The last few weeks…

Hello all you avid blog readers!

I know that our blogs have been a bit thin on the ground recently but frankly all we´ve been doing for the last few weeks is relaxing in the sun so there hasn´t been much entertainment to report – it´s a hard life! However, we thought we´d summarise some of the highlights!

1) The cake man in Ihla Grande – even when the whole island had a power cut, the cake man had his own light so we didn´t have to go without our nightly sugar fix;

The most delicious cakes in the world

2) Surfing down waterfalls in Penha (what a pro!);

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28986914@N08/3002450651/

3) Ben, looking sexy as ever, snorkelling in Paraty;

 

4) And finally, we even tried our hand at camping in Ilha Grande;

Ben with Pandora

On Saturday we are dusting off our trekking shoes and are leaving the beach for good so expect a lot more blogs to follow!

Take care,

Lau x

Her name is Rio

Rio de Janeiro – River of January it´s literal translation - was mis-named by the Portuguese when they landed here as the bay is so enormous and the landscape so incredible that they thought it was actually a river. Set among enormous rock formations on the edge of the Atlantic, Rio is a beautiful, bustling, beach city with more culture and parties than you can shake a stick at.

Copacabana beach (where The Rolling Stones played to the biggest gig crowd ever of 2 million people!) is where all of the the beautiful bodies – including ours of course – come every day to top up their tans and play some football or football beachball volleyball (yep they really are footie mad), or to just hang around looking good. They also have a diverse but peculiar range of beach vendors, offering ´coca-cola, cerveja, ice tea and fried cheese´.

In another bid to try and confront my vertigo demons, I decided to take a hang-gliding trip over the bay. Although the view was absolutely breathtaking, the audio was not so convincing whilst I found myself running off a ramp 500m over the city forest of Rio screaming at the top of my voice. However, I now feel slightly more prepared for the ultimate test of my bravery when we do a bungee jump later on our trip, also probably with a lot of loud audio accompaniment. Additionally, I can now add hang-glider to the ridiculous list of different modes of transport we´ve already taken this trip*.

We spent about 10 days in Rio so were able to see the majority of the sights including a modern art gallery which looked like Starship Enterprise…

Beam me up Scottie!

A rather below par Brazilian side draw 0-0 against Columbia in a world cup qualifier. ..

Maracana Stadium - not quite Pride Park!

And of course, Christ Redeemer…

We also took a tour of the largest Favela in South America, Rochina. 20% of the population of Rio actually live in a Favela and the one we visited was home to 200,000. The trip began with a thrilling ride on a motorbike to the top of the Favela (it can´t be reached by car) which had me closing my eyes on several occasions as my driver cornered like Valentino Rossi. I had prepared myself for the worst, but what we were shown was a well established community in which crime has almost been abolished (albeit by the drug lords who run the community). The inhabitants are also very keen for tourists to visit to help diminish the areas bad reputation and were incredibly friendly to us during our tour, including a machine gun carrying drug dealer! There were a lot of positives to take from the experience including the fact that most children are now in schooling up until at least aged 14 and health centres are being established to offer aid and education to the population.  However, there is still an awful lot of work to do and it was heartbreaking to be told that very few people born into the Favela are ever provided with the opportunities to leaveand improve their lives.

That´s all for now folks!

Ben and Lau

*Now includes: planes, buses, cars, trains, tuc-tucs, motor bikes, bicycles (rented from some kids to ride past burning road blocks in Bolivia), logging truck (hitch), pick up truck (hitch), cattle truck (hitch), ferry, canoe, boat, horse, mule, funicular railway, gondola.

Sun, Salvador & samba!!

Please don´t worry fervent readers, we have managed to resist writing off the rest of our travelling itinerary to stay on this amazing beach all year (just), and finally escaped the beauty of Morro de São Paulo! I am now however completely addicted to açaí, the indigenous super fruit found in Brazil (and in Innocent smoothies), which was extremely tastily served to me on a daily basis with bananas and strawberries on the beach.

We also spent a couple of nights partying and dancing the time away in Salvador, the heart of the Afro-Brazilian culture on the North-East coast of Brazil, a beautiful old colonial port town with the most amazing night life culture I´ve ever seen. Imagine a constant Notting Hill carnival, only held when it´s hot, with live music and samba drum bands walking around the old cobbled streets pounding out mesmerizing rhythms and dancers with equally mesmerizing six-packs – or so I´m told by Laura…

Salvador, is where the Portuguese first landed in their conquest for colonisation. But in fact, they actually intended to land in India, but got lost and then subsequently – and, rather lazily – decided to colonise Brazil instead, which is why all indigenous people in the state are know as Indians.

