Football mania - Rio style

Barra, Prainha and lovely Lankan hospitality

We were lucky to see a whole other side to Rio which not many travellers get to do - it was more of what its like to live and work in this big beautiful city. It has been a wonderful and welcoming time because I was fortunate enough through friend and cousin connections to get in touch with some family (thanks to Minha and Mariam!) - the awesome Dilshad and Munira! They have a beautiful home which they so graciously invited us into, and an even more gorgeous family - 3 super girls Nafisa, Tahani and Zahara - who entertained us no end during our stay. We were treated to wonderful care and hospitality not to mention a home life we had totally missed for the past 3 months. It was so nice to just have a kitchen table to sit around and talk, a comfy sofa, home cooked food and all the comforts of home! Plus a bonus Lankan curry which was delicious. We feel like we have made some solid friends - also we are certain we know the bus route from there to the dodgy Rio bus station which is about 1 hour across town by heart now!

We got to check out the nearby beaches for great surf in Recreio and Prainha which was right round the corner and is the best in Rio. All in all, a wonderful time. Thanks guys!

Ipanema

It is a very cool place - though parts of it look just like any other big city, the charm of the crystal blue beaches, walkways, trendy little cafes and bars make it something very Rio. Plus, Ipanema had been formed in my imagination from as far back as when I was a little girl listening to my grandfather's Sinatra cd's - Garota de Ipanema (Girl from Ipanema) being one of his favourite numbers, and as a result - mine too. The restaurant of the same name where the song was written, is slap bang in the middle of the neighbourhood.

We stayed in a cool hostel, mainly because the crowd of people we got to know were suprisingly on our wave length - and not just one or two, but most of them - also it helped we were all in similar stages of our lives while travelling... we went to a huge Rio football match on Sunday (possibly equivalent of the F.A. Cup Final) - the two teams (famous Brasil over) called Botafogo vs. Flamengo are neighbourhoods in Rio - and holy Moses are they passionate. We were a group of obvious gringo's herded into the Flamengo side by our football guide who pretty much told us there was no better team on the bus ride up to the stadium - which was packed 60,000 strong! Flamengo was clearly the more supported side and we donned the red and black team colours - some bought the t-shirts before the game, others (me) sported the red and black bandanas. Check Lee's blog for some awesome videos we took.

Rest of our time in Ipanema was cool - we had another amazing night in Lapa with the hostel crew, went out for delicous sushi at a seemingly trendy restaurant that had queues outside (always a good sign of food quality in my book) and high street shopping - I found a Mango store!
The beaches are unbelievably clean for a city, bright blue waters and white floury sand plus lovely coconut palms lining the pebble stoned side walks. Ipanema is also famous for its' Hippie Fair which is rather obviously named, but wow it had some amazing jewelry and artesanal crafts. I did manage to not explode the budget though. Helped that Lee had a leash on me.

Hmm

Ah so it was not meant to be. It was a fun day nonetheless - turns out that there were ALOT of Aussies at the hostel we were staying at and some of them were sweet enough to support Lanka. I also proceeded to consume a little too much beer and caiparinhas (courtesy of the Aussie owner who started to feel bad for me when we started to lose, so those were free...bad move). I discovered later that most of the people in the hostel were flocking into the TV lounge to check out the Sri Lankan chick who was shouting, whooping and chanting - hey, it added to the atmosphere and Lee was whooping too.

At least Lanka got that far. Good going boys. And I had a mother of a hangover the next day.

Go Lanka go!

Whoo hoo here it comes. No amount of theme music could build up to the final tomorrow. Very excited about the cricket - trying not to get too wound up and cocky considering Australia is a very good side but we have a chance and that is all we need! So here's to the Lankan team - congratulations for coming this far! Now go kick some Aussie ass.

