El Ultimo Dia
Loyal Readers,
Well, it's been a wild ride over the last 114 days, but this is the last one on this continent for a while. We're just doing some final chores here in lovely sunny Buenos Aires, and fly out late tonight. We've just narrowly averted disaster by actually trying to reconfirm our BA-AKL flight, only to find that it's been slightly rescheduled. After some confusion about whether it was made 2hrs late or 22hrs early, we're calm now in the knowledge that we haven't missed our flight home and will just be a little delayed. We will miss our previous domestic flights down from AKL, but after pounding the credit card (oooooo it gets spendy when you try to get seats on Xmas eve at the last minute!) we're only going to end up an hour later than previously thought. If anyone's organising a flyover, fireworks display or welcome concert for us then considered yourself warned.
We said goodbye to Rob and Carlos on the 20th with tears in our eyes. They were the most amazing hosts and barely let us lift a finger. I feel like I've seen a different side to the guy I sat opposite to at Collado Collins for the last two years. Stories were shared (some not fit for publication, some sufficient for half a dozen 23 minute sitcom episodes, INHO), much wine was drunk, we played Perudo, 3D Connect Four, and I had my ass comprehensively whipped by Carlos at chess. Seeing Rob stretched out in a hammock with nothing on his (usually very carefully prioritised) list made me very happy. Like so many farewells over the last 5 months we don't know when we'll see them again, but I have a comforting feeling that we definitely will.
By complete coincidence, we managed to bump into Fausto at the antiques market in San Telmo yesterday - remember him, our guide when we first arrived in Salvador, Brazil? He was just as surprised to see us as we were him, and we had the chance to thank him personally for giving us such a great introduction and glowing recommendation of Bahia.
There will be a greatest hits blog post (Ana has suggested 'best pets', 'best lookalike' and 'best photo' categories already), and news of life back in the homeland. But, expect some time offline over the holidays, when much ham will be carved and delicious Summer Ale supped. There are some dear folk to catch up with, and gifts to distribute. Tales will be told and tans maintained. It's the holidays.
Wherever you are scattered, I hope you have great Christmas and New Years' holiday time, with all your favourite people around (or at least contactable on Skype), and a little something for you under the tree.
Feliz Navidad,
A
Ah, But You Would Now Moira...
Loyal Readers,
This time I'm really doing it, a proper and long overdue blog post from our last leisurely stop on the trip - the impossibly named Florianopolis, in Santa Catarina province, Brazil.
Forgive the long delay. I could say it's because we've been up early, off to the beach, preparing fantastic meals and just generally too busy being intrepid and busy to do it. The truth is that we've just been lazy. Bone idle, in fact. Practised and committed to this difficult discipline, we thought it a sin to break the last few days of delicious laziness.
I'll start where we last properly left off, leaving Salvador and heading to Porto Seguro. Famous for its 'Street of Alcohol', it was the first landing point in Brazil for the Portuguese in the year 1500. In what seems to be a trend, it was diminished only by the biblical quantities of rain falling during the day we were there.
After the requisite nap - which always follows an 18hr bus journey - we took a walk around town only to be caught in one of the fastest arriving rainstorms I've ever seen. It was like being sprayed with a hose. By the time I felt rain on my face my ankles were already wet. Between showers we made it out for a couple of tasty caiparinhas before cancelling proceedings and deciding we'd head to the little town of Arraial D'Ajuda, just a few kilometres south of Porto Seguro, and reached by a short ferry and bus ride.
Getting there was a simple affair, but finding the hostel we'd been recommended threw us once again into the gaping maw of the 'let's exploit the tourist' industry that two lost gringos carrying packs seem to attract. Our first attempt at asking for directions yielded a blank face from the friendly senhorita at the shop, but we quickly had a local come to our aid, complete with a folder of maps and information. Strangely, when we asked for directions to the street we were looking for he explained that it was a very long way and difficult to find. But, had we heard of this alternative hostel? It's very good, and much closer. Show you my map? No, that's not really possible, I'd have to charge you 15 Reals for that. I have to make a living you know... Sigh...
