Monday, February 16, 2009

Beach

After two long days of driving we finally made it to the beach! We are now in Paraty (take one a out of that of that name and you get PARTY) and camping right across the street from an awesome little bay that is lined with little beach bars and huts. Last night there was a jazz festival going on in town, which was very fun - I think the whole town was out for it. I plan on spending most of the time here on the beach or in a lukewarm water, apart from the boat trip we are taking tomorrow. Very excited to only be 4 hours away from Rio - this sounds cheesy, but you can almost feel the excitement in the air here. Hope this finds you all well! Cheers

Friday, February 13, 2009

Brazil

So we are finally in Brazil... everything is great, except no one can understand a lick of Portuguese! It has been really frustrating going from doing really well practicing Spanish to attempting this crazy language, on paper it looks like Spanish, but really sounds nothing like it. We´re making do though, I have learned to bark English at the locals (and expect them to understand) like the Aussies have done all along the trip.

So it is hot as anything here, but I´m not complaining! Just wake up sweating in the tent every morning...

When we arrived in Brazil we visited the other side of Iguazu Falls - which was even better than the Argie side. The Brazilian side featured awesome vistas of all of the 100´s of falls and was really amazing (just a note about photos - I am trying to download them as we speak for about the 10th time this trip, so if they don´t make it up I will send them around right when I get back). From there we camped right outside of the city of Foz de Iguazu, our campsite had a nice pool and bar area which provided a great place to celebrate some Kiwi holiday, since our guide and driver and one girl on the tour are from New Zealand. While we were in Foz we also took a bus over to Paraguay... apparently the city we visited is known as one of the most corrupt cities in South America, it wasn´t terribly impressive - they were known for selling cheap electronics, so I got a new watch (since I lost the one I got for the trip). Overall the day in Paraguay was not great, mostly because it rained harder that day than I think I have ever seen before!

From Foz we trekked north for 2 days to the Pantenal. The Pantenal is known as one of the best wildlife viewing areas on the planet. We spent three days there watching animals from all means of transport - foot, horseback, boat, open-air truck, hammocks, etc. It was a really nice place, minus the swarms of mosquitos. We mostly got to see lots of different birds, reptiles, monkeys and other random animals. I was most excited about seeing an armadillo rooting around when we were horseback riding. While we were at the Pantenal lodge and we also went pirahna fishing, using bits of beef as bait. That was a really cool experince, their teeth were amazing - I wasn´t the best fisherman in our group as far as quantity, but I am pretty sure I caught the biggest one. We ate the piranhas for lunch and dinner (thank god we had other food though because there is not much meat on those little guys, and yes, they tasted like chicken). We were disappointed that we didn´t see anacondas and jaguars in the Pantenal, I imagine you would have to put in more than 3 days to see those guys.

From the Pantenal we headed to Bonito (where we are now). Yesterday, we went on this awesome snorkeling trip down this amazingly clear river. There were massive fish and brilliant colors in this very unique river - I constantly had to remind myself that I was not snorkeling in the sea. I know my folks would have loved it since they like snorkeling so much... maybe someday I will send them... gotta get a job first though! Sorry guys! I do have some great pictures of the river that I will be sharing. Tomorrow we start two long days of driving to the ocean, where will camp on the beach for 3 days before finally making it to the party in Rio.

I am so excited to get the Rio, the tour officially ends on the 20th, but most people in the group will be staying in the same hotel. At this point I am ready to be done with traveling with this large of a group, just a couple more days to go...

more to come...

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

¡Hola Argentina!

Much has happened since my last post! Lots of driving and territory covered.

After a big night out at the disco in Potosi, we made our way south over some very bumpy roads - one was so bumpy in fact that we had to wait about 4 hours to pass while construction crews worked on it. Some kind of dynamite problem I guess... We finally made it to our overnight stop in Tupizia - only a couple hours away from the Argentinian boarder. The next day we headed for the boarder (another sketchy boarder town), the most exciting part about the crossing was a bunch of brats throwing water balloons at the gringos in line at immigration. After finally getting into Argie, we drove for many hours to our next overnight in Salta.

Salta was great - felt a lot more like Spain than anywhere we had been in South America. We spent 4 nights camped out on the southside of town, right next to this massive swimming pool (we were told it was the largest in the southern hemisphere). There was tons to do in town and in the Salta area - we spent one day cruising the town and eating lots of the famous Argentinian beef. We had this meal that including lots of interesting parts of the cow, that I was brave enough to try... yuck! We also spent a day in Salta on a rafting trip, it had been a long time since I had gone rafting, so it was a lot of fun - good rapids and a downpour of rain ensured that everyone got soaked.

Salta was also where our group was for the Super Bowl... unfortunately the Super Bowl fell on the same night as a massive soccer game in Argentina, so we had to wait until that game was over before we got to turn on the Super Bowl. Luckily we turned it on right at the beginning of the 4th! What an awesome game! There was a good crowd of us watching from our group and then some random Americans here and there watching too. That night turned into quite a party in Salta! On Monday we left Salta early and had two full days on driving (not fun... including camping at a gas station one night - yes, they do that here I guess) to get where we are now, Puerto Iguazu.

We spent all of today at the AWESOME Iguazu Falls - one of the hightlights of the trip so far. They have a beautiful National Park set up for the Falls here and they were nothing short of breath taking. The coolest part of the day was taking a power boat to the base of the falls, where we were soaked/blown by the power of the falls. Tomorrow we will cross the boarder into Brazil and visit that side of the falls - I´m trying to limit myself to around 100 waterfall pictures... hahaha.

I hope everyone had great Super Bowl parties! Cheers