More stuff about the Brazilians

There is an abundance of VW camper vans, kombis and beetles, thats thanks to the fact that Brasil is one of the last places in the world where they still make them. So loads of people have them, and it is almost too much for Lee and I. They are so cool and we are definitely going to get another one. They are so common, the kombis, that they are used as an alternative to buses here in Santa Teresa and Rio almost like Hi-Ace vans in Lanka. Though much cooler.

Other thing is that Brasilians love their tattoos. They are covered in them and some are plain tacky and others quite insanely large and grotesque, few are very cool. On the subject of tattoos and body art, they also love covering their walls and buildings in art. There is an abundance of graffiti in Rio, and the difference is these guys are so very good. The colours, precision and creativity will put most to shame but it is very different to the stencil graffiti we saw so much of in Argentina. That too would put many to shame. Click here for photos of some graffiti we managed to capture.

The weather plus numerous coconut trees make Brasil reminiscent of Lanka, not to mention the many bird calls in the morning though slightly more exotic. The fruit is so varied and tropical, back to papau, mangoes, guava, passion fruit etc and then so many weird ones from the Amazon like acai, caca and tucupi to name a few. All very different and they use them in their cuisine as sauces for their meat. I also dicovered passion fruit caiparinhas last night. Mm. Thankfully there is no end of thambili here and whats funny is that on most main roads and in the financial district there are coco water stalls selling ice cold thambili, its cold cause they break open the coconut into a sort of cooler that then filters the water through a tap. Yummy on a hot day.

So the g-string legend is true, they are everywhere on both young tanned bodies of the lively girls and on the rather flabbier older wrinkly ladies too. But what is unfortunate is the fact that the men here - wear tight speedo like trunks! Yes they do! they are smaller than underwear but are not teeny - they are just absolutely gross. And should not be allowed, they even wear them while surfing. But supposedly you are weird if you do NOT wear them. Hah.

Rio de Janeiro & Santa Teresa

Here we are in Rio de Janeiro - and we stayed in its' most bohemian hood, complete with cobbled stoned streets, quaint little shops, restaurants and gorgeous little music venues which was just so perfect as it was right up our street, so to speak. Only problem is that it is not the safest of areas but then we are in Rio. However we managed to keep it together in the week we were there, so thankfully we were spared any run ins.

We found this cool bed and brekkie network that places you in houses owned by artistic/bohemian people of Santa Teresa, we got to choose which house and so we were in this fabulous old mansion house owned by a youngish artist and his family including two adorable dogs (one is a puppy!!) and two cats. The hood is on a hill overlooking the north side of Rio, and the view from our open air living room was breathtaking both at day and at night. It is incredibly quiet except for the planes roaring above us as they fly low into the domestic airport nearby, it is quite a sight and only happens while we have breakfast so it doesnt bother us!

It is also the only part of Rio still serviced by the tram car which is a fascinating little contraption, costs only R$0.60 for a ride down to the town or if you hang off the side of it (as we did when short of change) you ride for free - just have to make sure you keep the arms and legs in.
The amazing thing bout this area is that it houses two of Rio's most notorious drug trafficking gangs, in the favelas down below us. They are in extreme competiton with each other and weirdly do not bother or harm the general public. Last night we woke up to what sounded like incessant rifle gunfire and rushed out to see from our hill top view, only to find it was a crazy fireworks display.

Eric (our artist host) explained that each gang had decided to fire as many skyrockets into the sky to show their network of supporters and power, so red was for the Red Command and green for the Third Command. And sure enough as we watched, the two different colours exploded into the night sky all over Rio. The Red Command clearly had more supporters. And we found out later, that they use this fireworks system to tell their contacts that deliveries have come in and so on. Its incredibly fascinating since they obviously dont care about the law enforcement!

In Rio so far we have seen the awesome Red Bull Air Race which to be honest can only be explained if you click on the link and see for yourself - the coolest thing is that we were there! Go straight to Lee's blog to see the video we took of some cool stunts these daredevil pilots were doing.