Further enquiries found us a local woman with sufficient English (and morals) to point us in the right direction and we were soon checked into the splendid Pousada La Luna, which has to be one of the best
places we've laid our weary heads in the whole trip. Our hosts, Raul and Solange, were great company. Argentinians, they were of course Spanish speakers, which felt almost like we were speaking English again after the trials of making conversation in Portuguese.
Our cunning plan of going somewhere where there was nothing to do except laze around on the beach was thwarted by getting weather which strictly prevented us from leaving the guesthouse. Rain belted down like the finest dotted lines of water you could imagine. Edgar Allen Poe slowed down my reading and kept me occupied, and our little terrace outside the room was as nice a place as we could hope for to wait for it to clear (that's it on the left, pretty lush!)
But clear it did not, and after some help from Raul and Solange we had organised ourselves nearly 24 hours of bus travel. Midday on the 6th we caught the local bus from Arraial D'Ajuda to Euanopolis (buses from Porto Seguro were already full), waited three hours at the local bus station there, then boarded our Sao Geraldo coach down to Rio De Janeiro. We couldn't get seats together, and I was seated next to a young man who smelled like he'd been using his trousers as a urinal for the last week. He didn't want to swap seats with Ana so we could sit together, so I drifted into one of those reveries where I imagined taking advantage of the language barrier to tell him plainly that he make the aquaintance of either a bathroom or some incontinence pants. He graciously offered to change during our 4am "kick everyone off the bus while we clean it" stop, and by 11:30am on Sunday we were coming through the outskirts of Rio.
The sprawl of Rio made Quito look like a village, and like an artichoke all the nice bits are in the middle and only reached after a lot of hard work. Our hostel in Botafogo was awaiting us, reached after a taxi ride
that took us past the Sambadrome before we caught a glimpse of Christ the Redeemer's feet. The rest of him had been whitewashed out by the frequent clouds that obscure him at this time of year. Naptime out of the way we passed the evening watching Quantum of Solace, the new Bond film. It's set in Bolivia, but not as we recognised it. A little research shows none of it was filmed there, the biggest giveaway being the pristine paved highway running through the desert. If this existed it would be a tourist attraction in its own right...
Blessed with a sparkling day on Monday we set out to visit the Pao De Acucar, a 500m lookout, reached by two cablecars. We struck gold with the weather, and the city gradually unfolded beneath us over the two rides. It has to be one of the most spectacular views in the world, Rio spills into the landscape, settling like dry ice between the folds of the surrounding hills. At the bottom of nearly all of these lowlands lie crescent shaped beaches which serrate the coastline as far as you can see. The boats moored off Botafoga below are all equally spaced, pointing towards the same spot on the beach. They looked like spokey dokeys from up where we were. We spent over two hours up there, watching planes taking off and landing from the city airport, people circling the handrails taking pictures, and generally just pausing to say, "crikey, check out the view!"
Neither one of us are much ones for just leaning back and soaking in a city view - we chose to sit looking up at the Eiffel Tower rather than spend 4 hours in line imagining how we'd get up it - but I think I could have just about spent the whole afternoon up there. Ana waited with great tolerance while I watched the sightseeing helicopter fly past, and we we made our way back down to ground level, 5 tonne parcels of people suspended from steel ropes.
Local buses here work a treat, if you can handle the maniacal driving. Fortunately the traffic's so heavy that you rarely get up any speed, but we made our way across to Copacabana beach for the afternoon. Our beach chairs were cheap and the prawns were expensive, but some of the best I've had yet. We took a couple of dips (chilly!), read and watched the people. Contrary to what we previously thought, the people come in every shape and size. Their common quality seems to be a strong contempt for one-piece
swimwear and a complete disregard for melanoma. There are slightly fewer leathery old men than I've seen in Italy, and many more washboard-ab'd Adonises than in England. With my T-Shirt tan lines and unfashionable Ecuadorian swimwear, I stood out. Hackysack seems to be unheard of, and along the entire length of the beach groups of people play the same game, but with a football.
