Cochabamba to Sucre

Cochabamba's main square

We stayed in Cochabamba longer than we expected for two reasons, one was we both got quite ill and wanted to stay close to a toilet, and the other was the buses were not as regular as we expected. Oh and one more reason, because Ellen is rubbish at map reading.
Cochabamba itself is a very quiet place, not a lot happening, it's not really on the tourist trail but we went there after Ellen planned our route and mistook the dot on the map for Totora as the one for Cochabamba, 231 km away. So Cochabamba was supposed to be a stop to break up a 14 hour bus journey, but it added 8 hours. Not to worry, it was a great place to chill out and Skype family and friends and catch up on the blog. Also as there is not a lot to do we didn't feel guilty for not getting out and seeing a lot of sights, as there were not many. There is a statue of Christ on a hill which you can walk to (with, according to guidebooks, a high likelihood of getting mugged) or take the cable car. After discovering there would be no toilet at the top we decided against it.

Dumbos? Why not!

Instead we did a bit of a walk, staying close to clean-looking cafes and restaurants, just in case. 

We walked through the town market, down Espana street, we ate in a place called Dumbos - an American style diner (if you squint and turn your head sideways) which sold burgers, salads and ice cream. Angel must have been ill, he didn't want any ice cream. For those readers who don't know him, this is heard of. 

On Saturday morning we headed to the bus station to buy our bus tickets for that night to Sucre. In Bolivia you cannot purchase bus tickets on any other day except the day the bus is leaving. So we bought tickets at about 9.15 am and the 8pm bus to Sucre was already full, so we got on the 8.15pm one with Trans Copacabana.

Sucre

The ride started out quite well for a Bolivian bus company, left on time, then about 45 minutes into the journey the driver pulled the huge bus over to the side of the road, and walked into a dive of a cafe and had his dinner. No announcements, no warning. Some passengers got off the bus and followed  him into the cafe and others got off and relieved themselves in the bushes (there was no toilet, and as this is Bolivia, there is no toilet on the bus either). This was the only intentional stop in the 10 hour journey. Seriously. Lucky for us we had planned for this, done our research into Bolivian bus travel and had stopped drinking 6 hours prior so we were suitably dehydrated for the journey, knowing that Bolivian buses, though they usually have a toilet on the bus, they lock them and rarely stop for passengers to go to the loo.

At 1.32 am the bus stopped on the edge of a mountain road and after about 20 minutes of the drivers walking around outside the bus, we were all told we had to get off the bus and walk as the 'road' (read: dirt path) was muddy and we needed to lighten the bus to get it around the corner.  All the passengers got off in the pitch darkness and thick fog and proceeded to walk down the steep road (the drivers had given no indication of how far we were to walk). Luckily Angel always carries a small torch for such occasions in his backpack so we could at least wee where we were going as there was no light. We walked as far as we thought we needed to walk, and then after about 10 minutes of standing about and the bus came down the hill to pick us up, some old ladies had kept on walking down the hill and we picked them up about 200m down the mountain. Despite this little adventure we were not late into Sucre. In fact we were a little early. A first for our bus trips in South America!

Sucre market. look at her face!

We arrived in Sucre at 6.30 and shared a taxi to our hotel with a Kiwi girl who we had met on the bus, she was travelling alone. Arriving at our hostel was a little odd. We rang the buzzer, a guy answered speaking only Spanish saying we would have to wait an hour until reception opened,  but that we could wait in the courtyard, and then proceeded to stay on the intercom and not open the door. Still on the intercom a couple of minutes later, still talking to us and still not buzzing us through. Finally the door opened. Maybe he was still asleep. 

Dino Park, Ellen with Nessie.

The hostel (Kultur Berlin) is good, clean, very quiet, has German-themed cafe with great German apple cake (though appalling coffee!) and intermittent wifi (we are writing this from a cafe around the corner). Hot showers though, always a bonus! Also on the final day they came and told us we had overpaid by 640 Boliviano (about £64) and gave us our money back. which made it 50% cheaper than we budgeted for. Hostelworld had the wrong price. Nice!