We have visited the world famous statue of Christ the Redeemer - the view from up there was incredible and slightly vertigo inspiring. Kind of gave you a sense of warmth and amazement at the idea that Christ was watching over Rio with all its' colour, vibrancy and dark corners.

Parati - colonial paradise

On the way between islands while on boat, we managed to see some amazing wild dolphins just swimming along and playing in the water, it was such an overwhelming sight. After Ilha do Mel and Paranagua, we journeyed further north east to Sao Paolo - we stayed there for 3 days and let me just say that it is one crazy concrete jungle and as much as I am a city girl, it was too much for me. We met a lovely couple of Australians who we hung out with for most of the time that we were there, went out for some awesome Japanese / Korean food - one thing about the Brazilians is that they love their sushi, and they also love their by the kilo restaurants. So you go and serve yourself typical buffet style only to weigh it before scoffing it down, and thats how they charge you. So you can just keep an eye on it and save money!

Anyway, after a messy time in Sao Paolo which really isnt anything to write home about, we came to Parati, which is where we are now. This is one of the most beautiful places I have visited in our trip so far - it has amazing colourful buildings, all one storeyed, quaint cobblestoned streets, nostalgic old churches, a pier with brightly painted boats with names like Bucanero and finally, enough bars and restaurants to make your stomach rumble. We decided to stay here for more than the 2 days planned, so who knows! There are handicraft shops and artists painting on the streets and tiny boats that take you out snorkeling to hidden islands. Paradise. Check out the pictures here.

Island hopping

From Santa Catarina, we then arrived in this beautiful colonial gem of a town called Paranagua which looks like a place you´d imagine in Cuba. Colourful old buildings, cobbled streets and right by the water. We arrived here only to take a 2 hour boat to a car-less island called Ilha Do Mel, for Easter weekend. It was absolutely beautiful but totally packed with locals as it was a known Brazilian favourite for surfers. We spent a lovely 3 days on the island, partied like crazy with a group of these cool Paulista surfers (Paulista is a term for people from Sao Paolo, they were a bunch of insanely loud guys) and we got a chance to explore the hidden beaches and lovely little pathways of this tiny island. Most of it however was an ecological park, protected by the council and so you couldn´t go there as there were protected species of all sorts! We did see a red, black and white patterned snake on the beach we were on, and that was so frightening.

Still, islands rock!

Have surfboard, will travel!

We have bought a surfboard and a hammock! Our lives as the beach bums we truly are, is about to begin... it was super exciting, while being on the Ilha de Santa Catarina we were driving around looking for another place to stay and while I drove, Lee was gleefully getting me to stop at all the little surf shops to enquire on the costs etc, though we were only doing it for fun. Well sort of. And then, we found an awesome board though it was more of a short board than the 7"4 that Lee has back home. And we figured, we`re on holiday! So we bought the board for a great price, it is a bit mashed up but it came with leash, wax and cover; while in the buying mood we then bought a hammock from across the road because we had heard that some beaches were so secluded that one can only stay on them if they had a hammock. Makes sense hurray! Click here for Lee´s online album where we have uploaded loads of Brazil island photos!

Brazilians - some thoughts

A couple of interesting things I have observed about Brazil and the people so far:
The similarities between Sinhalese and Portugese are incredible - I know this obviously thanks to the colonization however, it is bizarre to hear our words spoken so many thousands of miles away from a country so very different. Words like janela, beira, mesa, pan, sapaththu, boththela and the list goes on. It is even more astounding to think a tiny country like Portugal, so insignificant as a power in the world today, colonized and influenced such a large country like Brazil - and such a far away little country like ours.

Initially, the food here was not as amazing as Argentina - mainly rice, beans, fish and manioc which forms the main base for their breads amongst other things. No doubt we can see the African influence on that one. However as soon as we hit Floripa and Sao Paolo - wow, we were getting hit with every cuisine you can imagine - but startlingly, one of the main foods that the Brazilians eat is Japanese food. Sushi is everywhere and I know some of my fair weathered buddies will be drooling at that thought - even fast food sushi stalls though it is all safe cause their fishing industry is so incredibly strong.

