Uruguay

Punta del Diablo

Arriving in Uruguay and more specifically Punta del Diablo was a nice relief as it was a very laid back and tranquil place which seemed like a surfers paradise with the majority of the people dressed like hippies and most of the people seemed like smily happy people. It was almost like a festival vibe and there were stalls and a permanent wooden market place down by the sea where they sold all sorts from colourful clothes to necklaces to art work. Shopping for souvenirs however was not our primary concern as we still hadn’t booked a hostel and by the looks of things online there weren’t a great deal of options in this small town with a population of just 700. We found a map of the town and headed for the one hostel on it called Hostel Del Diablo (Hostel of the Devil) hoping this wouldn’t be quite as an ominous a place as its namesake would suggest, we headed there and were pleased to find that it was a splendid wooden building with wooden stairs, thatched roofs, lounge areas inside and out and a lovely sea view from pretty much everywhere. The fact that the owner was a German who spoke fluent English as well as all the rest of the staff was a bonus although this was a hindrance on me being able to practice my Spanish. They did only have dorms left and so we ended up in a 6 bed dorm which was empty when we got there but later we were joined by a Chilean couple who were extremely nice people and even came over and shook hands and exchanged kisses when we first met. I was pleased with the room and the hostel in general; it even had a swimming pool! The hostel itself was an impressive building just as all the buildings were in this fun and vibrant little fishing town. The majority of the buildings were of similar design almost tepee like in appearance with long steep sided roofs, many of them thatched or corrugated and many painted in bright colours allowing for a beautiful array of coloured walls set against the backdrop of deep blue sea and light blue sky. It really was like a party town and after lunch, a good long swim and a long lazy session of sunbathing by Lee and I we headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. After some delicious fruits of the sea spaghetti, we walked around and there were all sorts of things going on from a man dressed up in brightly coloured clothes waving a ribbon and blowing a whistle to a woman doing acrobatics using just two poles two hold herself upside down. Many of the bars and restaurants were lively and had live music and the whole place was vibrant with life but having had such little sleep on the coach from the night before we all decided it was about time we went to bed so we returned to the hostal and caught up with some well needed sleep. I chatted to a nice Canadian girl for a while whilst uploading some pictures who highly recommended Bolivia as an excellent country to visit one of her main reasons being the cheapness of the place which is always an incentive. She also recommended doing Maccu Picchu but doing it the proper way where you actually do the trek and save money rather than going in hotels etc. I then met her dorm mate a nice Swedish girl who i chatted to for a little while who recommended a place in Argentina near Buenos Aires where they have a festival every weekend although Ive forgotten the name of the place already but Im sure if it’s a place worth going then we’ll hear about it again.

The next morning we got up fairly early and had breakfast and we decided that since our bus wasn’t until 5.20 in the afternoon that we’d go to the beach again. This was enjoyable but after a while we’d had enough sun, sea and sand and headed for lunch. Lee and I then went for a walk around own and into the outskirts which Lee found boring but I just wanted to see some more of their peculiar yet captivating architecture and perhaps some of the local flora and fauna although disappointingly no snakes or any other creatures for that matter jumped out on me on this occasion.

So it was time to leave this great little town, I had definitely enjoyed our short stay here and even said to t he guys that one day I’d like to return perhaps. Let’s hope I have the same feeling for our next destination in Uruguay, Punta del Este.

Florianopolis

It was indeed somewhat of a relief to leave Sao Paulo in one piece with all our possessions and vital organs intact and we were looking forward to getting to and relaxing on at least one of Florianolpolis’ 42 beaches. Florianopolis is a small island off the coast of Brasil and was certainly worth stopping at. Arriving there at 7.30am having barely slept on a crowded and uncomfortable coach I was not in the mood for lugging around a heavy rucksack and searching for our hostel which we weren’t supposed to be checking into until 12 and it didn’t help that it was grey clouds, pouring rain and cold weather but this all quickly changed once we reached our hostel.

