On arrival in Foz do Iguazu we checked into the excellent Hostel Bambu, and immediately went back to bed. After a couple of hours sleep our hangovers had subsided sufficiently for us to get up and explore the Brazilian side of the falls. From Brazil you get a much better panoramic view of the falls, and there are some great catwalks that take you along near the bottom of some of the falls. I think the Argentinean side was little a more impressive, but it’s definitely worth seeing the falls from both sides.
On our second day in Foz do Iguazu, Gaz convinced Tara to go and see the Itaipu dam. This is an engineer’s dream outing, but for normal people (like Tara) it’s probably more comparable to a frontal lobotomy. We were lucky (or at least Gaz thought so) to visit the dam on a day when two of the three massive spillways were open. These are only opened when there is too much water upstream of the dam. During our visit 40,000 cubic meters of water were flowing through them every second, which is 25 times more water than flows over the Iguazu falls. The dam is a joint venture between Brazil and Paraguay with the electricity produced being shared between the two nations. The negative environmental impact of the project is enormous, but the venture generates 90% of Paraguay’s power and 30% of Brazil’s, so it’s not all bad news! The tour of the dam is criticised by many travellers as being a marketing exercise for the Itaipu, but Gaz really liked it and Tara gained some small enjoyment from the opportunity to wear an orange hard hat.
From Foz do Iguazu we took a flight up to Sao Paulo, and checked into a hostel in Vila Madalena. Vila Madalena is one of the few parts of the city that you can safely walk around after dark, and uncoincidently is also the home to the some of the best nightlife in the city. Sao Paulo is generally considered to be a party city, but unfortunately Tara was suffering from a bought of flu whilst we there so we didn’t really see much of this. From a sightseeing point-of-view, Sao Paulo has pretty much nothing to offer. We spent two days walking around the city, and in that time we only felt the need to take my camera out of our bag twice. This was probably for the best though, because showing your camera in public was a beacon to sticky-fingered locals.
From Sao Paulo we caught a bus up to Rio de Janeiro, and located our hostel in a seedy part of the city called Lapa. We arrived at the hostel late at night, and the streets around it were teeming with prostitutes. Bizarrely, seeing these ladies of the night made us feel quite homesick, because the streets around our flat in London are also home to a busy red-light district. After dropping our bags off in our dorm room we ventured out to get some food, but the streets of Rio felt quite intimidating at night so we beat a hasty retreat to the hostel and ordered a delivery pizza instead. Whilst our hostel in Lapa wasn’t salubrious it did have one redeeming feature, it was staffed by a couple of Argentinian models (one male and one female). So we spent the evening sipping caprinhas and admiring the scenery within our temporary home.
Thankfully the streets of Lapa were far more welcoming the next morning, and once we’d got our bearings we felt quite safe in the area. Rio has a bad reputation for crime, one which is probably quite well deserved. Personally we didn’t experience any trouble at all, but we met several people who’d been mugged. The advice given to all tourists if they are confronted with such a situation is to handover whatever is asked for in case the attacker has a knife or gun. This makes tourists easy pickings though, and I reckon tourists should be encouraged to scream like a banshee and start swinging at their assailant. Street crime would probably fall quite rapidly in Rio if tourists started doing that.
During our time in Lapa we explored most of the sites in central Rio. We took the funicular railway up to Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer), which was disappointingly small and incredibly crowded. We also walked around the city and visited the Cathedral, which must rank amongst the top 3 ugliest buildings in the world. Unfortunately for Rio de Janeiro, it became an affluent city in the 1970s and several of its key buildings (including the Cathedral) are grey concrete monstrosities. The stained glass windows of the cathedral make it worth a visit though.
