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Hola!!!
So after being heckled by various people about our non-existent blog, and receiving several worried messages about our safety, we thought we´d sit down and let you know what we´ve been up to...
We´ve been here nearly two weeks now, and have just about recovered from day one´s sunburn episode. Arriving in Rio at 1am to a room full of 12 sweaty Brazilian men and tackling a triple decker bunk bed by torchlight made an interesting start to the trip! With four days in Rio we ticked off most of the sights; tanning (burning) on copacabana, visiting big Jesus, botanical gardens, and the famous steps in Lapa.. Lots of walking giving the locals plenty of time to admire our beautiful English complexion and eclectic clothes combinations!
Rio was an amazing city for people watching, lots of peachy bums and incredible bodies, but they definitely work for it - outside gyms on every street corner! Kind of necessary when chocolate cake is an option for breakfast every day! Needless to say Jess is pretty ecstatic!
So after a few days to ourselves we joined up with our tour group in Rio, and have spent the last week travelling through various parts of Brazil. Our tour guide Pablo is a tiny Columbian man who closely resembles a hamster and has a big appetite for alcohol - very enthusiastic and if he had it his way we´d be out till 5am every night! Getting on well with the group, nice mix of ages with a few couples in their 30´s, a few in their 50´s, and of course some fellow gap yah kids.
If you picture a shipwrecked island crammed with dreadlocks and surfboards, you´ll have a pretty good idea of Ilha Grande, our first stop after Rio. Beautiful tropical island, which we got to fully appreciate during a 3 hour trek through the jungle in 37 degree heat! Our first experience of a Brazilian club was an education, think we´ve left the men of Brazil with a firm impression that English girls have a very unique style of dancing, and have no idea how to use their hips! The amazing reggae street party the following night required a lot less sweaty contact!
Next destination Paraty, cute little colonial town a lot like Portugal. Spent the day on boat touring around the nearby islands, fuelled by an unlimited supply of caipirinhas (amazing Brazilian cocktail - lime, sugar, more sugar and 100% alcohol) - went to a distillery to learn how this amazing drink is made, passion fruit addition was our personal favourite! At this point we should point out the first success of the trip - Sarah voluntarily jumped off the boat into open water, in which fish were most definitely living! Will keep you updated on her progress! Visited a very cool natural water slide, turned out to be not so slippery as Jess very elegantly grazed her bum the whole way down!
Currently staying near the Iguassu Falls, visited the Brazilian side the day before yesterday, incredible views and so much bigger than expected... Pablo got the timing perfect as we turned up with no other tourists around, and after insisting we´d only feel a light spray after walking into the Falls, we got back on the bus a few hours later wringing out our knickers! The next day we popped over to Argentina for the day, to see the other side of the Falls. The views were incredible, and we went in a Jet boat along the Iguassu river and underneath the Falls - having yet another shower! After hearing a lot of hype about Argentinian steaks we indulged for lunch - well worth it! (Budget sandwich version of course!)
Tonight we have the joys of our first night bus experience - should be a beautiful 12-14 hour bus ride to Bonito! We´ll let you know how this goes, even if it takes another 2 weeks for us to get round to it!
Of course we couldn´t finish without mentioning the food... Our favourite meal so far has been Feijoada, a traditional Brazilian black bean stew with a variety of weird accompaniments, including salty flour, seaweed with oranges, and our new best friends polenta fritters! Another delicacy we´ve been enjoying is açaí, an amazing superberry sorbet served with banana and granola - definitely hoping to indulge in a few more before we leave Brazil! Lunchtimes have involved many a street snack, in which we usually point to strange and interesting shaped pastries and hope for the best, often getting sweet when we expected savoury, and not being able to decipher whether the meat that looks like crab but tastes like chicken, is actually crab or chicken! Obviously to compensate for these indulgences, we´re becoming savvy travellers, stealing many a lunch from breakfast, much to the disgust of every member of staff, and getting super excited when soap and towels are provided! Jess has not yet learnt that adventurous food and beverage choices do not always end well, and has had a few interesting experiences! And of course one or two caipirinhas along the way...
Not to rub it in, as we´ve heard you´ve had some more snow back home, but the weather is amazing!! In the mid 30´s pretty much every day, although we´ve had our fair share of tropical storms - pretty impressive, to say we thought it could rain a lot in England!
Have just less than a week to go in Brazil, before crossing into Bolvia - we´ll keep you updated!
Lots of love xxx
Fun facts:-
Jess mosquito count: 22 (including one particularly hilarious forehead monster - Pablo genuinely points and laughs)
Sarah bruise count: 10
Sunburn: 1 out of 10 (would have been a very different story on days 1-5, when Sarah´s left foot was sporting an impressive purple shade!)
Casualties: one stolen towel (wasn´t even clean!!) and one lost washing line - we genuinely feel like we´ve lost a limb!
- comments
vicki Awww I loved this you guys, lookingforward to reading the next one! Xxxx
Susan Hirst Great blog - looking forward to hearing of your next adventures. xxx