In Argentina we barely saw any other ethnicities other than their own, and as we went north we did see a fair number of Maípuchi and Indian descendants. But here in Brazil, it is as if we are in some fantastic mixture of race, ethnicity and colour - African, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, Indian etc. It is immensely interesting to people watch, plus this mix is not just in the cities but in the tiny beach fishing towns as well.

The Brazilians are loud and they love their beer and caiparinhas. The wine here is soo expensive, so beer it is! We have yet to listen to some kick ass music though it is so far much better than the Argentine! It is much more expensive, there are more people willing to rip you off and generally the city folk are not as friendly as we had hoped. Though the surfers and island people are.

Foz to Florianopolis

It has been a little disorientating trying to realise that we are in a whole other country with a wholly different culture, attitude, habit and mostly language. Good Lord Portugese is a difficult language to pick up and understand, also it is oddly vulgar (i can´t think of another word as I know that can seem pretty offensive but it gives an idea of what I mean) to the ear. I was so used to how the Argentine´s were proud of their pronounciations, like the a was a "aah" and you dragged it out and everything was anunciated. However here, it is like they swallow their letters and phoenetics and the a sounds like the o in the word "come". I am probably confusing you. So I will stop here.

Floripá is a large city, south of Sao Paolo and Rio, and it is on an island called Ilha de Santa Catarina - which is an island very popular for surfing, bikini watching and snorkeling not to mention just general exploring. Alot of the beaches can only be accessed by foot. But we rented a car because we figured that it would be easiest to get about on the island - it is roughly an hours drive from the north of the island to the south which is pretty cool if you think about it. The south east is the best for surfing and away from the awful family tourists, trashed young students and perfect for us semi partying chilled folk.

There are some fantastic beaches, we discovered one which we spent a few days at...it was on a small jutting piece of land off the east edge of the island, which was literally a big hill that sloped down to the beach and it was white sand, clear bright blue waters, lots of surfers and no tourists. Perfect.

Brazil!

We have arrived! And we don´t understand a damned word of Portugese which is making it slightly harder! So they let me into Brazil and my first ever border crossing was smoother than dulce con leche. Incredibly surreal though to cross into one country from the other by taxi and just get down, walk across, get your passport stamped and Bob´s your uncle. You get the drift.

However we are just across the river from Argentina in a town called Foz do Iguacu, the answer to Puerto. So it doesnt feel like Brazil just yet. This is a large city though with 250,000 people in comparison to the Argentine side which only houses 40,000. This is thanks to the huge Itaipu Dam that Brazil built out of the Falls and that brought in several thousand Muslims, Japanese and Koreans, weirdly enough.

The Brazilian side of the Iguacu Falls which we visited with our new English buddy Lexi, was much much better purely because there so many less tourists and the walkways took you to spitting distance of some of the falls, making them so much more humungous and thunderous! Though there were alot less butterflies too. Will post pictures shortly.

The hostel we are staying in is lovely with a pool and delicious caiparinhas - that is all we have been drinking since we got close to the border. We have met a cool Brazilian from Sao Paolo who has been giving us some super advice on our upcoming journey. Lee and I have decided to head to the beach as we are itching for some surf and the beach bum lifestyle that is calling us. We are buying a hammock on Monday, renting a car and heading for an island called Ilha Santa Catarina which is by a town called Florianopolis... it is supposed to be a pristine beached island with great surf and tiny bays with many undiscovered beaches. Whooo flippin hoooo!!!!

Last pictures of Argentina

Before we left Argentina, we managed to go through a number of small towns that were off the beaten track and were immensely beautiful - some you will see below, like Barreal and Belen, but there were others like Cafayate where we saw the most incredible mountains and river valleys with more colours than I have written about below! We then made our way to Salta which was our last big town of the country, we met a lovely English couple who we hung out with there and partied with in some local bars. Only to then make our way to Iguacu through Corrientes.