On our penultimate day in Rio we went on a tour of the Rocinho favela, which is a shanty town built on a hill behind the wealthy Ipanema neighbourhood. The favelas of Rio are notoriously dangerous and they advise against visiting them without a guide, so we where a little apprehensive about the trip. The tour was one of the highlights our 6-month journey. We were picked up from our hostel by our BeALocal guide and driven to the bottom of the favela. There we transferred onto motorbike taxis, and we driven at breakneck-speed along winding streets up to the top of the favela. Along the way we saw drug-runners armed with machine guns guarding the favela against the police. From the top we were walked down through the small alleyways of the favela with sewage running around our feet. The most surprising thing about the favela was that in spite of its lawlessness it still is a relatively normal functional suburb of Rio. We visited an art studio, a bakery, and a day care centre as we walked down, and everybody we met was very friendly. Most of the houses had electricity and running water, and some would be considered middle-class abodes in Bolivia. The favelas are owned and run by the drug-lords, and it was interesting to learn about the hierarchy and the ever-present danger of being shot. On average 2-3 people are killed everyday in the favelas of Rio.
After our tour of the favela, we were dropped off in the Santa Teresa neighbourhood which was recommended by many guidebooks. We weren’t particularly impressed by it, but enjoyed riding the bonde (a street tram) down into the centre from Santa Teresa. This was probably one of the most unsafe modes of transport we’ve used in the last six months, and we were convinced that our tram was going to fall off its rails as we passed over the Lapa arches. After our tram ride we made our way over to Sugarloaf Mountain to watch a magnificent Rio sunset. Tara was having a bit of a slow day though, and when we bumped into our friends, Siobhan & Dave, she excitedly asked if they’d been on the favela tour yet. We’d met Siobhan & Dave for the first time that morning….on the favela tour.
From Rio we flew up to Salvador in the northern state of Bahia where we discovered a true gem of a hostel. It was owned by a Mancunian called Russell, who’d effectively transplanted a British guest house into the heart of Barra in southern Salvador. Like every other city in Brazil, Salvador is considered to be quite dangerous. Wandering even a few meters off the main thoroughfare could lead you into some serious trouble. Thankfully we managed to avoid any problems, but we were constantly hassled by street sellers & beggers. We spent a day exploring Salvador’s pelourinho, which is a series of picturesque interconnected plazas adorned with beautiful colonial era churches and buildings. The most stunning of all was the Sao Francisco Church, which is better known as the Golden Church because of the ornate golden gilt work inside. When this church was built the African slaves were angry that they weren’t allowed to worship inside it. They retaliated by amending the appearance of religious characters in the woodwork. Nearly all of the cherubs in the church have African features (both in their faces and below the waist), and many of the angels appear pregnant.
After speaking with our host, Russell, we made the decision to head to Morro do Sao Paulo, which is a small Atlantic island off the coast of Salvador. The quickest way to get there was on a catamaran, but we’d heard rumours that the crossing could be a little rough. So we did some research and spoke to a few people who’d done the crossing and it sounded like Armageddon. The crossing is so rough that everybody on the boat gets seasick. There is a woman working on the boat, whose only job is to collect full sea sick bags and hand out new ones. Surely this must be the worst job in the entire world?! Based on the information acquired, we (well, Gaz) decided that we’d take the long route to the island. This involved a ferry across the calm Todos os Santos bay to Bom Despacio, then a bus down to Valenca, and finally a speed boat to the island of Morro do Sao Paulo. This only took us four hours (two more than the catamaran), and is worth it if only for the fun speed boat ride at the end.
We spent five days on Morro do Sao Paulo, and settled into a nice routine of spending all day drinking on the beach, and all evening drinking in the bars & restaurants. Conveniently Michael & Cathy (who we’d first met in Boliva) and Siobhan & Dave (who we’d first met in Rio) were also staying on the island so we had plenty of drinking companions. The beaches of Morro were always lively and entertaining, with the locals practising their capoeira (a Brazilian non-contact martial art), playing football, or beach volleyball. We rarely got off our sun loungers though. The only time we mustered any energy was on the last day, when Gaz decided to try out the Tiroleza. The Tiroleza is a wire that runs from the lighthouse at the top of the hill on Morro do Sao Paulo, down to one of the beaches. For a mere 25Reals Gaz was allowed to strap himself into a harness and jump off a cliff whilst attached to this wire. Ever the daredevil he decided to attempt this feat in a superman style pose. This all looked good to start with, but lost its shine when he started skimming across the water on his face. It makes for a good a video though.