Dinosaur footprints in the wall, look carefully.

In our first 2 days in Sucre, we went to the local markets then up to the Ricoleta neighbourhood and had a tour of the Franciscan monastery (the tour was only in Spanish and we impressed ourselves with how much we knew!) and then rode the 'Dinobus' out out to the very touristy site of the dinosaur footprints discovered in a quarry just on the outskirts of town. It was interesting to see the prints, but it was all very over-the-top - with very colourful life-size statues of dinosaurs and the 'imagined' dinosaur sounds piped around the park. Our guide was great though and even asked Ellen at the end if there was anything he could do to make his information better. Bless.

On our return to the hostel we discovered there was a general transport strike in Potosi, which was the town our bus to Tupiza needs to pass through, there will be road blocks and therefore no traffic can pass through Potosi for 48 hours, so we found ourselves stuck in Sucre for 2 more days, we had booked a hotel in Tupiza and they said they will move our booking to the 7th, and the bus company, we went back to the bus station to get our money back and they said we had to come back again tomorrow at 8am and get our money back. We were pretty sure it was a con and we would not get the money back in the end. Bearing in mind the tickets are 160 Boliviano for 2 (£15.80) and the taxi to the station is costing us 20 Boliviano return, and as we have been out there twice and would need one more time to go back, and at 8am, we decided to write-off the loss, and drank German beer at the hostel bar instead. 

I need to buy one of these!

As our room at the hostel was like a small apartment we spent most of the next day lounging around the patio outside the room in the hammock. Nice. We ate dinner at a great vegetarian place we had spotted just around the corner from the main square, very tasty, brilliant spicy salsa. 

The next day we planned the morning, dropped off laundry (rare that we are somewhere long enough to do it this regularly) and headed to the Simon Boliviar park, expecting it to be a large city park, but it was just a green nature strip with a road on either side, about 50m wide. It was pretty enough but also as Sucre is quite small it only took us 20 minutes to stroll here from our hotel. So we headed back into town to eat at the El Patio saltinas restaurant again and picked us up some of their amazing saltinas and empanadas and carried them with us as we walked to the city cemetery. It reminded us of the beautiful one in Buenos Aires in Palmero. Most graves it seems are placed in concrete vaults stacked high like bunk beds, this is because it is cheaper than family plots, some are 6 or 7 stories high. 

After eating our saltinas back at the hostel (we didn't eat them in the cemetery, that would be weird) we headed to what is now our local cafe, Metro, and had £1.50 frappachinos and skyped Ellen's Mum. 

El Patio's Saltinas

We finished off the day with dinner at a very interesting place called 'Nouvelle Cuisine' the name could not be further from the food. It's a really down-and-dirty steak house (in both senses of the word), bursting with locals and brilliant steak! The tables are covered in plastic table-cloths, the glasses were not very clean, so we drank the beer from the bottle, but it was certainly a great experience, the salad was a buffet and our steak came out undercooked but they were great when we asked them to cook it longer. It was a bargain too - we had a sirloin each,  all-you-can-eat salad, a big plate of chips and a litre of beer each, all for £12 (for both of us). Brilliant. Very full, we staggered back up the hill to the hostel where we had a couple of £1.50 mojitos. Bolivias very low prices have been keeping us well within budget, in fact we are struggling to spend our daily budget - including giving money to people sitting on the street. On our 2nd day in Sucre we were walking back to the hostel after the DinoTour and saw an old lady sitting on the pavement, she was not begging but looked like she was taking charity (we find many regional down-on-their-luck Bolivians do not beg, they sit there and wait for someone to give them money) so we gave her 30 Boliviano (just under £3) and her face lit up, she started singing and thanking us, there is so much poverty in South America and for us in London £3 would barely get us a take away coffee bit 30 Boliviano would feed this lady 3-4 solid meals from the town market. It made us feel good that we made her so happy, but there is the other side of the coin that in a couple of days she will be hungry again and relying on the charity of others.

