Iguaza Falls

Foz da Iguaca, Brasil/ Puerto Iguazu, Argentina
April 26-28th (overnight 15 hour bus there and 18 hours out)

Without trying to sound like a feature travel writer.. I have to explain what the Iguazu Falls are because before I started my research for this trip I'd never heard of them! The Iguazu Falls are huge waterfalls on the River Iguazu which provides nicely for a border between Brazil and Argentina, and further upstream is Paraguay so it's a perfect place for backpackers to cross borders. The local towns on either side of the border are heavily reliant on the Falls for tourists, if they weren't here there wouldn't be any reason to stop. My guidebook describes the Iguazu Falls as making Niagra look like trickle, and the entrance sign said it was 'NEW 7 Wonders of the World'.

A 'Double Rainbow' moment was had.

Beaches and graffiti - florianopolis

Florianopolid, Santa Catarina
April 23-25th (Mon-Wed)

After Anna disappeared home early on Monday morning I spent the day hanging around Camboriu with Thomas - eating, drinking, picking photos for a press release, swimming and going 'jandals' shopping with his fellow Kiwis, Martin and Peter the race commentators.

When the sun went behind the sky scrapers for the evening we hit the beach for a final drink before I got my bus to Florianopolis. Time and time again I have learnt that googe.com.br is a joke when it comes to maps.. Got mighty lost because the rodovaria (bus terminal) was not on Rue 910 and was somewhere else entirely. What a ridiculous way to plan your town, numbers for street names work if you don't skip numbers and have some type of differentiation between n-s and e-w numbers! Fortunately turning up for a 6.45pm bus at 6.50pm is fine as it won't be leaving until at least half an hour later.. Mondasud!

Florianopolis is famous for surfing, windsurfing and kitesurfing. There is so much wind, swell and beaches. As well as graffiti, graffiti, graffiti everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Every wall on every street, every lamp post and every electricity box etc. Backpacker's pattern here is to stay outside of the city closer to the beaches. I was able to walk to Praia Mole on Tuesday morning, a long beach known for a strong current and good surf. And it happens to be right next to a nudist beach, I had a look but no one was there! With little effort on my part, I've spent very little of the last few days 'alone'. Had the chats with an American/Brazilian family on the beach, cute kids are key. Got a bus home with two English girls who were trying to negotiate with hostel owners to trade work for accommodation. And I made fast friends with two boys from my hostel, Marilo from Sao Paulo who had just moved 'away from stress' to work as a painter and surf everyday and Alex from Namibia who is on a year long trip around South America. I was the first Irish person they had met, cool! Lovely flow of compliments from the two of them, 'you are just SO white' and 'you look maybe 17, 18 or 19'. Sound. Just remembered that Marilo never actually did show me his 40 year old mother who looks like she is 27 on Facebook, he promised (In portuguese) he would. Haven't had a moment to myself really, I'm going to be so far behind Home and Away before I know it..

It started to rain so I told them to do a rain dance, yes of course it bloody worked!

My bus to the Iguassu Falls on Wednesday was quite late so managed to fit in some beach time the boys at Praia Mole, climbed some seriously challenging rocks and butchered my knees before I made a quick exit, leaving before they could get me to drink any caipirinhas 'to make my trip more fun!'

I took these photos with my iPhone on the 15 minute walk from my hostel to the local bus terminal in Lagao de Conceirao.

Volvo Blues

Itajai/ Balneário Camboriú, SC
15th - 23rd April (Sunday-Sunday)


I woke up last Sunday morning at 5.30am to catch our flight to Navegantes Airport and found I had a burst blood vessel in my eye, thank you food poisoning. We had a beautiful sunrise as we drove through Botafogo and onto the motorway to the airport, the iPhone is great for taking good quality pics when you're flying past in a taxi.

                              

A connecting flight in Sao Paulo and an absolute rip off taxi (a trend) to our hotel and we're in the Volvo Ocean Race race village by lunch time. Itajai is famous for being one of the world's largest container shipping ports, but you really wouldn't notice. Down the coast, no more than 10 minutes away by taxi, is Praia Brava and Balneário Camboriú, two developed beaches aimed at the young and wealthy of Santa Catarina. From what I've been reading Santa Catarina drives Brazil's economic growth with above average GDP, per capita income, literacy and health levels and few favelas make it a safe region. As such, Itajai's two local beaches have an excellent nightlife and has earned a reputation to be 'the Ibiza of Brazil'. Camboriú is a ridiculous place, a mini Copacabana with high rise plush apartments all the way along the beach whose winter population of 80,000 grows close to a million over the summer months.

Poor boys only arrived on Wednesday!

