Four Sheets to the Wind in Rio de Janeiro and beyond

Hello avid readers, since our last brief encounter so much has been going on.

We stayed in Ipanema, then in Santa Teresa where we rode the little yellow tram down to Lapa in the center of Rio.

We had an introduction to the Selaron staircase, a public area, completely taken over by a man with a tiling obsession. This is Selaron himself supervising the work of an underling

Some tiles are his own, but many have been sent from people all over the world

Every day in the lead up to the parade there were street parties & samba concerts that were lively & generally so packed you had to give up and happily follow the masses

We watched a few football games at Maracana stadium, go Botafogo! (we cheered for them so as not to get beaten up by their loyal fans...as this is a not uncommon occurance in Rio)

We went to the Viradouro samba school rehersal (possibly the strangest school of all) and a favela funk party consisting of 2000 people crammed into a warehouse
There was plenty of sun and coconuts at Ipanema & Copacabana beaches

We took a tour of two favelas, poor but thriving cities, Vila Canoas and Rocinha


The company we toured with donates money to the Para Ti school in Vila Canoas & this is some of the students clever artwork

We walked all the way up to the Christ the Redeemer statue on a grey day, eating smelly jackfruit on the way

We had lunch with Igor and Anna (who we first met in Buenos Aires) at the Girl from Ipanema restaurant. They also graciously invited us to their house in the southern suburbs for dinner before we left Rio

Then, there was the major reason we went to Rio, the parade at the Sambodrome, 6 schools performing on one night, 5000 people in each school dressed in the most amazing costumes parading until the wee hours of the morning

Wandering home at 5 am, we saw so many costumes left behind in the streets, some beautiful and some not so, but all getting soggy and dirty in the morning rain

We also hiked up Urca mountain (the one next to the distinctive Sugarloaf) There were butterflies everywhere, also nasty little wrestling monkeys

We then took the worst 42 hour bus trip back to Buenos Aires ever, complete with broken air-con, police probes, missing passengers, broken toilet (makes for a smelly bus), disorganised border crossing, and the painful crooning of Los Bukis band on the "entertainment" system until midnight

Once in Buenos Aires we experienced three iconic cultural experiences with our friend Seamus who lives there, eating some amazing parilla at Des Nivel, running for the obelisk in the middle of 12 lanes of speeding traffic & frolicking with the locals in the ever present problem of uncollected city trash

Then took a Super Cama bus (the closest to luxury travel we will ever come with fully reclining seats separated by curtains, free vino whiskey and champagne, hot meals, good movies & bingo) to Bariloche, where they had to drag us off

We took one week of Spanish classes on the edge of a glacial lake surrounded by mountains and forest. Darryl says it's very similar to Queenstown (just no jails)

Laguage instructor Angie who took us bowling where they still set the pins by hand

There's good mountain biking on the Circuito Chico around glacial lakes (which Darryl has classified as spanner water), forests and a brewery (which was not exactly conducive to riding a bicycle(well) which Jess can further attest to)

Tomorrow we will start on our attempt at a 5 day hike through the wilderness near Bariloche. Hopefully you will hear from us again soon.

Love, Darryl ´I want to be Edmond Hillary´ West and Jess "Porter" West

Brazil: Curitiba, Barra da Lagoa & Parati

Hello all.
We did the mission over the border to Brazil that same day and headed over to Curitiba for no other reason than that, it was there. Highlights were, bird & monkey park in the middle of town, cheap Havanianas, & an amazing train ride to the coast through the Atlantic rainforest.

We also enjoyed a number of the local brews in the historic centre of town.

After Curitiba we headed to Santa Catarina island. We stayed at a family run pousada near the beach run by Nelson and Graciela, who made us sit down with them and eat lunch the moment we arrived, sweaty, exhausted and starving. Nelson, grinning, also handed me a rolling pin one night Darryl came home late after I had been worried for hours(he always seemed to know the right thing to do)

They hosted backpackers from Israel, Germany, the UK, Brazil, Argentina, France & Romania. There were so many languages flying around it was difficult ot keep up and our portuguese goes no farther than our phrasebook. Nelson made us caipirinhas, a perfect Brazilian drink made with sugar cane alcohol and limes. After one or two, it didn't matter that nobody understood you.

We spent a week here drinking, swimming, hiking to hidden beaches and attempting to surf with Gustavo, Roland, Ovi, Rob, Saskia & Seamus.

We also stopped in Parati, a town with a rough past as an outlet of the country's gold in the 1700s

Unfortunately it rained almost the whole time we were there, but we rented mountain bikes anyway and rode to some waterfalls and a farm where they make (and give generous samples of) the potent cachaca used in caipirinhas.

Holding up a wall, waiting for a bus to Rio.

Love, d&j

Argentina: Buenos Aires & Iguazu

Still jetlagged, Darryl made enough sense of the Spanish language to get us a meal

In San Telmo, our first hostel


Hello everyone,
We are well into our second week and currently have had relatively smooth sailing. Our week in Buenos Aires has been good and has been enough time to try some tango at Bar Sur

but mostly watch the experts

wander through Recoleta cemetery where Eva Peron is buried

ponder further travel plans in atmospheric surrounds

tour La Boca

For a day trip we took a commuter boat from Tigre that winds through the islands within the delta, sampling a little bit of the local brew on the way

We headed out on the first of, no doubt, many long bus trips to the Iguazu Falls located on the Brazil and Argentina border. After 18 hours on a ´semi cama´(translation=a bed which sits at a 70 degree angle) bus behind four screaming children in 40 degree heat we thought we´d take it easy at the hostel. However, it was Darryl's birthday and our newly acquainted Colombian friend talked us into going to the Falls instead.

just waiting for that one jumper

We took a boat under the waterfalls and walked through the rainforest where Darryl made friends with a hungry coati.

Later that evening Darryl was serenaded by a group of Israeli travelers, singing happy birthday, then they forced him to eat a steak and drink a beer. It was rough, but he managed it.

We think we´re going to Brazil today, but have no accomodation, no bus ticket(everything is full) and it´s 3 in the arvo. No doubt everything will work out for the best in the end.

Cheers, love us

PS Thanks all for the birthday wishes.

Day One Buenos Aires

Buenos Dias! We made it to Buenos Aires although almost weren´t allowed on the plane as we didn´t have return tickets to Australia!, however thanks to trusty credit card and a bit of dodgy business by Qantas staff we got a fully refundable ticket-needless to say we´ve already asked for the refund. The journey here was a long and arduous mission through Kuala Lumpur, Johannesburg and Cape Town to Argentina-total transit time 50 hours! On arriving Jess realised after clearing customs she had left her day pack at the baggage carosel, but Argentinian customs security being what it is (non existent) no one batted an eyelid when she walked straight back into customs and immigration to pick it up. Once at the airport there were a number of options to get into town, us being the tight arses we are, didn´t want to spend 35 pesos-approximately 7 aus dollars to catch a direct shuttle-so spent an hour and a half trying to scrounge exact change for the local bus-one peso 60 cents-40 aus cents-this journey ended up taking an additional two hours but we made it! Anyway, we´re off to check out the city and the nightlife. We´ll have a cerveza for you all. Chao! Darryl and Jess