We woke up bright and early (partly due to the time difference from brasil) ready to explore the Argentinean side of the falls. We met up with the others at breakfast then set off on the bus towards the national park. It is a common tactic to see Devils throat first "to beat the crowd", apart from EVERYONE does that. So we took a gamble and did another part of the park and returned later. So far it paid off as for the majority of the morning we had the catwalks to ourselves. We set off into the bush and before we knew it, we were swarmed by a pack of Coatis, racoon like ferrets. These coatis go nuts around food, normally attacking. They often have rabies so it is highly recommended to keep clear of them. We didn't quite realise how crazy about food they were until they ambushed Necane for her bag which previously had an orange in it. Some nice lady got her bag off them and we continued our walk into the bush. We saw the most amazing butterflies, a squirrel and a couple of big iguanas. We finally reached the upper catwalks and made our way along the mouth of falls we were looking at the previous day. The walkways had been built so that you are looking right down the falls, providing amazing views. After we had explored the upper walk ways we made our way down to the lower walk ways to get a different perspective, looking up at them. This was equally impressive. While the Brazilian side had better panoramic views, because they curved around, you also got amazing views of all the falls while being in them from the Argentinean side. We then made our way down to the river to take a boat out into the falls. And by into, we literally mean into. We hopped into the boat and it took close enough to two of the falls to get photos without soaking our cameras. They then told us to put them away into the dry bags and next thing we knew it they had driven the boat right under the falls so we were getting completely pelted with masses of water. While we couldn't see much other than excessive amounts of water, it was so exhilarating to literally be under the falls. After we dried off in the 35o heat we got some lunch and made our way to devils throat. Our gamble paid off as everyone was now exploring what we had done that morning and now there was no line for the train to Devils throat. A long catwalk stretches across the head of the waterfalls towards Devils throat. There was still remnants of the old walkway which was washed away in a flood. We reached devils throat, and it looked like an insanely big hole sucking millions of litres of water into oblivion. There was so much spray we often couldn't see much, we could only hear the roaring thunder of the water crashing down. It was amazing to look down on what we were almost standing in the previous day on the Brazilian side. Such an incredible site. Unfortunately like much of the falls, it was impossible conditions to get photos that do it justice, but it was more the experience of being there.
We then returned back along the catwalk back to land and took a boat down river. After the amazon it was a bit too touristic and less impressive as it might be for others but we did see another caiman which we were not expecting. We then made our way back to the hostel after a full and amazing day exploring a truly mind blowing natural wonder. A definite highlight of the trip.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Foz do Igauzu - Brasil. 29/01/2011
We arrived into Foz do Igauzu bus terminal after a night bus from Sao Paulo. While we are getting better at the whole night bus thing, even when you do sleep, it's not the same as good nights sleep in a bed. After a bite to eat and once we had sorted out our plans and orientation for the day we set off on a bus towards the Brazilian side of the falls. On the bus we met a traveller from Israel and ended up exploring the falls with him. The Brazilian side provided great panoramic views of the falls as the majority are on the Argentinian side. We could not believe the size and pressure of them. There was so much mist we were getting spray 50metres up, it made some pretty amazing rainbows. It took us a couple of hours to walk along the Brazilian side; taking photos, exploring and just observing one of the worlds natural wonders. At end of the path you get to Devils Throat which is where most of the water falls. They have built a catwalk so you can walk right out, almost underneath it. While the water doesn't directly fall on you, we came out completely drenched from all the mist. It didn't make for the best photographic conditions but it was so incredible to be that close to something so powerfully beautiful.
After we were satisfied with the falls we got on a bus and made our way to the Argentinean side. We were quite curious as how our first land border crossing would go, as this is where you hear the stories about corruption etc, but it was so smooth, one of our easiest yet. We arrived on the Argentinean side and our Israeli friend showed us a place to stay. Once we had settled in we cooled off in the pool. The hostel put on an all-you-can-eat pizza for dinner so we had a bit of a pig out and met a few people to do the Argentinean side of the falls with the following day.
