24 hours in Rio

In the sun on Copacabana beach

Me on copacabana beach

Drinking a coconut on copacabana beach

Looking down on Rio at dusk from Sugar Loaf

A mad artist and me

The mad artist's steps

Graffiti man and Richie

Tram in the old part of Rio

My new strapline

Christ the Redeemer ... captions please! Even though i was standing at his feet, his face was hidden from me. Perhaps in the cloud of unknowing.

A huge room for the 2 of us in Rio

Ilha Grande

Ilha Grande is a large, natural island off the coast of Rio with no cars at all and it is stunningly beautiful. We arrived late yesterday afternoon and walked up the hill to our Pousada. It's run by a German and his Brazilian wife and is the nicest place we'v stayed to date. Simple but in a beautiful setting next to a river with a pool/waterfall in the grounds.

Today we woke up to a perfect sunny day and took a boat ride to Lopez Medes beach which was excellent. The sand on the beach was powder fine and squeaked underfoot, the sea was warm with great waves to play in, and the weather was just right. It was idyllic.

We ended the day eating in a fish restaurant down by the beach, in a thunderstorm watching the lightening light up the sea.

Kristy in our room on Ilha Grande, waiting to walk down the hill to catch our speedboat!

Crabs eating rice on Ilha Grande

Did I mention the amazing cake stalls on Ilha Grande?

The transport to the boat bar where Kristy and me spent 2 hours having lunch in the rain

The speedboat that took us away from Ilha Grande, towards Rio

Paraty

View from our room in Paraty

Having a beer on the beach at Paraty

Today we made our way to Paraty by plane and minivan. It is very lush here, beautiful scenery and an old Portuguese town with cobbled streets that are difficult to walk on.

Unfortunately we can only imagine the beautiful scenery as our minivan made its way through round the winding roads hugging the hills as we we seemed to spend most of it in the clouds and rain! It´s rained since we got here this afternoon, on and off. We found ourselves a great restaurant with live Brazilian music and spent a few happy hours there, oblivious to the flooded streets outside.

Next day was brighter so we took a bus ride up the coast to a lovely cove and spent much of the day chilling out on the beach and playing in the huge waves in the sea.

Iguazu Falls

I think this was our 6th UNESCO world heritage site of the trip so far. Absolutely stunning and breathtaking.

275 falls over 2.5k, I´ll need to post some photos to even give an idea of how amazing these falls are. We walked around, over and under falls on the Argentinian and Brazilian sides. I also took a helicopter ride over it for an ariel view and a boat ride up to and into the falls - v v wet!

Bonito

Swimming with the fish at the 'municipal' swimming area in Bonito

Our group all ready for snorkelling down the river in Bonito

Toucan at the bird park in Bonito

After the same lengthy journey out to the Pantanal (this time in daylight) we took a minivan to Bonito.

As our guide described, this is something of a holiday resort for richer Brazilians.

The highlight of our time here was a snorkelling trip down one of the most crystal clear rivers in the world teeming with beautiful fish. It was an incredible experience. (More on theat later)

The next day I went with a couple of outher members of our group to the ´municipal´swimming which was a beautiful recreation area alongisde the river with swimming in the river and a lagoon area (with plenty of fish again). I think we were the only non Brazilians there. It was really great!

The Pantanal



Tubing in the floodwater of the Pantanal

View from my hammock in the Pantanal

 



Tubing in the floodwater



My first Pirahna

My room mate Kristy helping to eat the Pirahna we caught (on her birtrhday)

Caiman in the Pantanal


   I´ll expand on this section later (it´s late here and I have to be up at 4am to catch a flight). We had a really wonderful time in the Pantanal.

We went tubing in the tannin coloured floodwaters - it wsa a lovely, peaceful experience. I think someone may have got into trouble for not making us wear life jackets, but it didn~t really bother us at all - we had the tubes!

After that we waded into the water round our island (I was in up to my shoulders) and we fished for Piranha. Unfortunately we didnt catch any there´, but people did a few days earlier.



Then we had a lovely lunch and lazed in the hammocks for a while. Did I say that it was a beauticul, warm sunny day?

In the afternoon  a few of us took a boat trip and had a nother go at catching Piranha. This time we were much more successful. I caught 5 but only managed to get 3 into the boat. A balck one, a beauticul purple one and a golden yellow one. In total we caught 6 (which were later cooked for our teat - and very nice they were too!)



The hammock camp would we have been staying in ... if it were not flooded



We found some dry land and went horseriding for a while, seeing more wildlife.

Had tea, and then an evening boatride. Another boatdide in the morning and then it was time to leave the Pantanal.

Fishing for Pirahna at our camp in the Pantanal

Getting into the Pantanal

Alex, Richard and Gail on the trailer about to be towed by the tractor across the flooded roads in the dark

The flooded road - note the underwater bridge over the river to be negotiated (this pic taken on the way back in daylight!)

The washed away bridge where we had to use a small boat as a ferry

The Pantanal is one of the largest wetlands on the planet (or is it the largest - it´s v big!)

The journey in usually takes about an hour by truck on dirt roads and we were to be staying in a simple campe, with no power and a space with hammocks for us all to sleep in. The problem was that the Pantanal is currently suffering the worst floods for over 40 years and that´s causing all sorts of problems for people who live and work there.

For us it meant that instead of s imple truck ride in taking an hour, we would be travelling by truck, then boat, then truck, then 4wd, then truck, then tractor and boat - taking around 3-4 hours, on flooded roads and swollen rivers - in the pitch dark!!!

The good news was that our simple camp wsa totally underwater and we were upgraded to much better accommodation on what is small patch of dry in the pantanal.

I could write for a long time about the journey. Perhaps the highlight was the dodgy truck with a dodgy driver. We´d just crossed a deep, fast flowing river by boat (as the bridge was completey washed away) and got on the truck. It stalled. So the driver decided to bump start it my taking it down the bank into the river (it was the only slope);. It didn´t work first time, so he did it again then swung the truck round in the water and pointed it up the bank, where it stalled again. Somehow he managed to roll it backwards into the river. I should explain that we were all sitting with our packs on a trailer attached to te back of the truck. This was completely in the flooded river. And remember it was pitch black!!

When the ´raod ´got too bad for 4wd trucks we got on a trailer with a tractor in front. At one piont the driver had to negotiate onto an underwater bridge over the swollen river.

I could go on and on about the journey in but I´ll stop there. It was a great adventrue but not one I´d wish to repeat!

On the plus side was saw a lot of wildlife - including caiman (crocs)

We finally arrived at our island around 11:30pm for a welcome meal and were very happy to get into our bunks!