Mast goes up after arriving by container on Thursday

We frequented the two every day. I was so sad to have missed Rio's famous Favela Funk parties so our Sunday night certainly made up for it when Anna's pals took us to a samba jam session. Two blocks away from the beach
(completely deserted area, yet to be developed) we pulled up to someone's backyard which was host to a reggae session the previous week. They had converted the garden and porch into a stage and bar complete with a pool table and plastic outdoor tables and chairs. Three lads with a triangle, drum and guitar brought the house down (literally) and I witnessed some serious grindin' and driftin'. Sweaty and not particularly attractive blokes with a serious dance repertoire managed to dance with every smokin hot girl in the room. Some sight, class. 


Every night that followed was equally awesome, most of which were free thanks to property developers in the area who wanted to play host (providing a band, dinner and drinks) and Volvo and Puma. To give you an idea of the clubs in Camboriú, Green Valley a local club is the world's second largest night club. We went to Warung Beach Club for a Puma night out (VIP section sweeeet) which is equally popular and only opens 6 times a year. House and dnb. How bad!

In-Port race was exciting to watch, even without the commentary!
Telefonica were leading and went to the wrong mark, ha.

Very wet though, but the free drink and food on Puma's pirate spectator boat helped.

The Volvo Leg 5 prize giving was amazing, an outdoor tiki style restaurant/bar was taken over and pimped out with lighting and drapery that would make you think you were in LA. I saw two people end up in the pool, a surprisingly low figure considering the entire place were acting like the cafeteria come jungle scene in Mean Girls (ie Colours 2011). It was like any sailing college party/ball. No one ate any food, caipirinhas were re-filled without anyone noticing, glasses were smashed, no sailor was left with a shirt with any buttons and the floor was super slippy with spilled drink so excellent dance offs were had. The only thing that tainted it was that I was already dying with the double whammy of alcohol and food poisoning from the previous night where a quiet night with a few more of Anna's pals from different teams turned into a night that no one can remember even finishing dinner, paying for dinner or leaving the restaurant. Some of the boys went to a strip club until 6am, Anna and I made it home before then but can't remember how. Many a tale from that one but none fit for the digital world, Google is an awful gossip. Caipirinhas to blame again.  

My new favourite..
thanks for the freebies

Departure Day

I imagine the come down after this week will be something like post-Varsity Blues. It's a very different world when the drinks are brought to you.

Itajai Stopover

Life at the extreme. Caipirinhas.

I think I've a mosquito bite on my face

Ilha Grande, Brasil

April 12th - 14th, Thurs-Sat

Lopes Mendes

Ilha Grande is a small island (not Big!) about 150km south west of Rio. The trip there is a well travelled backpacker route because the hostels are good at arranging transport and making it nice and simple for you. We set off on Thursday morning at 11 and reached Conceicao do Jacarei about two hours later and waited around on a lovely picturesque pier. I have learnt that in South America it’s always best to expect people/services to be late, excellent news for me. An hour and one turtle sighting later a schooner picked us up and delivered us to the island where Lost was filmed. Not really, but it’s a good way to set the scene. No ATMs, cars, plenty of power cuts, very little phone coverage and dodgy wi-fi. It was lovely to be back in island life mode. More trees, plants and wildlife than the English language has words for. Vila do Abraoo is a bustling village, mostly home grown produce in the supermarket and restaurants, everyone super friendly and eager to show us to our pousada without any hidden business agenda.

Two nights, one boat trip, one trek, 16 mosquito bites, 1 fly bite and some serious sunburn later and we’re on our way back to Rio. We arranged our transfer home with a company called Speed Connection. Yes, Speed Connection. Our lovely bus driver drove at 110 miles an hour in the dark on a busy highway in an old, beat up mini-van. He overtook on the inside whilst going around a corner and ended up driving on the hard shoulder, right beside the pedestrians. The van was over packed with gear, backpackers, Brazilian holiday makers and AND one local pal who was catching a free ride didn’t have a seat. All shouting and cursing at the driver every time we flew over potholes (frequently) as everyone was uncomfortable and our bums hopped up and down continuously as we hurtled our way back to Rio. The French and Portuguese boys seated in the back seat apparently asked the driver to slow down at the petrol stop. I had my head resting against all the bags beside the side door and was asleep for most of the chaos, unbeknownst to me I was sharing my rucksack as a pillow with our standing friend who had fallen asleep on top of the excess baggage in a very awkward 45 degree position. In my sleep I did attempt to jostle for prime position, even gave him a sly dig with my water bottle but when his head hit mine about 3 times going over the potholes I surrendered and let him have my rucksack as a pillow. He had scars on his face and they weren’t from chicken pox or hockey balls to the face, just sayin’.

On to Itajai and the Volvo Ocean Race next. After that Florianopolis and then the Iguazu Falls. The last few pics are from Anna's camera as some of my photos disappeared of my SD! Sad.

Old coconut shell

View from boat of Ilha Grande on way home from beach