We had a great time in Sucre, quite a chilled out couple of days, taking advantage of the strike and having an opportunity to relax on this hectic adventure without actually being ill! 

Tomorrow we have a bus to Tupiza. 10 hours through the desert on a cheapie bus (ie no reclining seats and probably includes livestock!) 

La Paz, a little disappointing.

To be honest we were quite disappointed with La Paz. We had been expecting a vibrant city with friendly people, but we found it was not and only stayed as long as we had to;  2 nights before our jungle adventure and one night afterwards. We even changed hotels on our return from the jungle as the beds in the first hotel Hotel Berlina, were just awful (broken metal coil jutting out of the mattress and ripped Ellen's leg, the hotel did not seem particularly surprised) But it did have an amazing rooftop view. We moved to Hotel Rosario and it was brilliant, great room (in fact the room we were in was the main image on their website) and great breakfast, and nice helpful staff.

Llama foetus anyone?

Arriving into La Paz is probably the most amazing thing about the city, you drive down hill into a spectacular valley of terracotta buildings. Its a sight to see and quite breathtaking.

After arriving into La Paz by bus (which was another adventure) from Puno via Copacabana, we did give the city a chance and set out to walk around the streets taking in the sounds and sights of this enormous metropolis. Starting at the Mercado de Hechiceria (witches market) filled with herbal remedies and, disturbingly, llama foetuses (apparently it is good luck to bury one under your porch, we passed), then we went to the Museo San Francisco, which was a bit disappointing really as they did not tell us when we purchased the tickets that half of the building had been closed off - and this included the section with the brilliant views our guidebook wrote of! Not to be too disappointed we headed up to the beautiful pigeon-filled Plaza Murillo, watching the kids feed and chase the pigeons which reminded us of Trafalgar Square in London, before feeding the pigeons was illegal, and then wandered the streets around this central area, then headed back over nearer our hotel to the mercado negro, a never-ending labyrinth of streets filled with stores selling everything and anything, here we picked up a few things we needed for our jungle adventure, including long-sleeved t-shirts. 

We ate twice at a great pizza place on Llampu street called Martinnis, we both got stomach bugs on our last day in La Paz so plain pizza was what we craved and so that is why we went back. Very friendly staff and great pizza's. We also ate at Kalakitas, a Mexican place which felt like we were eating in someone's living room, the food was nice but the overall experience was a little odd, but fun.

4 days in Cusco

Plaza de Armas

After the manic travelling from Lima to Cusco, we were pleased we had 3 days in Cusco to acclimatise and just generally chill out. We realise the title of this post says 4 days, the 4th was the night after we arrived back from Aguas Calientes.

Cusco is beautiful. It really is, the old town is well preserved, the streets are cobbled, there are dodgy bits but which city doesn't have these areas? 

Hotel Ninos

We stayed at a place called Niños II, which is the 2nd hotel in Cusco run by the amazing Jolanda van den Burg who moved from The Netherlands about 15 years ago to help underprivileged kids in Cusco and has lived here ever since, Angel has bored many a fellow traveller with Jolanda's incredible story (and Ellen has had to sit through it each time). You can read about her here (so we do not bore more people), but needless to say staying in the hotel and eating at the hotels delicious restaurant contributes to this brilliant cause.

We ate at several restaurants, had some juices - no alcohol before the trek! - and did loads of browsing through the markets. 

Angel did get a bit of a dodgy stomach on the second day so we took it easy and it cleared up by the following day - the day before the trek, luckily. Generally in South America antibiotics are very easy to buy without prescription so we bought some, just in case. 

We went into the Cusco Catedral and saw the Peruvian interpretation of the last supper, complete with guinea pig as the centre piece dish! 