After we were satisfied with the falls we got on a bus and made our way to the Argentinean side. We were quite curious as how our first land border crossing would go, as this is where you hear the stories about corruption etc, but it was so smooth, one of our easiest yet. We arrived on the Argentinean side and our Israeli friend showed us a place to stay. Once we had settled in we cooled off in the pool. The hostel put on an all-you-can-eat pizza for dinner so we had a bit of a pig out and met a few people to do the Argentinean side of the falls with the following day.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sao Paulo - 28/1/2011
We arrived into Sao Paulo late afternoon and took a taxi to a hostel with the two Swedish girls we met. After we had settled in, we went out for a pizza and drink with them before an early night. The following day we got up early to explore the city as we were moving on that afternoon. We soon discovered Sao Paulo isn't the prettiest of cities. In fact it was quite ugly. Most of the colonial buildings had been pulled down so it was just a concrete jungle of ugly office buildings. The people seemed to be very work orientated so the city didn't have a good vibe from a tourists perceptive. Our impression was just a big, dirty city with a high crime rate. Luckily we were only around for the day so we explored the city then made our way back to the bus terminal that evening to get us bus to Foz do Igauzu.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Ilha Grande - 26/28/1/2011
After an extremely full on stay in Rio we decided we wanted somewhere quiet to relax for a few days. We met a kiwi traveler in Rio and he had just come from an Island called Ilha Grande (big island) so we hopped on a bus towards there. Three hours later we arrived at the closest town, we met a couple from London and sorted out a boat to the island with them. We relaxed on the roof of the catamaran as we sailed towards the island. We arrived at the village on the island and as we were getting our bags ready to go search for a place to stay we were approached by a local lady who was renting a house. We ended up staying the first night there along with the British couple and two Germans we had met on the boat over. We had a relaxed evening and all went out to dinner and had a few drinks after. The following morning we got up bright and early to find a place to stay for the second night. After we found a place we got straight on a boat to go to a remote beach on the island. After a 40 minute boat ride we were dropped at a small port and set off on foot into the bush towards the beach.
It was well worth the travel, the beach was so amazing. Golden White sand, clear blue water, no boats and no crowds. Perfect.
We spent the whole day, right until 6, relaxing on this amazing beach. Lying in the sun and swimming in the completely transparent ocean. Just what we needed after our hectic time in Rio. That evening we met up with the others after dinner for a couple of quiet drinks, great way to finish our stay in Ilha Grande.
The following morning we got up, packed our bags and got on the ferry back to the mainland to continue our travels down the coast towards Sao Paulo. With nothing booked we were hoping we would be able to jump on a bus without waiting all day. We had to walk from the dock to the bus terminal with our bags and all. In 38 degree heat it's not exactly pleasant. Once we arrived at the bus terminal, dripping in sweat, we saw a bus heading to Sao Paulo loading up. We met a couple of girls from Sweden in the same boat as us and we all managed to get on the bus without getting proper tickets. The whole free styling travel, booking as you go, was working out for us and seemed like a more enjoyable and exciting way to travel.
It was well worth the travel, the beach was so amazing. Golden White sand, clear blue water, no boats and no crowds. Perfect.
We spent the whole day, right until 6, relaxing on this amazing beach. Lying in the sun and swimming in the completely transparent ocean. Just what we needed after our hectic time in Rio. That evening we met up with the others after dinner for a couple of quiet drinks, great way to finish our stay in Ilha Grande.
The following morning we got up, packed our bags and got on the ferry back to the mainland to continue our travels down the coast towards Sao Paulo. With nothing booked we were hoping we would be able to jump on a bus without waiting all day. We had to walk from the dock to the bus terminal with our bags and all. In 38 degree heat it's not exactly pleasant. Once we arrived at the bus terminal, dripping in sweat, we saw a bus heading to Sao Paulo loading up. We met a couple of girls from Sweden in the same boat as us and we all managed to get on the bus without getting proper tickets. The whole free styling travel, booking as you go, was working out for us and seemed like a more enjoyable and exciting way to travel.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Rio de Janeiro - 21-25/1/2011
As we flew over Rio de Janeiro we began to realise what all the fuss was about. It has some of the most exciting landscape, harsh green mountains dropping into white sand beaches.