From Morro do Sao Paulo we made our way back to Salvador, and spent our first evening at a show of traditional Bahian dancing. The majority of people living in the state of Bahia are descendants of African slaves, and their dancing and food is heavily influenced by this. On our final day in Salvador we caught a bus up to Flamengo beach, which is 45 minutes north of the city. We got quite lost on the bus, and we were unsure for most of the morning if we were even on the right beach (it turned out that we were). It didn’t really matter to us though, because one tropical palm tree-lined Atlantic beach is pretty much the same as all the others.
From Salvador we flew back down to Rio, and it was on this journey that we had our first real medical problem of the trip (excluding minor bouts of flu and hangovers). Tara started to get some very bad head pains on the flight, and she was clearly in agony. The air stewards were really kind, but the problems seemed to be caused by the change in pressure on the flight and short of an emergency landing there was nothing they could do to help. The pains eased once we’d landed, but with a 12 hour flight back to London in a week’s time we felt we should check it out. The doctor prodded, poked and x-rayed Tara, and concluded that she had a nasal infection and to her horror prescribed a course of antibiotics. This meant that Tara had to finish our trip as a teetotaller. Sympathetic as always, Gaz assisted by getting extra drunk on each of the remaining five nights of the trip.
In spite of the alcohol restrictions, we still managed to make the most of our last few days in Brazil. We spent quite a bit of time on Copacabana and Ipanema beach, and Tara purchased a seventeen pairs of Havaiana flip-flops. An excessive number considering the fact that there are only seventeen hours of sunshine in an average British summer. Conveniently our final stint in Rio also coincided with a football derby between two of the city’s biggest teams. So for the second time in our trip, Tara was dragged along to a football stadium against her will. The atmosphere inside the Maracana stadium was incredible, with flares, flags and drums everywhere. In the unlikely event that anybody is interested, the game ended Flamengo 2 – Fluminense 2 with Kleberson (ex-Man Utd) rescuing a late point for Flamengo.
After the football match we set off for a nightclub in the Rio Das Pedras Favela. We’d been warned that the club could get edgy, but unless you were a single female tourist then you were reasonably safe. The shirtless local boys were like dogs on heat, and any girl not clinging onto a male companion was likely to be mauled. The boys had no interest in the local girls though; who would be strutting their stuff in little more than a bikini yet received no attention whatsoever. We never felt threatened though, and in some ways it felt safer than your average trip to Infernos in Clapham.
We both really enjoyed Brazil. We’d been travelling in winter clothes since leaving Australia, and it was nice to get back into shorts and flip-flops again. There’s a lot written about the crime levels in Brazil, and we felt that often the fear of the crime was worse than the crime itself. There’s definitely too much crime in Brazil and something needs to be done about it, but as long as you’re careful then you can avoid most problems. I found that walking around as a couple immediately made you less of a target, and we never carried anything of value so there was nothing for us to lose. Brazil has a rich culture and amazing scenery, and Rio is in our opinion the most beautiful city in the world, so hopefully the street crime doesn’t put too many people off visiting.
Our flight back to London was on September 3rd, which is also Tara’s birthday so on our final night in Rio we decided to splash out and go to the best restaurant in town. We pulled on the best clothes (well, the least tattered anyway) in our rucksacks, and set off for Cipriani Restaurant in the Copacbana Palace hotel. The food was exceptional and it had a price tag to match. We have a tradition of going to plush restaurants on each other’s birthday, so we’ve eaten in some fantastic restaurants in London and this was easily the equal of them. It was a fantastic way to finish an amazing trip. Our travels around the world have been the best six months of our lives. It probably cost a little more than we’d planned, but it’s easily the best money we’ve ever spent.
We’re often asked which country we liked most, and it’s a difficult one to answer because each place we visited was special for a different reason. Bali is high up on Gaz’s lists, and we both really enjoyed Argentina. Australia was a huge amount of fun, and New Zealand had the best scenery (but it was a little cold for our liking). India had the nicest people, and Cambodia provided us with one of the most obscure evenings of our lives (getting trapped in a bar with a drunken Irish accountant and his mercenary friend because of the floods outside). The entire trip was amazing (even Bolivia in hindsight), and has given us both the travelling bug. With a little bit of luck, this won’t be the last time that I update this blog. We have to go and sell our souls back to Investment Banks for a little while now, but next on our list is Mexico….then Columbia…..then Japan…. then Equador……..