There were a few kids selling their stuff (pens, llama key rings, prints etc) and we pretty much spent our daily budget one day buying things from the kids. 

It was sad to leave Cusco, but we must travel on, next stop Puno, by posh train.

Paracas, the poor mans Galapagos.

Penguins!

We arrived into Paracas at sunset after a 5-hour bus journey from Lima. The journey itself was quite remarkable, passing through some amazing scenery; at parts the desert was right up to the sea, and also passing through a desert town called Chincha Alta which reminded us of something out of Mad Max!

After arriving at Paracas we disembarked the bus and walked the 600m down the street from the Cruz del Sur depot to the hostel, Paracas Backpackers House. Paracas is very small, it all leads off the one main street, there are loads of very cheap restaurants crammed together to the left of the beach, and to the right there are about 8 more posh restaurants and bars which front the town pier, following the other side by many hand made souvenir stalls.

We ate some dinner at one of the cheaper places, called 'El Angel' (had to be done!) which was ok, we fed a stray cat and booked our boat tour out to the islands for the morning. The old bloke who owns and runs the hostel is quite a character. When we booked the hostel he sent us an email with the picture of the hostel and told us not to speak to anyone at the bus station and ONLY walk into the hostel which was the same as the picture that he sent us - it turns out that after the success of this hostel, several other hostels in town have people that will meet the bus and tell you that it has closed or that it is dirty, or try to take you to another hostel. When we got there he gave us a 20 minute 'brief' of the town, where things were, what we could do, and told us he could organise tours for us but that we should go and compare the prices and decide for ourselves (he was very insistent of this, he would not just let us book with him). 

Making fertiliser

The hostel doesn't do breakfast (not many hostels here in Peru do) so we grabbed some bananas and headed to the pier and caught our boat out to the islands. It takes about 30 minutes to get out to the Islas Ballestas on the speed boats, it's colder than you think it will be and it rained a little on the way out. On the way to the islands the boat takes you to see the 3 pronged Candelabro which is a massive white carving in the hillside which no one knows why it was done, nor who made it. One idea is that it was maybe a sign for sailors of the day to know when they were home.

The islands themselves are home to thousands of birds including humboldt penguins and boobies (which there are thousands!) - we never saw the Chilean Flamingos or dolphins. There were also many noisy sea lions, cormorants and pelicans.

Sea Lions

The island is farmed every 7 years for its guano (bird shit) which is sold as fertiliser, apparently the best in the world and Australia is a buyer.

As we had a bus to Nazca in the afternoon we were unable to do much else, so we had a long lunch and sat by the beach for a couple of hours before walking back to to the bus station.

The photos aren't the best as the day was overcast and the sea was quite rocky and the camera had trouble focussing. 

Just a day in Lima

Catedral de Lima

Unfortunately due to our time schedule we only had a day in Lima, which in hindsight was a bit silly as the city is amazing. We arrived from Bogota late at night and had organised for the hostel to come and collect us, which was just as well as it is quite intimidating arriving at Lima airport, there is a sea of 'taxi' drivers - mostly just people who call themselves taxi drivers and have no licence and probably no insurance, and there are horror stories of muggings by drivers, so we thought it best to use the hostels taxi. There was a nice bloke, who drove like a rally car racer (this is standard South American driving) to our hostel.

The hostel itself was very basic, but cheap and in a great location in Barranco, a suburb south of the city, there is a regular and very cheap bus service, like the Transmilenio in Bogota, at only £0.44p a journey, it's a bargain. There are also several bars and restaurants around, and the sea is right across the road.

Barranco

We decided as we just had one day we would cram in as much as we could, we caught the bus to the bus depot to buy our ticket to Paracas for the next day and then headed into town (very easy to get around). We got off the bus at the central station and walked up the road to the Plaza St Martin, where there is a statue of St Martin (of course) with a statue of Madre Patria below him, this statue was commissioned in Spain and instructed to give the lady a crown of flames, the Spanish (not latin american Spanish) word for flame is llama, so the hapless craftsmen put an actual llama on her head. 