Due to the fact that I was unable to get a good internet connection most of the way, I am just posting some photos of a few towns and fantastic scenery we managed to see along the way. What a astounding two months we have had! Brazil here we come!

Today Argentina, Tomorrow Brazil!

So here it is, the final part of our fantastic journey through Argentina. I feel really sentimental about it - i think having immersed ourselves in this country, its culture, its quirks, its language and its people not to mention the food and the drinks... it is just weird to think for the next 2 months we are going to be in a new one starting from tomorrow.

Currently we are in Puerto Iguacu, the town that borders with Brazil seperated by a massive river which is by the most important thing, the Parque Nacionale Iguacu - home of the Iguacu Falls, the worlds' largest waterfalls. Roughly 275 rivers and streams meet up to form these thunderous wonders with their shiny rainbows and teeming with 1000's of fabulously coloured butterflies! At one point we were walking along the catwalks to each different fall with butterflies on our heads, arms, backpacks and t'shirts, they just love hanging on to our bodies as they soak up the water on our skin with their long little luminous green tongues. You can´t even feel it and it isn´t at all squeamish. Its beautiful.

We took a boat ride that takes you under the slightly smaller falls and they douse you in the spray and it is like a harsh shower but immensely fun! Being so close to the thrashing waterfalls, it makes you feel so small and in awe of so much water that just does not stop gushing down to the river. What an immense source of nature.
Following that, we were left to wander the islands and lush sub-tropical forest of the Parque Nacional Iguacu. Though the only comment I have is that there were too many tourists - so you felt like you were trying to get to the parts that had no festering groups of people who were too busy filming the falls and fiddling with their cameras than actually looking at this world wonder. Fools!

Still... click on Lee´s web album for the 12,546 pictures that we took of the Falls.

Belen and some Quilmes Indian Relics!

So we decided to take the small sleepy town route up to Salta which was going to be our last main stop before we made our way east towards Iguacu Falls and Brazil.

Belen, is a beautiful little town, centred in a valley and we stayed in what is one of north Argentina´s more stylish boutique hotels. And honestly, it was! Especially considering that we have been hostelling it and staying in some rather run down but lovely places, this was a real welcome stay for us. But the highlight of our trip to the town was the incredibly warm locals, who we befriended on our first night because the town was having its huge artesenal market - where all the locals displayed their crafts, jewelry, handwoven items plus there was food, drink and folkloric music! It was such a nice way to get into the whole vibe of the town, plus we got to put our money right into the income of the town by buying locally, which always makes me feel much better than buying it off some market seller who ´claims´to have made the item themselves.

We also ended up having the craftsmen and women (about40 of them) offering to share their very delicious and hearty bbq lunch the next day to celebrate the success of their artesenal fair. It was such an eye-opener as they were fascinated to have us two foreigners there, which they toasted a few times! We had a chance to talk to some of them about culture, world politics, their lives and ours, late into the afternoon/evening. All in spanish!

And we visited an old relic site of the Quilmes Indians - who were one of the last tribes in the area to have contact with the Inca´s.

Click here for more photos.

Barreal and land sailing!

The journey was long and there is only one bus a day that goes to this sleepy town, but oh wow it was worth every sleepless moment. Barreal is off the map - a town that is what you would imagine a quaint little South American town to be, dusty wide roads, willow trees draping the sides, horses and ranches, stunning landscapes, colourful little buildings and everyone on bicycles. We stayed in a beautiful little cabaña which had a kitchenette and our very own private back garden that spread out into a valley and then mutli coloured mountains! Just round the back was a rushing aqua green river, and the owner even had the funniest Alsatien dog that befriended us.