After a 45 minute taxi ride to the north of the island, we reached our hostel Posada Ilha de Moreno near to Praia Santinho one of the smaller more secluded beaches on the island. This was a pleasant and busy little hostel with friendly staff and good facilities including a swimming pool and gym area as well as a bar and lounge with widescreen TV although the wi-fi connection was the only thing that let the place down being extremely temperamental. They even let us check in early (this was a good 2 hours) and have breakfast for a small extra charge which was good of them. It seemed since we had arrived at our hostel that the sun had decided to show its face and my did it have something to prove that day! After breakfast we decided to head to our local beach and after a short walk we came across one of the most beautiful beaches I had ever seen and it wasn’t very busy at all. With us we had brought the football we had bought in Paraty and a body board from the hostel and we now had the sun on our side so it was looking like it was going to be a great day and indeed it was (well for the mostpart)!

The sun and the sea here were especially ferocious, more so than i’ve ever known at a beach so even with thick layers of sunscreen, you can still see and feel yourself burning and you needed to always be careful in the ocean as the waves were so frequent and powerful that the strength could probably break your bones without due care as well as the fact that you could all easily find yourself way out of your depth and indeed your comforet zone in moments . Indeed all 3 of us fell victim to both the sun and the sea and the consequences were nearly serious when Steve nearly drowned! Having mentioned in a previous blog about how I like to see how far out I can get when swimming in the sea within my comfort zone, I again tried the same as firstly I naively thought that if I swam out beyond the waves that it’d be calmer conditions to swim in and secondly I saw a couple of surfers quite a way further out which gave me a flase sense of security being the fact that I wasn’t the furthest out and if they could be out there then so could I but then in hindsight I realised they were most probably better swimmers than me and they had surfboards not just to surf their way back to shore with but as buoyancy aids if anything did happen to them. With al these thoughts running through my mind and the constant battle in attempting to fight against the waves, I decided to turn back as the water was very deep and the waves very large still and to my surprise, as I turned around I found Steve just behind me on the body board. He had followed me out perhaps to ensure my wellbeing or perhaps in an attempt to see if he could catch a wave from that far out. Oh how wrong he had been! As I began to swim front crawl to get some distance on him as with his board I assumed he’d catch me but this quickly tired me out and I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere so I apodted the breast stroke approach calmly and slowly making progress with the waves behind me whilst trying not to gulp down too much salt water with the swell. Behind me Steve wasn’t making much progress but I assumed this was because he was still waiting on a big’un even though there had been plenty but at this place we seemed not to be going forward or backwards for some reason, it was lamost like we were breing tossed around in a teacup going one step forward to go one step back again. It was at this point I realised how far out we were and how we could be in some trouble as there were no helicopters going overhead as there had been in Rio and in these waves it would be hard for anyone to spot us from the shore. Stay calm I said to myself but it was hard when you just weren’t making any progress no matter how hard you tried and then the battering of the waves and constant fight against the swell which was pulling you back with almost as much force as the wave that had struck you in the first place. At one point I swallowed a huge mouthful of salt water when trying to grab a breath between waves and my stomach really didn’t agree with this and i began wretching and choking whilst still trying to catch breath and being battered by more huge waves and I almost thought I would die there and then but luckily I got a small break from the waves and regained my breath but was even more physically worn out from this experience so I swam closer to Steve and asked if we could swap so he sawm for a little while i tried the board since he wasn’t getting far and I fancied my chances more on the board so we swapped.After around 5 minutes of aggressive swimming, Steve had made good progress and I had barely moved so I started to worry that he was going to leave me out here alone but then Steve seemed to tire and his progress waned. All of a sudden he was shouting at me, Adam, Adam help I’m drowning. I just chckled to myself thinking he was playing tricks but then he shouted Adam I’m not fucking around help me so then I reliased he was serious and swam on the board towards him as fast as I could. He was clearly shaken up when I reached him and I gave him the board as a buoyancy aid and which perhaps saved his life. I then swam for it to try and get help from the shore and could see the life guards running and blowing whistles at the shore. I had made it out of the doldrums and I’v enever felt such relief when my feet touched good old terra firma again but Steve had drifted away further out to sea on the board and the lifeguards told me we shouldn’t have been out so far and whether there was anyone else out there I pointed towards Steve and they quicky fought against the waves to his rescue. Steve was shaken up when he reached the shore with them and shook both of their hands for saving his life. We certainly had been out of our depths and although I had probably saved Steve’s life, we had both been pretty foolish to be so far out in the first place and it could easily have happened to either of us.