The Llama

We then walked up the pedestrian shopping street where we must have been asked to buy a map twenty times at least (even though we were holding one) up to Plaza de Armas, as it was Sunday there was a mass on in the La Catedral de Lima and the worshippers were pouring out onto the plaza, all the roads were closed off and there were literally thousands of people, and the mass was being broadcast outside. 

We saw the Palacio de Gobierno (house of the president) where we had missed the changing of the guard about guide book said it was noon but it was just over as we arrived at 12, so we walked up to the river, which was empty as they are currently in the middle of a massive project to build a motorway under the river! We did not head over the bridge, but it looked like the poorer part of town, with shanty houses on the hillside.

We walked back towards the central bus station and stopped at the now faded Gran Hotel Boliviar as this is apparently famous for its Pisco Sour, so naturally we had to sit in the old bar and have one. From here we caught a bus to Miaflores, one of the more affluent suburbs of the city, Lima is very clean, in fact compared to other South American capital we have been to, it's the cleanest. 

Ellen with her Pisco Sour

We walked to the Huaca Pucllana, an ancient Inca ruin, which is smack bang in the middle of the suburb of Miaflores, it's quite arresting that you have these modern houses next to this pile of inca bricks from 1,600 years ago! 

We strolled around the suburb and stopped for lunch at La Lucha on Kennedy plaza, it's a great American-style sandwich place with a Latin American twist, it's huge very tasty sandwiches are so big so that we didn't eat dinner. From here we walked down to the ocean front and watched the paragliders for a while and sat in the lovers park before walking along the coast, with so little time and wanting to see as much as we could of Lima we decided we would walk back to the hostel along the coast as our hostel was on the coast. We stopped in the massive new shopping centre built into the cliff edge, this was full of the types you would expect (you know, the sort of people who wear sunglasses inside and wear their jumper over their shoulders) even though the shops are average UK/US stores like Gap and Starbucks, this is obviously where the well to do in Lima shop.

Huaca Pucllana, Miaflores

All over the Lima coastline are signs for Tsunami evacuation routes, which kind of amused us and freaked us out a little (ok, freaked Angel out). The coast of Lima is a sandy cliff edge with a motorway running along the beach below it so we assume if a tsunami hit it would slam into the cliff and bring a lot of it down, which made us think the shopping centre built into the sand of the cliff edge seemed a little reckless, especially adding the history of earthquakes too. 

Tsunami evacuation?

Walking along the cliff edge we watched the sun set and then wandered around the suburb where the hostel was, Barranco, it was Sunday night so not a lot was open, though we did manage to have our first Inca Kola, kind of tastes like creaming soda, but it's bright yellow.

What's new Buenos Aires? (day 1)

Yes Alex, Angel jumped off the bus in Buenos Aires singing the song from Evita.
After a 5 hour bus journey yesterday from Rosario to Buenos Aires, we arrived in the late afternoon and promptly jumped into a taxi to the airport. Now, that was an experience - the driver made his own lanes (just short of driving on the pavement), after about 20 mins and less than £5 later we were at our hostel. We had read brilliant reviews on Trip Advisor about this place and it is all true, America del Sur is a brilliant hostel, all the good bits of a hostel (kitchen, socialbility, cheap) with the good bits of a hotel (clean, own room, efficient staff). Perfect. We have our own room which really is the best we have stayed in so far.
We had a stroll last night around the area we are staying (San Telmo) and bought some stuff to cook in the hostel to save some money - another expensive travel day, but we are managing to stay on budget.

San Telmo

After a brilliant night sleep we headed off to explore the city. We walked down through San Telmo to the old docklands which has been converted into expensive hotels and apartments (think London's Southbank) and walked over the Puente de la Mujer and had a play with the outdoor exercise equipment they have all over the towns in South America, just a play mind.