We arrived into Rio and were greeted with a stinking hot 37o. We were getting by with our spanish everywhere else, but of coarse Spanish was useless there and we knew it would be an interesting week not knowing a word of Portuguese. While our Spanish is so basic, we felt like experts in comparison. Anyway we went through the most relaxed customs yet, then managed to get on a bus towards Copacabana. With no hostel booked we took to the streets with our big bags in search of a place to stay. We found a place a block back from the beach and decided that would do us just fine. Once we were settled in we went for a wonder around the streets of Copacabana then spent the evening having a few drinks.
The following day we got up bright and early to get some of the sites ticked off. We started with the Christ statue, but being a Saturday a Cruise ship spoilt the party with a million mindless tourists being led around like sheep. We decided to check the city out and return later on. We navigated the city looking for all the colonial buildings, museums, cathedrals etc along with the markets and anything else we could find. The heat didn't make it easy but we managed to walk around and see everything including an amazing theatre and the most intricate, over the top interior at the monastery. We then returned to take the tram up to see the iconic Jesus statue that looks down over Rio. While the statue was mildly disappointing (as all the cool postcard photos are from a helicopter) it had an amazing panoramic view over the city with all the islands, beaches, mountains, skyscrapers and slums all in one view. Pretty exhilarating. After getting some shots we returned to Copacabana and went straight to the beach. We had never seen a beach so packed. The whole stretch was covered in people just as we had imagined. We did manage to find a nice spot to enjoy some afternoon sun and a swim. That evening we had a few drinks at the hostel before heading to Lapa. Lapa is where a lot of the bars and clubs are, but better known for the world famous street party. The streets are closed off and swarming with thousands of people, street vendors selling drinks, loud music, street performers and lots of people dancing Samba. We started our night off with a Caiprhina, a delicious Brazilian drink from one of the street vendors. We were with a local girl so she was showing us around and took us to see "the most beautiful steps in the world". Necane was overly excited when she realised this was where Snoop dogg and Pharell filmed a videoclip, and insisted we returned during the day because we didn't have cameras on us.
We wondered back towards the main party stopping along the way to watch a bit of Samba. We ran into some Argentinians and Brazilians staying at our hostel and ended up parting on until the early hours getting back at 5.
The following morning we had a bit of an expected late start to the day. After a feed we headed to Sugar loaf mountain, the other iconic site of Rio. We met another kiwi on the bus so caught the gondola up with him. The view from to the top was even more spectacular than from the Christ.
After our site seeing, once again we spent the afternoon on Copacabana beach relaxing and enjoying the buzz of Rio de Jeneiro.
The following day we booked a favela tour as 20% of rio's population live in slums. We were expecting the tour to be a drive through the slums so we were quite surprised when we were told we ride up on the back of motorbikes an descend down through the slum on foot.
We each hopped on the back of a bike and before we knew our driver was hooning up the windy, dodgy road. Each holding on for our dear lives as the crazy drivers went for smallest gaps overtaking trucks and racing each other. After the first 30seconds of completely shitting ourselves, the rest of the ride was extremely exhilarating. Once we got to the top our perception of what a slum looks like changed, as we realised there is a lot more order to their neighbourhood than we previously thought with corner stores, internet cafes, ATMs etc, despite not officially owning the land. We started to decend down through the favela as our guide turned and said if we see anyone with machine guns they're the drug cartels, and to put down our camera. That put us on edge but as we started walking through the thin, footpath sized streets we realised we were in good hands as almost every person we walked past was friends with our guide. As expected, it was dirty and smelt even worse, some parts much worse than others. The residents would add to houses the only way they could by building up which made us wonder about the quality of their workmanship and probably the lack of foundations underneath it being on a hill. Apparently slips have greatly been reduced since they built an aqueduct down the clip face. It was extremely eye opening to see the conditions people live in, yet we were quite surprised in the order and efficiency they live their lives. It really just seemed like a big poor neighbourhood, mind
you, we didn't get to see the influence and control of the drug cartels, which is probably a good thing.