After this escapade I made the decision to stay out of the water for the rest of the day and go in the search of some nature to photographs since the surrounding area was very naturally beautiful with heavily vegetated marshland areas as well as sand dunes and forested mountains to either end of the beach so I was determined to get some good snaps. Unfortunaltely my main objective was to go back to the area we passed on the way to the beach which was a marshy grassland where I had heard loud shrill calls from what I can only assume were chicks of some bird but everytime I got anywhere near they simply shut up and because the grass was so dense I simply couldn’t see benetath it and didn’t want to tread on then so I had to give up on that idea which was a shame. Instead I went on the hunt for any other wildlife I could see and got some good snaps of some exotic looking plants and flowers, pretty butterflies, dragonflies, beetles and a large clumsy looking bird that flew out unexpectedly from the bushes. This was an enjoyable experience although at one point i nearly lost a flip flop in what can only described as quicksand my foot was literally swallowed up in the stuff! Luckily my other foot was on a more solid part so I just pulled my foot out and had to wrench my flip flop back from the clutches of the evil wet sand! I then headed to the sand dunes where a slightly diffenret slection of wildlife existed such as crabs and birds with long beaks that I couldn’t identify. After a while trying but faliing to get a picture of a sand crab as whenever they saw you they scuttled back into their holes my battery decided to tell me that it was about to die so now my mission was to climb to the highest point of the hill to get a picture from up high of our beach Santinho and the neighbouring beach Praia dos Ingleses (Beach of the English) but unfortunately just when I reached the end of the beach and the foot of the hill my battery died completely and so I just turned back and told myself I’d get the crabs and the hill view shots myself as well as some nice close ups of the vutures sitting at the top of the hill. Having spent the day in the sun with just swimming trunks and flip flops on I was looking pretty red even though I had applied suncream on regular occasions but the pain set in later and with my feet still in agony with blisters from football and flip flops that hurt to walk on as the strap was too far into the sole meant that it was not a nice night. I could barely walk and it hurt to lie on my back so the pain was almost excruciating. We had a cold tile floor in our room and walking in bare foot on my blisters was like someone slowly peeling a plaster off you every time i lifted my foot. It’s hard to describe but I hadn’t felt pain like this for quite some time. Just to add to my ailments I was feeling like I had heatstroke but nonetheless I was so tired from the previous nights lack of sleep that I quickly fell asleep even with the pain and the extremely uncomfortable heat in the room and bed.

The next day however we decided to go to Ingleses (the nearest beach town) to book our coach tickets to Uruguay and try Praia do Mozambique (Beach of Mozambique) as recommended by our receptionist but we missed the bus and after waiting around for another for around 20 minutes we just decided to go back to our local beach which I was pleased about as it was a great beach and it meant I could those shots I had wanted. Again it was an eventful day at the beach and I got the blame when Lee went out on the board and nearly got knocked out by the board which incidentally cracked in two over his head as he had seen me use the technique of throwing the board over the big waves so that you don’t have to worry about losing the board with the force of the wave and then perhaps catching the board on the next wave and riding it in. Lee hoever threw the board and relaising he may lose it if he didn’t get it back dived at it with full force and the wave duly obliged with full force literally smashing the board in two over his head. Dazed and now with a broken board Lee came back to us to say it was my fault as he was copying my technique! Well excuse me but it’s not my fault if your technique sucks J.