We made it along to Ipanema the next day, which curves off into the distance and is fronted by apartments and hotels along its entire length. There are still a few Art Deco buildings to be seen, and you can imagine what an amazing place it must have looked in the Thirties. Dinner took us to our first Churrascaria, all-you-can-eat steakhouses where the waiters bring round endless skewers of tender charcoal-roasted carne. Everything was on offer; pork, steak, chicken, sausages, and that old favourite from Japan, chicken hearts. By the time a waiter brought round a trolley the size of a gurney with an entire side of beef (ribs and all), our repose was so complete that Ana could only burp a muffled "no," and we knew it was the end. We waddled out onto the pavement, rubbing our aching bellies and confirming on sight for the prospective customers outside that they would indeed get their money's worth...
We moved hostels midweek, heading across to stay just behind Copacobana beach, and the excellent Bamboo Rio was waiting for us. Plush double room with cable TV and aircon, our budget gone out the window, and for the first time in a while, some other travellers to meet. We quickly fell in with a couple of Irish girls, let's call them Lorraine and Moira. With the day slowly clouding over, we called Beer O'Clock a little earlier than usual and proceeded to yarn the most part of the afternoon away with our new friends. At the risk of perpetuating a bit of a national stereotype, these girls could talk the legs off a centipede and had us in stitches. They seemed to think nothing of simply dipping out of conversation for a while to argue something amongst themselves. We witnessed a few of these exchanges, some of them long enough to finish a can of beer. Here's an example of a typical exchange, conducted at extremely high speed (cod-
Irish accent optional);
"Now come on Moira, you're telling me that if you were auditioning for X-Factor and they said to you, 'Ah you've got a lovely voice now Moira, you're through to the next round,' that you wouldn't do it?"
"No."
"Bollocks you wouldn't Moira, you'd do it!"
"But no I wouldn't, I wouldn't be auditioning in the first place,"
"Even if you could win, be famous and make a living - you would now."
"Well, I might, just for the craic. But no, I wouldn't be doing it in the first place."
"Ohhh, you liar, you bloody well would now."
"I wouldn't!"
"Ah, but you would now, Moira."
Repeat till fade...
Later that day, the hostel staff approached us to ask if we'd like to be interviewed for Brazilian TV. Turns out national celebrity and supermodel Leticia Birkheuer was filming her weekly show and wanted to ask some questions of us humble tourists. There was some reluctance amongst our group, but being no shrinking violet I pressed for participation, and we chatted with the production crew for a little while. Unfortunately our brush with fame never come through, poor Leticia 'wasn't feeling well' and couldn't make it, the poor dear. I was quite looking forward to sharing a I-met-a-supermodel story with a certain someone I used to work with who I know would have greatly appreciated it.
Clouds gathered. Rain fell. There was no relief.
Plenty of entertaining chat with the guests (more Irish, young Australians, fascinating Swedes) more than made up for the weather, but the time had come to make our last long-distance coach journey to the south and we set out for Florianopolis on the afternoon of the 13th, arriving into the welcoming arms of Rob and Carlos the next morning. After so many arrivals in unresearched towns, braving the bus station, fending off the locals, confronting the trip to the guesthouse district and just generally finding arrivals to be more stressful than departures, it was glorious relief to be met and escorted to an actual 'home', after a little tiki-tour along the way.
The same patchy weather has kept us a little further from the beach than we would have liked, but that hasn't stopped our hosts from taking us out to see the lovely island of Santa Cantarina, on which Florianopolis is situated. Food has been a particular highlight, with Carlos masterminding a mouthwatering churrasco on our first night. I have gleaned barbeque secrets I am sworn to take to the grave. Breakfast is fresh fruit salad, yoghurt, coffee and juice, but you can imagine our embarrassment when Ana and I realised we had broken the breakfast rules by not dressing in matching clothes... Prawn intake remains very high, as does that of wine. Such good wine (or such was our thirst, it's hard to tell), that Ana, Rob and I gasbagged our way through several bottles of it before realising that 4am might just be time to head to bed!