Plaza Mayor

We also walked towards Centro and past the Rose Palace (where Evita gave her famous speech), and walked across the the Plaza Mayor and had a general wander around in the glorious sunshine.
We then walked to the Plaza Dorrego and sat in a cafe and had coffee (still not found a great coffee) and a tostada to share.

La Boca

Then back to the hostel as there was a FREE walking tour of San Telmo and La Boca which the hostel runs, we walked past places we had been in the morning but this was great as we found out what the places were, and La Boca was somewhere quite a walk from town and the whole group got onto a local bus (all 30 odd of us!) and went to La Boca, which is a very poor area of Buenos Aires, and is an old port, the buildings are very colourful and it is now a but of a tourist trap - just souvenirs and 'tango' dancers trying to get you to have a photo taken with them (which you naturally pay for), but there was a Maradonna look alike - which we were told was quite a good likeness.

Our tour on a local bus

Now we are back at the hostel and ready to go out for a steak dinner.
Also we have fresh laundry!!! (dropped it of this morning and it was done for us, for just £5.64)

Looking forward to possibly a cycle tour of Palmero tomorrow.

Welcome to Argentina (Iguassu & Rosario)

If you thought the pictures from the Brazillian side of the falls looked great - the Argentinian side was just breathtaking. You could actually walk on top of the falls (ok,on a platform built over the falls, not actually walking ON the falls). Ellen asked how they maintained the pathway, Angel really didn't want to know.

We spent a day doing an organised tour taking us from our hostel over the border to Argentina and then a guide of the falls, it was hot but the spray from the falls soon cooled us down. We saw loads of turtles, catfish, guinea pigs and even a caiman.

Just amazing:

Iguassu Falls - Argentinian side

Our next stop was Rosario.

The bus journey was meant to be 16 hours, but here in South America things take longer than expected, or quoted. Angel is learning to deal with this, ever the project manager and time-stickler.
So this bus journey from Port Iguassu in Argentina to Rosario took 21 hours. (Mental note: add at least an hour for every 5 you are quoted). The journey itself was great, the buses are fantastic - think business class space on a flight. Reclining seats, foot rests and even food.
We arrived in Rosario, Argentina after 2 weeks in Brazil. First observation; it's a hell of a lot cheaper here, second observation; there is less money here.
We caught a 20 min cab from the bus station to our hostel (£5) which is right downtown, not too far from anything - river, shopping, bars, bakery. It's called Che Pampas. Very basic but cheap and cheerful (awful breakfast though, tomorrow we'll be going to the bakery!)

Che Guevara monument, Rosario

There is not a lot to do here in Rosario, the most famous person to ever come from here is Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and we were very disappointed to learn there is no museum to him here, just a sign outside the apartment block he was born in, a very basic mural in a city park and a statue in another park.
We did loads of walking - well after 21 hours of sitting it is all you want to do - and over our 2 days here practically covered the majority of the city by foot.
We did go to the post office and sent some postcards, probably the last time we will as it cost £10 to send 5 -  so if you are able to read this blog, you will not get a postcard from Argentina!
Today we found a cafe after 7 hours of walking we sat, for 4 hours, drank 2 lattes. 2 carafe's of wine (red, of course) a massive plate of toastadas (toasted sandwiches) and a large bowl of chips - all for £15!
Welcome to Argentina!

The amazing Foz do Iguassu

Iguassu Falls

After a long 12 hour bus journey (which was late) from Curitiba, we arrived at our brilliant hostel in Foz do Iguassu, called Green House Hostel. It's a converted house in the suburbs of the town, about 20 minutes by bus to the falls. It's clean, comfortable and the people are lovely.
We got up early this morning and walked to the bus stop to get the bus to the national park. It was pretty simple, once we knew which direction we had to go in.
It's fairly expensive on the Brazilian side (we are off to the Argentinian side tomorrow) but very well organised; regular buses once in the nation park and loads of things to do, which of course are additional costs, we did the speed boat which literally took us under a waterfall, we were drenched but it was brilliant fun.
The falls a huge, massive, they make Niagara falls look like a drain pipe burst. Kilometres of waterfall, just breathtaking. We took about 200 photos. Won't bore you with them all...yet.

