Right now it’s about 7pm on Tues 5th November and I’m on my way from Sao Paulo in Brazil – the biggest city in the southern hemisphere to Iguacu Falls – one of the world’s largest waterfalls. I’m at the start of a 15 hour bus journey. It’s an overnight sleeper bus, so for about £30 covers both travel and accommodation for the night. Bargainous. I’m not worried about not being able to sleep as I can pretty much fall asleep anywhere and the buses are more like air conditioned coaches, so we’re pretty lucky. It’s the faint waft of B.O. and the guy to our left who keeps annoyingly sucking his finger that will pose more of an issue. Immediately prior to this journey, was another 7 hour journey from Paraty, a colonial town we visited to Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo, although bustling and full of bars and restaurants, was just a connection point as we weren’t tempted by the prices and pollution of such a big city. Iguacu Falls should be amazing. As it spans across the Brazilian / Argentinian border it represents our gateway to Spanish speaking territory and therefore will provide more of a chance to practice our Spanish and hopefully therefore not be looked upon in such a surly manner by the locals.
Since leaving Rio, we have been to Ilha Grande – a beautiful tropical island off the coast of Brazil. A desert island paradise, covered in forest with over 106 beaches, about the size of the Isle of Wight, with no cars and no cash machines. This was one of the places I had researched and it looked seriously amazing. The only problem was, it was raining. We were met off the ferry by a guy called Max something who lured us to his campsite with the prospect that he had canopies across the whole camping area, meaning you stayed dry, even sitting around your tent. We were greeted by a group of other Brazilian / Argentinian guys that were also staying there. We set up and then went to explore. We grabbed a few beers, ate some fish and had a few Caipirinhas. The island was beautiful but we were a bit sad it was raining so much.
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| Start of our hike in the rain. |
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| Mother 'ucker. |
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| A bit vulture-ry. |
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| Sad face still raining! |
The following day Tim awoke me to the words ‘no rush to get up, it’s still grey and miserable’. By this point, it was like a muddy Glastonbury, so we stayed in the kitchen of the campsite all day, writing emails and I wrote about Rio. In the morning we drank coffee. In the afternoon, we drank beer. In the evening however, we decided to go out for another Caipirinha to cheer ourselves up and we found a bar up a back track that had what I think you might call a pool table. To set up, you had to open a drawer on the side of the table that was so warped it was impossible to open and when you did, lots of dust and flies flew out. The balls were roughly the same size, but all different colours. Most had either a spot or a circle, but one was anonymous. The owner of the bar, Dennis, although I’m sure I heard him say Guiness, was so happy that we were there, that he spent most of his time watching us attempt to get the balls down the pockets, whilst grinning and occasionally decorating our cues with swirly designs using the bit of chalk lying around. After an hour or so, we managed to clear the table and decided to call it quits there as our bellies were starting to rumble and we had the now much fine-tuned dinner of pasta, some sort of tomato sauce and peas to make back at the campsite.
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| Busy with peas and pasta |
The following day was a totally different story. We woke up and the sky was blue, the previously wet dirt tracks through the small village on the southern end of the island were drying nicely and people were out and about being all colourful and cheery. We made a fruit salad for breakfast, packed a few rolls for lunch and decided to, this time, head out to the east side of the island. We found a route that was to take us so through the ruins of an old prison, under the arches of a still used aqueduct, through lush rainforest, to waterfalls, view-points, natural pools and quiet beaches. What a place. The previous dark thoughts and feelings of the island had lifted. What previously had appeared a place more suited to the filming of Lord of the Flies, now sparkled and felt like paradise. Butterflies actually glided in the lower canopies of the forest and we watched as a family of monkeys got all precious about their food, finding things to eat and then running up to higher branches with their backs turned to ensure other family members didn’t know they were eating. Message to sis – didn’t you do this with some roast potatoes just before I left, haha!
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| Paradise... |
I also had my first waterfall experience. It was so beautiful that I couldn’t help but strip to my bikini and ungracefully scramble to its base, and I can confirm I did in fact feel spiritually cleansed. Although that could have been due to the force of the water ridding me of my usual layer of oily suncream and 50% deet.
After the glory of the waterfall, we walked perhaps another half an hour and found ourselves on one of the best beaches I have ever seen or been on. It was a small cove, with rocks at either side, a jungle backdrop, a few people milling around and a place to buy beer. I had a swim, I drank a beer and I snoozed the best snooze of my life. When I woke up and realised where I was, I ran out into the sea again as fast as I could, arms flapping and threw myself into the water. I have never been anywhere so beautiful. Message to V – one day, we will go to this island together!
The closing stages of the walk took us back through the forest, amidst a backdrop of creaking gigantic bamboo plants, mating rituals of red headed finch like birds that make whooping sounds like fireworks and what we think must be a chorus of toads, but they sounded more like either motorbikes revving, a herd of dead ghost cows mooing or big cats snarling in the bushes which I must admit does add that slight trepidation to any jungle walk.