The local market here is plentiful and cheap, and has fueled a couple of meals at least. A dozen fresh oysters can be purchased for just 4 Reals, the equivalent of about £1.20. Cloudy weather hasn't stopped us visiting the beaches, just venturing into the water or spending a whole day there is a little bit difficult. We continue to pray for sun, but if it's not forthcoming we pray for wine.
One week to go till touchdown, and the shopping list has been officially ticked clean. Buenos Aires beckons once more before we fly, and we are grateful to be spending this last stage in such good company. You should take a break tho, you've been sitting here too long. It was a long time since the last post, but this is just a bit silly. Go stretch your legs. We've got some home-cooked Feijoada to tuck into.
Yours in increasing girth,
A
Rio!
Loyal Readers,
No, it's not the Rio entry you were hoping for, just a little note to let you know that we're happily nestled in the comfort and exceptional care of Rob and Carlos here in Florianopolis.
We've been very well fed and looked after, but the rains persist - there is hope for it clearing tomorrow. I'll get a proper post up hopefully today, pics and all, to cover the last two weeks. For now we're off into Florianopolis for some last minute shopping and lunch, although more than anything food has been plentiful so far!
Stay tuned,
A
Stop! Hammock time...
Loyal Readers,
We're just back in Salvador again, 12 days after we first arrived and girding ourselves to leave this lovely part of the country to make the journey south. We last left you at Praia Do Forte, which turned out to be just lovely. Beach time is surely accumulating, we ate and rested well, and then bussed back to Salvador for a night in the Pelourinho district, the historic centre of the town.
We've latched on to the HI hostels, which are clean and cheap, and have served us particularly well here in Brazil. We took a little wander round the town (saw some guys smoking crack, always a great time to pull out the camera) to take in the vistas and delicious street food. It was just a short stop tho, ready as we were to take in the much recommended island of Morro De São Paulo.
After a suspiciously circuituous route down to the port, we were underway on the local catamaran service. One very apparent difference here in Brazil, as compared to the other countries we've been to, is that everything's just a little better organised. Not quite as many shambolic cars, nor rickety old boats.
Morro De São Paulo is truly a paradise, a colonial era fort rounds the point, there's the platonic ideal of a lighthouse perched above, and the primary mode of transport (for luggage, supplies, even children) is wheelbarrow. Steep paths wend their way through the bush, their steps traversed with hand trowelled ramps for the barrows. We were checked in, and parked in a hammock in short order.
The island is ringed with beaches, each numbered from 1-6, plus a couple of little stretches with actual names. We walked the length of the first four, before settling on loungers on Segunda Praia (Second Beach) for several hours of book reading and people watching, to idly while away our day. We have a familiar routine now, setting up on the beach or in a hammock, devouring books like meals - one large one or two smaller ones per day - and then shrimps for dinner. I have now eaten shrimps for 13 days in a row, and could hardly be happier.
There are few western tourists on the island, but as always the Germans get everywhere, like fine sand. Our mumbled Spanish is sufficient to pass for impaired Portuguese most of the time, and our demands hardly require verbosity anyway.
Most of our after-dinner conversation the night before last was occupied with discussion of the purchase of a 'lady of the night', which Ana spotted being transacted at the neighbouring table. I always knew this happened, but it was a real shock to see it being done so brazenly - in the middle of the tables set on the beach, with money-exchanging handshakes performed clumsily under the table. Four guys, with their three girls, who all looked incredibly bored. The money's better spent on shrimps in my opinion...
Three nights there and we made our way back to Salvador, and on to Porto Seguro tomorrow night by bus. We're hoping to catch up with Fausto again, as he's huge fun and a great person to show us round Salvador.
Cheers again for the comments - I have increased the size of the text on the last post as requested (McKenzie, I know it's you, I nearly have enough to convict you. In time, you'll make a slip-up, and when you do, I'll be waiting...). RIP to the great architect Jorn Utzon, who was declared 'practically complete' by great building inspector in the sky yesterday...
Yours in golden brown-ness,
Arch
PS: There's a split infinitive up there somewhere. Call it a message to a certain someone out there who I know will have spotted it, drop me a line with your dates, and don't say I don't do anything for you...