After an unsuccessful few attempts at catching some large waves and riding to shore on them and still a little wary of the water after the incidents of the day before, I decided to climb the hill that I would’ve done the day before if id had battery so off i set this time equipped with a full battery, music and comfy trainers. On the way i even managed to coax a crab out of its hole and got some good shots of it. Up the mountain I got some great shots of both beaches as well as the some good close ups of the vultures towards the top. I met a nice Argentinian guy and his son who spoke excellent English and even spoke to me about Premiership football which I guess all the Argies know about these days with Tevez and Mascherano being in the league. Kiindly he took some photos of me and advised me that it was thick and dense further up as I enquired about whether I could get higher but he said with my shoes it could be possible but he’d never found a path. So off I set trying on my mission to get to the top and get the money shot but this was certainly not worth the pain as there was no path and every other plant was a spiny one. After trying to fight my way through this thick scrub for about half an hour and getting cut all over I decided to turn back as I was in pain from blisters, in pain from sunburn and now the pain of the spines all over proved too much. I got some great shots though and i felt like I had achieved my goal anyway. Heading back to the beach I got back to where we had been and found they had gone back so I headed back to the hostel and we ate all dinner and got a fairly early night ready for the long trip to the border of Uruguay at 4.30pm the following day.

Sao Paulo

Arriving in Sao Paulo was quite a shock to the system having been surrounded by lush forests and mountains and picturesque coastlines for the last few hours we were now surrounded by a concrete jungle of urban sprawl with skyscrapers and high rise blocks in every direction. Getting off the comfy coach and heading to the metro in an attempt to locate our hostel proved to also be quite stressful with my 23kg rucksack and heavy day bag to carry around everywhere and just working out where to go and then once figuring this out getting on a packed tube on a Saturday in one of the world’s largest cities whilst being conscious of firstly not knocking anyone out just by turning round and well as keeping your eye out for any suspicious looking characters who might be trying to rummage through your bag while you weren’t looking. Anyway so after some stressful tube journeys and a couple of changes we arrived at the desired metro station but then had no idea of the location of the hotel so we walked around looking for someone trustworthy enough not to rob us who might be friendly enough to help. Eventually we got someone wave vaguely to the road we needed and we finally stumbled upon our hotel.

What relief to find that it was a very nice and comfortable hotel with a lovely lady behind reception who spoke excellent English. The room was like an apartment and seemed like a luxury one at that when compared to the previous place we had stayed. We had 2 rooms and 4 beds, our own lounge area with sofas , TV and dining table, a nice sized bathroom and it even had a large balcony for sunbathing (when the sun actually came out). It was almost like a bachelor pad and after some discussion we agreed due to the infamous reputation of the city at night that we would stay in order pizza (which the nice receptionist did for us) get some beers in, watch some TV (there was even FA Cup footy on the TV) and get an early night. This was an enjoyable evening and although I was a little sad at staying in on a Saturday night in a big city, I was glad of just chilling out, catching up with friends and email, facebook etc on the free wifi and getting a nice early night in the end with the prospect of an enjoyable walking city tour as recommended in the lonely planet for the next day.

After a good night’s sleep having slept like a baby (according to Lee I was suckling) I woke and we got ready to check out and got ready to walk the city although my feet were still in agony from the previous days blisters I just had to grin and bear the pain as I was keen to see the city. The sun was out and we were all quite excited about the tour so off we went.

Walking around Sao Paulo it was clear why some people including Luca my Italian friend I had met on the plane had told me to steer clear or that there wasn’t much to see and was more of a commercial/industrial town than a touristy one. Many of the buildings were very shabby, dilapidated and dirty looking and many half finished, crumbling and ancient without much sign of modernity no matter which street one took. The poverty and lack of sanitation was evident even though this was one of the most if not the most affluent cities in the country (and I also read on Wikipedia that it won the alpha award for its contribution to the world economy!) but clearly the distribution of wealth was not even with a person lying homeless in almost every street and doorway and the smell of urine and faeces often apparent. People in general frowned and didn’t look happy, graffiti was rife and beggars were a constant annoyance even outside the cathedral which was certainly the most impressive building of the city. Having said all this I was determined to keep a positive attitude and was extremely pleased that we had gone there as it was an experience like none other. I was pleased to have discovered this place and took photos of almost everything I found interesting which was an awful lot in the end, be it architecture, art (mainly graffiti art) or just people at one point I took a picture of a homeless guy as I felt like it wouldn’t paint a true picture of the place if I just took pictures of the nicer things.