Then it was beers at our favourite bar, a dinner of pasta, this time with frankfurters (well for me only) and to end the night, a walk along the beach, under the stars, with some of the Brazilian / Argentinian folk from the hostel trying to practice our Spanish whilst being ridiculously drunk on Caipirinhas. A good day.
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| Favourite bar. |
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| Surveillance face! |
The next day we left Ilha Grande on the ferry and headed to Paraty, a colonial town on the mainland, about 2 hours further south. Unfortunately I was feeling pretty crippled that morning as the day before I had tried to hang upside down in a bamboo plant and had done my neck in. I couldn’t look down and I couldn’t really look left or right either. To add to this I had also stupidly eaten last night’s left over frankfurters straight after my breakfast of fruit salad and it was not sitting well in my stomach. Fortunately there were loos on the ferry and the process of throwing up the sausage actually loosened my neck up a bit which was a unexpected bonus.
We arrived in Paraty in the late afternoon and headed to a hostel Tim has researched which was right on the beach – geko hostel. The hostel was great, the people were cool, friendly and pierced and everyone seemed to pretty much be up for having a good time. The beer was cheap and the Caipirinhas were strong. We mooched around for a bit looking for a place to eat later that evening and took some photos of the amazing colonial buildings as the sun set. This town was blatantly geared up for tourists. Service came with a smile and road signs and tables came with the MasterCard logo emblazoned on them. But if you could look past this, it made for a pleasant stay.
Paraty, yeah!
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| Pararty party people, yeah. |
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| View at breakfast |
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| Some new boats for trips down the Wey. |
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| Paraty Colonial buildings and stuff |
We treated ourselves to dinner out. We shared a small crab starter and followed this by sharing a large plate which according to the waiter would usually suffice 4 and consisted of fish stuffed with shrimp and cheese, battered and accompanied with greek rice and sauté potatoes. Absolutely amazing and much to the disbelief of the waiter, we demolished the lot.
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| Leftovers from starter |
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| Taking on the main curse |
It was cheap for what it was, but still the problem arrived whilst paying that our card showed insufficient funds. We managed to pay using another, but this was hard to believe as we had been trying so hard to keep to budget by camping where possible and making our own food etc. We wandered back to the hostel, slightly disillusioned in the fact that we’d managed to blow so much in just over a week and sensibly changed our nightcap option from beach cocktail to a can of cheap lager in the hostel while looking over our online bank account statement.
It soon all became clear and our fears / hopes were confirmed when we soon realised we’d been scammed. At least 4 transactions had been made using Tim’s card in Peru! I’ve never been so happy to have been robbed. It meant we were still on budget. Whilst we left the problem with the Metro Bank to sort out, we got busy having some more fun in the sun. This was to be our last day in Paraty before having to endure a number of lengthy bus journeys inland to Iguacu Falls.
Making the most of it, we hired a couple of crappy pushbikes for the day to explore the region and head into the hills to find some waterfalls. However after cycling out of town towards the mountains for an hour and reaching the foot of the climb it was soon apparent that Tim’s bike was just so old and decrepit that it couldn’t go up hills. We gave it a good old go but the chain just keep jumping off the spokes, in all gears, so we decided to return the bikes and do something else instead. The journey back wasn’t so uneventful though and on route back to town we found a horse loose on what was quite a major road. Still at the side of the road, near an open gate his mule friend who had obviously decided the middle of the road was not such a good idea and was standing there looking a bit sheepish. So we ditched the bikes and waited for a break in the near endless line of unhelpful tooting cars and got behind the horse with a big stick trying to encourage it back into the field it had come from. After both mule and horse were successfully back where they belonged we headed back into the village. We got reimbursed on the bikes and tracked down a lovely dude of a guy called Matteo, who looked a bit like Michael Palin who hired us out a double sea kayak and we went exploring around the islands. Tim was the powerhouse at the back whilst I sat and tried to add some force, but with my already dodgy shoulder and now cricked neck, I don’t think I was much help. Great fun though and a massive thanks to my colleagues at work for the dry bag which meant we could take cameras and get some shots of the islands. By this point, it had become a bit cloudy, the weather wasn’t fantastic and the wind got the waves up at time but the water was still as warm as bath water. I occasionally freaked as I thought we were going to capsize and sink the boat; and I know it can be done as us Godalming lot have successfully managed this in the past on the River Wey! But instead we got back in one piece, having successfully worked up an appetite for a pasta dinner and some future travel planning. And then obviously some hammock time.
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| A possible addition to the Isle of Wight? |
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| This was about the size of my face |
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| Learning to relax and not do anything |
Well, I’m now into the 4th hour of the 15 hour bus journey, and it is dark enough that I can probably get some kip. We’ve just stopped at a service station and I’ve stocked up on apples and grape juice for the rest of the journey. I’ve decided to take travel days as detox days. A good reason to leave off the beer and cheese rolls. At least for one day every 2 weeks.
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