Two things made this trip even more amazing - at night, it is a star gazers absolute dream - I have never in all my life seen this many stars, more than even in Trincomalee, and you can easily see the milky way. Plus Lee and I must have spotted 4 shooting stars whie we sat under a blanket with a jug of delicious wine and watched for a few hours. I promise you it wasnt the wine that was making the stars fly.

The second thing, was the really cool extreme thing we did - its called Carrovelismo. In English, it is pretty much land sailing/yachting! It is all to do with the weather, and is so much fun. You get to go upto 80km per hour and it is so fast when its just you, the gadget and the dude who drives it - by the way this dude was such a gnarly old chap. He took us to these flat salt lakes, which basically used to be a vast lake but due to drought and sediments, it just dried up. Really cool. Check out the pictures here for our Barreal adventure!

Punta Del Inca - ink stained mountains

I kid you not, this was one of the more spectacular scenic delights we were able to see in Argentina. The only downer was that we had little choice about being stuck on a small bus with 10 other tourists for most of the day. But in a way, it was so worth it. I will post the pictures because that is the only way anyone will be able to understand the awesomeness of this landscape. Basically, it is a point near the border of Chile (yes my attempts to enter without a visa worked again! ha ha).

The mountain range consists of The Andes and a range called the cordillero, which means the pre-Andes, very old mountains range that sort of sits infront of them. These are teeming with colour, faint tinges of ultra violet, cian, turquoise, terra cotta, pink, brown, orange, aubergine, grey, ochra, straw and olive green just to name a few! It was like a festival of my favourite colours.

Oddly enough the river that ran alongside it, looked like it was flowing with chocolate milk and this was no Willie Wonka fantasy. We couldn´t have asked for better weather - sun shining, blue skies and light breeze. After we drove past these coloured mountains, we arrived at Punta del Inca which is a point where minerals from the mountains had been swept down through cracks on to boulders by way of trickling waters - forming the most intense burst of yellows, oranges, and brown stains (almost) on the rocks itself, so fascinating. Also teamed with some fluttering luminous green parrots, it was quite the sight.

Following that, we drove up to the border of Chile and Argentina which was 4200 metres up in a mountain - the drive gave me the real heebies because it was windy and narrow... yeesh. Once we got up there though, you could tell we were at that altitude because you felt a little lightheaded and wobbly initially. Didn´t stop Lee from running up to the highest point to take pictures! There was a huge statue of Christ right between the flag posts, meant to signify the peace between the 2 countries... if only Sri Lanka would take note.

Mendoza - wineries!

Is not as incredibly fascinating as I hoped, to be honest it was more of a big colonial city. Some parts were beautiful yes, with the posh neighbourhoods, expansive plaza´s and lovely buildings with sidewalk cafes but there was something lacking. I think Lee and I have begun to like the small towns more, with their quaint and quiet charm - plus you feel more secure. there is something contrived about the big cities, however this comment does not include Buenos Aires. That city has a charm of its´own.

So we hired another cool tandem bike and did a bike tour of 3 bodegas (wineries), the company that rents out the bikes was called Bikes and Wines, so even as you get drunk the pedaling keeps you more or less sober plus if you´re going to wobble off - all you´ll hit is a tree, fall into a vineyard or crash into another bikes and wines biker.

The bodegas were really educational, not to mention slightly hazy with all the tasting, however I have to say that the more industrial ones with the big steel vats, coloured dials blinking and tubes whirring did rip the romance out of it all. There was one bodega which was the oldest functioning one in Argentina, built in1869 with cement brought over from France, bricks from London and construction engineers from Spain to make the storage tanks earthquake proof, it was a beautiful old musty smelling adventure. Plus there were no tourists and they had a secret recipe dessert wine. It was lovely.

We visited Tempus Alba, La Rural and Familia Di Tomasso (the old one), just in case one of you are sipping on any of these fine wines while you read this.

Endless road to Mendoza

This is from our bus journey from San Martin de Los Andes to Mendoza where we are now, just an idea of the vast plains and endless road that we have to watch during our journey...