After the tour we returned to see the famous steps we had seen a couple of nights before. They are an ongoing project so the artist is always making additions. We met the, of coarse extravert artist and he showed us a couple of tiles from New Zealand, starring some korus, a kiwi fruit and a tiki. We then indulged in an delicious lunch before exploring a bit more of central Rio. Once again we spent the afternoon on the beach after a full day of exploring before heading around to Ipanema beach to watch the sun set behind the iconic Rio de Janeiro landscape. A great way to end an unforgettable few days in Rio.
We arrived into Rio and were greeted with a stinking hot 37o. We were getting by with our spanish everywhere else, but of coarse Spanish was useless there and we knew it would be an interesting week not knowing a word of Portuguese. While our Spanish is so basic, we felt like experts in comparison. Anyway we went through the most relaxed customs yet, then managed to get on a bus towards Copacabana. With no hostel booked we took to the streets with our big bags in search of a place to stay. We found a place a block back from the beach and decided that would do us just fine. Once we were settled in we went for a wonder around the streets of Copacabana then spent the evening having a few drinks.
The following day we got up bright and early to get some of the sites ticked off. We started with the Christ statue, but being a Saturday a Cruise ship spoilt the party with a million mindless tourists being led around like sheep. We decided to check the city out and return later on. We navigated the city looking for all the colonial buildings, museums, cathedrals etc along with the markets and anything else we could find. The heat didn't make it easy but we managed to walk around and see everything including an amazing theatre and the most intricate, over the top interior at the monastery. We then returned to take the tram up to see the iconic Jesus statue that looks down over Rio. While the statue was mildly disappointing (as all the cool postcard photos are from a helicopter) it had an amazing panoramic view over the city with all the islands, beaches, mountains, skyscrapers and slums all in one view. Pretty exhilarating. After getting some shots we returned to Copacabana and went straight to the beach. We had never seen a beach so packed. The whole stretch was covered in people just as we had imagined. We did manage to find a nice spot to enjoy some afternoon sun and a swim. That evening we had a few drinks at the hostel before heading to Lapa. Lapa is where a lot of the bars and clubs are, but better known for the world famous street party. The streets are closed off and swarming with thousands of people, street vendors selling drinks, loud music, street performers and lots of people dancing Samba. We started our night off with a Caiprhina, a delicious Brazilian drink from one of the street vendors. We were with a local girl so she was showing us around and took us to see "the most beautiful steps in the world". Necane was overly excited when she realised this was where Snoop dogg and Pharell filmed a videoclip, and insisted we returned during the day because we didn't have cameras on us.
We wondered back towards the main party stopping along the way to watch a bit of Samba. We ran into some Argentinians and Brazilians staying at our hostel and ended up parting on until the early hours getting back at 5.
The following morning we had a bit of an expected late start to the day. After a feed we headed to Sugar loaf mountain, the other iconic site of Rio. We met another kiwi on the bus so caught the gondola up with him. The view from to the top was even more spectacular than from the Christ.
After our site seeing, once again we spent the afternoon on Copacabana beach relaxing and enjoying the buzz of Rio de Jeneiro.
The following day we booked a favela tour as 20% of rio's population live in slums. We were expecting the tour to be a drive through the slums so we were quite surprised when we were told we ride up on the back of motorbikes an descend down through the slum on foot.
We each hopped on the back of a bike and before we knew our driver was hooning up the windy, dodgy road. Each holding on for our dear lives as the crazy drivers went for smallest gaps overtaking trucks and racing each other. After the first 30seconds of completely shitting ourselves, the rest of the ride was extremely exhilarating. Once we got to the top our perception of what a slum looks like changed, as we realised there is a lot more order to their neighbourhood than we previously thought with corner stores, internet cafes, ATMs etc, despite not officially owning the land. We started to decend down through the favela as our guide turned and said if we see anyone with machine guns they're the drug cartels, and to put down our camera. That put us on edge but as we started walking through the thin, footpath sized streets we realised we were in good hands as almost every person we walked past was friends with our guide. As expected, it was dirty and smelt even worse, some parts much worse than others. The residents would add to houses the only way they could by building up which made us wonder about the quality of their workmanship and probably the lack of foundations underneath it being on a hill. Apparently slips have greatly been reduced since they built an aqueduct down the clip face. It was extremely eye opening to see the conditions people live in, yet we were quite surprised in the order and efficiency they live their lives. It really just seemed like a big poor neighbourhood, mind
you, we didn't get to see the influence and control of the drug cartels, which is probably a good thing.
