Of course pretty much everywhere we've been in Brazil has been like paradise compared to England, but Paraty and Ihla Grande really were like the typical idea that you have of Brazil, sun, beach and jungle! We stayed with a guy called Athos up in the mountains, where there was an amazing view of the town and the rainforest. Of course we got bitten to s*** by mosquitos, but we managed to avoid seeing snakes! (they'd found an enormous snake in his girlfriend's gar...

We continued our journey to a small town North of Florianopolis called Porto Belo (like the song in bedknobs and broomsticks, Portobello road, which I did continue to sing the whole time we were there...). We were staying with a really lovely woman Rosana and her husband and dog! It was slightly difficult to find her house though, as the houses were just randomly numbered, 57, 287, 113... and there didn't seem to exist a number 12! Anyway we found the house even...

Florianopolis was our destination of choice over the Carnaval period, as Rio was going to be far too expensive for us even to stay there, and also our first destination in Brazil! We arrived in Florianopolis over the massive metal bridge connecting it to the mainland, on an overnight bus, and feeling slightly dazed and confused at the sudden change in language from now-pretty-much-understandable-spanish to basically-incomprehensible-portuguese, we opted for a ta...

Ben was supposed to be arriving back in Buenos Aires on the monday afternoon, but his flight was cancelled due to the (and I have been informed that it was only a very little!) snow, so he didn't arrive back until Tuesday night! So with two more days in Buenos Aires, I met up with Tina and Alex, the girls who had worked in my hostel in Santiago that I got the bus back to BA with, and spent Monday and Tuesday showing them all the sights of BA that I had previously...

As Ben has abandoned me for the moment, I have spent the last four weeks on my own! I was very worried about this to start off with but it turned out all right in the end, although I'm looking forward to Ben's return tonight! When we went back to BA we stayed in a different hostel which was in San Telmo because it was a lot cheaper than the Milhouse. To be honest, the reason for that was obvious! Ben stayed with me for the first night, then the next day we went ...