Anyone for Guinness?

After the boat ride, once we were really drenched, we sat in the sun and dried out. Then walked to the bird sanctuary which was very impressive and well worth the visit, loads of Toucans! Also loads of other breath-taking birds, including 2 massive Harpy Eagles. Massive! There were several aviary's you could walk through, including Toucans and Macaws - the latter was funny because it was late in the day and the birds were getting quite active and swooping - one scared Ellen as it swooped right past her face, they really are big birds.
Back at the hostel we cooked pasta for dinner, waaaay over budget today!

Curitiba, sorry we couldn't stay long

View of Curitiba at 6.30am

This first part of our adventure has been a but rushed, well, more like we have very large area to cover in less time. This means long bus journeys and a few afternoons in cities, rather than spending full days looking around. Curitiba is a victim of this. It looks lovely, pretty cobbled streets, beautiful old buildings and quite easy to navigate around. This is really just a pit stop on our way to Iguassu Falls, which we are off to today on a 11 hour coach trip. The coaches here are brilliant, you can be almost horizontal on standard coaches. Very comfortable. 

Our hotel here is great, only £30 but very comfortable and quiet.  The best night sleep so far.

São Paulo. Nightmare hostel and amazing city.

We made the first mistake of the trip; Trusting hostelworld.com reviews.
We are staying in a shit-hole. Sorry, but it is. It's pretty much some blokes house and he is renting out every square inch to gullible backpackers. We are in a glass room, like a fishbowl. Yes you read that right. But it's less than £30 a night, and it's our own glass room, and it is frosted glass you should know.

Paraty

Anyway, after a night in a very noisy hostel in Paraty with slamming doors through the night, and breakfast with local monkeys - who knew what time breakfast was - we caught a 6 hour bus to São Paulo. The trip was great, very comfortable seats, semi-cama. The bus stopped a couple of times for breaks. No drama.

Got into São Paulo and immediately booked our tickets to Curitiba for Wednesday. Another 6 hour coach ride, but for now we are going to enjoy São Paulo.

After checking into the before mentioned 'hostel' we went to the supermarket and bought stuff to cook and stay in to plan our day and book a hotel in Curitiba, oh and do some washing, it's the first place we have found with a washing machine. It's one of the 2 good qualities of the place. The other is the very informative manager.

We got up early ate our breakfast and headed out to the big city. São Paulo has 16.5 million people, that's double London! We walked down to Batman alley to see the great graffiti, then walked up and over several hills to the Metro and caught a train to Luz. Here we saw the Luz gardens, walked and walked the streets of the Centro and made it to the Municipal Market just in time for lunch, how convenient. Naturally we had to partake of the traditional sandwiches, which put the New York delis to shame. One word, HUGE. Quite salty, but the food here is either very sweet or very salty, for example they add sugar to their fresh fruit juices! 

Batman Alley

Municipal Market

After about 4 hours of walking we got back on the metro to Vila Madalena, the area of our 'hostel' (sorry, really have to use quote marks when I write hostel, and it is not really hostel, not really.) we walked around again for a couple of hours until we found this little bar, called Piraja, we've had several small beers. Our feet don't hurt as much now...just waiting for Braz to open, it's one of the best pizza restaurants in SP, according to Lonely planet.

...and it was brilliant. Here is Angel about to tuck in.

Braz

Braz was amazing. Probably the best pizza we have ever had.

Also at Piraja we learnt that in Brazil if you want them to stop serving you beer, put a coaster over your glass, otherwise they keep bringing them. We got a little tipsy, and it cost us about half our daily budget to pay for the many beers.