After the tour we returned to see the famous steps we had seen a couple of nights before. They are an ongoing project so the artist is always making additions. We met the, of coarse extravert artist and he showed us a couple of tiles from New Zealand, starring some korus, a kiwi fruit and a tiki. We then indulged in an delicious lunch before exploring a bit more of central Rio. Once again we spent the afternoon on the beach after a full day of exploring before heading around to Ipanema beach to watch the sun set behind the iconic Rio de Janeiro landscape. A great way to end an unforgettable few days in Rio.
Montevideo - urugauy 19-20/1/11
We flew into a wicked, modern airport at Montevideo with no plans. It took us a while to work out the bus system, but after a while we had managed to BOTH get on a bus with all our bags. We arrived at the old city and found a hostel to stay a few nights. We then spent the afternoon exploring one half of the old city. Montevideo had a very very different feel about it than the rest of the cities we have visited. A lot more relaxed. We got the impression of a better quality of life, and coming from Santiago, a population of about 7million and before that Medellin 3million, Montevideo's 1.3million seemed very mild. We had no idea Uruguay's population was smaller than new Zealand's.
The city felt quite quiet in comparison which was a nice change, and also felt very safe. We explored the streets and admired the wonderful old buildings. We found they were less grand but there were more old buildings than other cities, and less newer buildings in between the old buildings which made it quite beautiful. It also had lots of nice clothing stores so we did a bit of shopping too. After dinner we went down to the water front to watch another beautiful orange sunset. The following day we got up early to explore the rest of the city. After wondering through the beautiful colonial streets, we spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach, soaking up some sun. A relaxing way to conclude a short visit to Urugauy as Rio was sure to be a bit more hectic.
The city felt quite quiet in comparison which was a nice change, and also felt very safe. We explored the streets and admired the wonderful old buildings. We found they were less grand but there were more old buildings than other cities, and less newer buildings in between the old buildings which made it quite beautiful. It also had lots of nice clothing stores so we did a bit of shopping too. After dinner we went down to the water front to watch another beautiful orange sunset. The following day we got up early to explore the rest of the city. After wondering through the beautiful colonial streets, we spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach, soaking up some sun. A relaxing way to conclude a short visit to Urugauy as Rio was sure to be a bit more hectic.
Santiago - 17-19/1/11
We finally set foot in Santiago at about 6am. With a little trouble finding the address of where we were staying and some help of a taxi driver we were on our way to Sergio's (a family friend) apartment. We hadn't done much research on Santiago and weren't to sure what to expect but we first noticed the pollution was very bad and it was hard to see the Andes surrounding the city. To our luck the apartment we were staying in was right in the city centre. We set off almost immediately to explore the city and were surprised at what we discovered. We found many beautiful buildings including old colonial buildings and a fortress on top of a hill overlooking the city. Our long travels from medellin to Santiago finally hit us and we ended up crashing. We awoke the next day excited to explore more of the beautiful city. We caught a tram up a hill where the Santiago zoo lies. It was very strange going to a zoo after we had been to the amazon, felt really strange seeing animals in cages. What was especially hard was seeing a condor (the largest bird) in a cage where it could barely open it's wings to the full capacity with no room to soar like we had seen them do at colca canyon in Peru. However we were very much amused by a baby baboon. After we looked at all the animals in the zoo we took the tram to the very top of the hill where a large statue of Mary looks down over Santiago city. Very impressive in size along with amazing views, we were very much satisfied and headed back home to prepare for our early flight to Uruguay the next morning.
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