a parade with the smaller samba schools going passed with their floats. We could go right up to the parade as it went down the street with people of all ages dressed up and dancing and street vendors yelling out “Agua, Coca, Schkol”.

Sunday night was the big night that we went to the Sambadrome to watch the professional samba schools do their big party with their massive floats and extravagant costumes over a 1.6km stretch surrounded by grandstands. We were in the last grandstand so didn’t get the best view but we were with all the locals partying it up. The show started at 9:00pm and went to 5:30am but still only half the schools went through. The rest went on Monday night. Because we were at the end we managed to score some items of costume from the people off the floats and we had fun dancing in the stands withy locals in sweat drenched hats and jackets covered in feathers and plastic jewels. The party was absolutely awesome.

BA to Rio - Road to carnaval

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Into a big smoke after 7 weeks in tourist towns and camping in random places. On the first day we went to Boca stadium, home of the Boca Juniors soccer team, for a look and then around the area of Boca where tango dancers were dancing in the streets trying to suck money from the gringos as we walked through cafes and markets.

That night was a boys night out in the city. We went to a couple of seedy joints where we were overcharged for drinks and people tried to scam money out of us, so we went for a quick feed on empanadas (pastries filled with meat) and after about 3 hours of people trying to rip us off we went and met up with the girls in an Irish pub. The booze was taking affect on us all and we got kicked out for having a popcorn fight so we went around the corner and drank some more at an all-hours, outdoor café until 7:00am. Then stupidly several of us decided to catch the ferry over to Uruguay to get another stamp in our passports.



Colonia, Uruguay - So with no sleep for about 24hrs, a belly full of booze and bar snacks and a US$70 return ticket we jumped on the fast ferry (1hr) to Colonia, Uruguay. The town was very nice and chilled out and nothing like the hustle and bustle of BA. Some of the group went shopping while I went to the beach with Anna and slept under a palm tree in the beautiful white sand. We went for a couple of swims in the river which looked more like a sea cos you couldn’t see the other side and then walked around town before catching the ferry back to get a good night’s sleep.



The last day was a shopping day and then we lost some more passengers and gained a group that were coming partying with us to Rio.

Camping heading north, Argentina - The next 4 days we headed north towards Iguaçu, camping in mosquito country again. On the way we checked out some Jesuit ruins and spent each afternoon swimming in the pools or rivers closest to the camping grounds and having some quiet drinks.



Iguaçu Falls, Argentina and Brazil - On the Argentinean side we caught a speed boat which took us up the river towards the falls where we took photos. They then advised us to put our cameras into dry sacks because we would be going closer. We all expected to get a little damp from the spray of the falls but we had no idea that they would take us right up the falls where we got saturated. A couple more dunks under the world’s largest falls and then they dropped us off so we could walk around the falls and dry off. We spent the rest of the day in the 42°C heat walking through the forest, checking out the falls from different viewpoints while dozens of different butterflies floated around us and a caiman (South American crocodile) or two swam under us.



Just as I was nailing the basics of Spanish, we crossed into Brazil and where we had to start speaking Portuguese. It is a lot harder than Spanish because the pronunciation is a lot different than how the words are spelt.

The first day in Brazil we went to a bird park next to the falls, full of Amazonian birds including toucans and macaws. I’m not much of an ornithologist but I liked the park a lot. We then checked out the Brazilian side of the Iguaçu Falls to get a different perspective. While there we saw some coatimundi which are like raccoons but with long noses. We were warned not to let them come up to us cos some carry rabies. Then another day chilling out in Foz do Iguaçu before we left towards Rio with less than a week until Carnaval.



Paraty, Brazil - In the small colonial town on the coast we had our last nights of camping of the 3½ month trip. The town was the last stop before Rio and all the overland trucks were there gearing up for the big party. There were 200-300 overlanders in town and much alcohol was consumed. The first day we got on a sloop with the passengers from three other trucks and sailed around the bays in the area. Sas made up a caipiroska punch in a chilly bin and we spent all day drinking that, laying in the sun and swimming in the sea when the boat stopped in several bays. It was a very relaxing day with a lot of sunburn and drunken antics.