Another person I took a photo of who I found fascinating was a young boy who couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 with a microphone who was teaching advanced mathematics to people on a white board, a real child genius! By this time, Lee and Steve were unhappy about the whole place in fact at just being there and Lee even said he wished we’d skipped it out but I’m glad we didn’t. It didn’t help that as we walked a storm was brewing and after a couple of hours the heavens opened and it poured torrential rain for almost an hour with rivers of water forming in the streets which did nothing to enhance the spirits especially since we were stuck in McDonalds in Av.Paulista until it stopped. Avenue Paulista was a much more affluent area and was the English equivalent of Canary Wharf with all the high rise commercial buildings and banks as well as expensive shopping malls and the city’s art museum although I was distinctly unimpressed by the edifice in which the art was kept and Lee and Steve even walked past it without realising. It was just an ugly rectangular block of concrete with red corners. Opposite this was the Parque Siqueiro Campos which was a nice change from the mass of concrete, metal and glass that had taken up our vistas for the last few hours. The park was almost like stepping from a city into the rainforest with thick jungle all around the pedestrian paths with the occasional statue in between the trees although we didn’t stay long as we had to head back to get to the hotel to collect our bags and get to the bus station for the long 11 hour bus journey to our next stop Florianoplois. Apparently the place has 42 beaches so I’m quite looking forward to having a good swim or two.

As a final remark on Sao Paulo, as I said to the guys, I think the solution for the city of Sao Paulo is to get an architect to come along and build something spectacular on the world scale to put it on the map and get more tourists and then people might start to clean up and care a little more about this huge, potential vibrant and dynamic city. There were many positively attractive areas and one of the photos I took of a building similar in style to yet smaller than the empire state building between two other nice looking buildings could well have been a photo of New York or Chicago for example but so many areas are in severe need of gentrification and modernisation that you almost start to think where do you start, perhaps they should just knock it all down and start again! Start with one new amazing building and go from there is what I would say. Lee tells me they have world cup coming up soon so perhaps they can use that as a financial stepping stone for giving Sao Paulo the new lease of life that it needs. With Rio having the Olympics after London these are promising and hopeful times for these two Brazilian giants who have so much to offer the world

Paraty and the road to Sao Paolo

Day 4 – Paraty & the Road to Sao Paolo

So here I am again writing on the coach on the way to Sao Paolo having spent the night in a small quaint little coastal village called Paraty. Paraty was not quite what I had envisaged from the lonely planet’s description but I couldn’t complain about the setting with a beautiful sea view and beach, some lovely colourful flora including some rather nice orchids and interesting sounding birds and the village itself was a quaint little place with some lovely little churches, cobbled streets and colourful doors, houses and buildings. I especially liked the river with pretty little houses and hostels on one bank and nice grassy palmed lawns on the other with a lovely backdrop of jungle and mountains. Steve told me it reminded him of Thailand which is one place still on my list of places to visit.

The locals too were friendly and seemed used to seeing tourists probably because this was the stop off point between Rio and Sao Paolo so there were plenty of backpackers, notably Brits and I also recall hearing quite a number of French speaking people which I didn’t expect for some reason. With all these tourists meant there were many hostels of varying attractiveness and prices depending on their location. Unfortunately, due to our budget we picked a small hostel in the centre and the room was extremely dingy with only just enough room for the double and single bed inside. Even with the fan going on the ceiling it was sweltering and I was not looking forward to sleeping in there that night. To make things even worse there were loads of mosquitoes and Steve and I had already seen a poster warning about dengue fever so we spent a good while eliminating any mossies we saw before going out for lunch.