After 2 nights at the hostel we left Sao Paulo. To be fair the bloke who ran the hostel was amazing, top bloke who told us loads of stuff about all the places we were headed. 

Island Paradise - Ilha Grande

Hotel in Ilha Grande

After the hectic bustle of Rio we booked a transfer to the island of Ilha Grande, 150km south of Rio. It was a 2 hour bus transfer then just a little over an hour on a boat to the island. There are no cars, no banks, just sandy streets winding their way around the small village of Abraao.
We had booked our hotel online (booking.com) the day before and got off the boat at dusk and walked the streets (to be fair, there are only about 5 streets) looking for the place - Riacho dos Camsouras. It was right at the back of the village, down a sandy path, as the village meets the jungle. Wooden rooms, just 8 of them, with hammocks just outside each of them. Very tranquil.
We woke to the sound of a bird tweeting, which was nice..for a while, lucky we booked the ear-plugs. C'mon, it was 6am! The breakfast was amazing, Angel commented that Ewan should have been there to help him eat all the cake, yes cake, for breakfast! Amazing.

Lopes Mendes

We had decided that we would do the 2.5 hour each way hike to Lopes Mendes, a beach only accessible by foot. It was a pretty strenuous hike - well, we thought so, though people were doing it in flip flops (thongs to the Aussies), we had our hiking shoes on and to be honest it was pretty hard going, through jungle and in the heat. This is Angel - dripping with sweat. Ellen muttered under her breath several times 'this beach had better be amazing!).

Hot hot hot!

It was a pretty awesome walk, 4 mountains (hills?) and past 3 beaches before we hit Lopes Mendes. Which when we got there at 11am was quite deserted, and by the time we left at 2, sunburnt, there were quite a lot of people. We decided to walk the 2.5 hours back again. Felt longer than on the way, but we did it.
We then ate a huge pizza. We deserved it. Plus the island had a black out and we had to find a restaurant with a generator, which the pizza place had. Power finally came on at 10.30.

Today we caught a boat back to the mainland then a bus to Paraty. Where we are tonight. In a hostel. With young folk literally running down the corridors. We feel old. Sao Paulo tomorrow, bus tickets booked for 8.30am.

Raining in Rio

Escardia de Selaron

We arrived into Rio under dark, rainy skies.  According to Angel, the flight was scary and he was quite panicked (a note here: Angel hates flying, he says it's a necessary evil). Immigration was quite slow, but we made it into the country just fine.

We'd asked the hostel to book us a taxi so there was a bloke waiting for us with a sign, probably the best thing we have done so far.

The city is huge, the driver told us there are 6 million people in Rio, he pointed out Christ the Redeemer  to us as we drove towards Copacabana and through the tunnel under the statues mountain. His English was not great, but as our Portuguese is pretty much non-existent we spoke in broken sentences, nice bloke. 

This is pretty much the most expensive place we will stay in on our journey, it's £72 a night and very basic, but has air conditioning and private bathroom. It's called Bonita Ipanema, and we're just 2 blocks from Ipanema beach.

Our first day we woke up to grey rainy skies again, a bit disappointed but we did not let that stop us.  We walked from our hotel to the beach then walked along the beach and around to Copacabana beach and along it to the metro. (Unfortunately the metro station 2 mins from our hotel is closed, so it is about an hours walk to the next one). 

We then caught a bus to Santa Teresa and wandered in the rain along the cobbled streets to find the top of the Escardia de Selaron, and walked down the beautifully tiled steps (the pic here is us on them) unfortunately it was pissing it with rain and they were slippery, Ellen fell down them, twice. To be fair it would not be a holiday without Ellen hurting herself on the first day! 

Pizza and toasted sandwiches for lunch at Ernesto's near Lapa, and headed back to Copacabana beach to walk back to Ipanema. Loads of walking today. 

Booked tickets to go up the 'cog train' to Cristo Redentor at 10.20 tomorrow.

Now, to plan which city we head to next....