Unfortunately, the inhabitants of this amazing place constantly use a cunning array of tricks to con unsuspecting tourists out of their pocket money, including skillful pick-pocketing, sneaky deception, or simply just demanding money. Of course, the latter is more effectively executed when you are a 6´4´´ Afro-Brazilian capoeira expert who has just been demonstrating how hard they are in the street fight you´ve been watching.

We also found time, as one does at the leisure of unemployment, to visit Praia do Forte, a town a few miles down the coast which is home to a turtle sanctuary, dedicated to supporting the conservation of the local species, which includes 4 currently on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. There was loads to see and learn here, which interestingly included instructions on how to resuscitate a turtle found unconscious on the beach.

Unfortunately though, our finances have been rather more ravaged than first inspected here in Brazil, and we have finally had to rely on cooking our own lunch and dinner time sustenance. We quickly discovered though that Brazil has the tastiest and cheapest fillet steak we´ve ever had! Of course, this won´t stop me thoroughly sampling it´s main rivals for steak – Argentina and Uruguay – when we visit them later on in the trip.

Until next time,

Ben & Lau x

Holiday from our holiday!!

Believe it or not (oh, I know you won´t), but travelling is often quite hard work. Whether it´s from writing witty blog entries (!), spending the night on a 20 hours bus journey, or gluttonously getting up at 8am for an all you can eat inclusive breakfast, you´re often pretty knackered as a vagabond.

Also, the administration and organisation of lumbering with backpacks, buying bus tickets in absurd Portuguese accents and generally fitting everything in can challenge even the most diligent and tenacious of flash-packers.

This is why, 3 months into our trip – stretching the width of South America from Lima on the Pacific, to Salvador on the Atlantic – we´ve finally decided to accommodate a stop on the beach. And who could blame us for choosing Morro do São Paulo, the Atlantic rain-forest island with some of the most incredible beaches I have ever seen…??

Only rivalled by the Gower

So excuse the lack of posts while we rest our tired bodies and improve our tans. We will speak next from Rio de Janeiro!!

Bendy & Looby x

São Paulo

A boring title for a boring entry I´m afraid.

São Paulo is one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the world, easily eclipsing our modest London. In fact, it is very similar to London (especially the shoving and general rudeness on the underground, which actually made us feel a little at home), but without the interesting and cultural tourist attractions.

Catedral da Sé

It does however, have an excellent night life, which we thoroughly tested every night that we stayed there, including our first music festival on tour, Skol Beats – http://www.skolbeats.com.br/.

Hopefully more adventurous notes will await you next time fellow reader…

Bonj

Bird watching, Bin Laden & Bonito

The first stop in our third country – Brazil – was in the largest freshwater swamp in the world, just underneath the Amazon basin – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantanal.

We opted for a 4 day tour of this wildlife paradise and choose the budget option of ´camping´ in hammocks besides a cayman and anaconda infested river – a small risk to compensate for the extra expense in Brazil from Bolivia!

During the 4 days, we took part in a number of different activities including a walking safari to see the plethora of bird life, swimming in the cayman infested river and piranha fishing! Ben proved to be an expert piranha fisherman and caught at least 5 (compared to my measly 1), including one ´this big´!!

Nice arm pit

These lucky yet delicious fish were then fortunate to be on the menu for our evening meal which even Ben enjoyed!

On the final day we were also given the opportunity to go horse riding. Our guide brought out 2 horses for us – one beautiful white steed, the other a slightly fat, short horse… well actually more of a pony! I assumed the latter was for me, being the smaller of our party but our guide obviously had a sense of humour and gave him to Ben. We set of at an easy pace across the fields only for Ben to discover that although his pony looked slow, it was in fact the craziest of the lot! It was at this point our guide explained that the pony was actually called Bin Laden because he liked to run off and hide from the others!

With sore bums, we took a small detour to Bonito, where, due to a naturally high level of calcium and magnesium in the local rivers, it´s possible to snorkel down a crystal clear river and observe an amazing array of fish. We were given wet suits and flippers to tip the scales in our favour, and the river was stocked to the gills with amazing marine wildlife. It was absolutely incredible!!

Lau or 007?

Fin

Lau & Ben