After lunch, Lee declared himself unwell and returned to the hostel so Steve and I agreed to do some exploring. We wandered through town looking like a pair of happy snappy Chinese tourists taking photos of everything and anything we saw walking through and taking photos in each street we passed. We then decided to walk up the hill to try and get a picture from higher up where we spotted the bay so we headed back down and found the beach which was a nice sight with nice fishing boats and some yachts in the bay. There was a long spit out into the sea which we walked out to the end of and took some good photos from. By this time we were both rather hot and bothered so we decided to go swimming. The water was a little dirty but the locals were all enjoying themselves in there and it was refreshing to take a dip. The water was very warm and you could stand up for a good few hundred metres out to sea. After our dip we continued to walk around a little more. Walking alongside the river bank was pleasant and it was here we found an empty public basketball/football court so we decided to go and buy a football and play a bit of one on one but when we returned we found 3 young boys playing and within minutes we had agreed to play them. It felt good to play with the youth of the best footballing nation in the world thinking to yourself one of these youngsters could be the next Ronaldo or Kaka and they certainly weren’t short of tricks although I’d like think we taught them a trick or two ourselves. After playing for a few minutes more boys turned up and we had about 5 a side by the end. One big mistake I made was playing in bare foot like them and within moments of removing my trainers I had acquired some huge blisters on the souls of my feet which hurt severely but I enjoyed the game nonetheless. At one point I slipped in a puddle and landed flat on my back which was sore enough as it was from sunburn due to the inability to reach that part of my back and Steve did the same but he stood on the ball and fell on his back so the both of us were hobbling around like a pair of old men towards the end of the game! Certainly must’ve been entertaining for the rest of them watching us red raw and hobbling around. On the way back to the hostel I could barely walk and every step was excruciating but I didn’t mind, I’d experienced pain like it before from football and knew it was only a day or so until they started to heal again. I just wasn’t looking forward to getting back to the boiling hot cramped room full of mosquitoes. We certainly made sure we wore our mosquito nets! It was a shame about our room though because the guys in there were very pleasant and spoke excellent English and we had free wifi and breakfast too was included in the price so it helped ease the discomfort of the sleeping conditions. They even provided us with an extra fan and were very apologetic in the morning for the mosquitoes.

Next we faced the long coach journey to Sao Paolo which we are on now, yet more beautiful bays and lush forested mountains that I just can’t get bored of, many will sleep on these journeys but I don’t wish to as I want to take in everything around me. Such an amazing place and amazing country, all the photos in the world don’t do it justice, you just need to experience it for yourself. Next stop Sao Paolo, can’t wait, Brasil’s 2^nd biggest city and according to Steve the 3^rd biggest metropolis in the world. Should be good J

Day 3 – Road to Paraty

Having had a faily good sleep I was roused by the sound of Stgeve clattering around at around 4.45am getting set to leave and making himself breakfast and after this I couldnt get back to sleep so I got up, showered and prepared myself to leave. I was not looking forward to this moment as my bag weighed a ridiculous 23kg and I was going to be lugging it around all the way to Paraty with sunburnt shoulders but then it’s my own fault for packing so many clothes.

Saying goodbye to Rio was quite emotional as I had grown quite attached to the place over the last 3 days and it had certainly had a lasting effect on me but being on the bus for a few moments just made me think wow as some of the sights out of the window were simply exquisite. I am in love with this country, it’s not just Rio but the etire country I love the lush tropical green forests and beautiful colored orchids and flowers, I love the little beach towns snuggly set amonst the mountains and I love the big skies and the sun not to mention the beautiful women. I even love the vultures that just hover high up in the sky! Anyway, I think I’ve made my point, the place is great, I can’t stop taking photos of everything and anything that is worth a picture and round here it feels like everything is worth a picture! It’s when you get on the coach and drive a little in Brasil that you reliase that this is just a tiny fraction of this immense country and the sheer grandiosity of it is incomprehensible at times but I suppose it is the 3^rd biggest country in the world and in my opinion from what ive seen so far, one of the most beautiful. One just has to mention the Amazon basin and automatically lush green forests spring to mind. Where we are, proba bly thousands of miles from the Amazon and it is still beautifl lush green forests all over the mountains.

So onto Paraty, I just read the lonely planet description of the place and it sounds to me like paradise, here’s the description:’Set amid jutting pennisulars and secluded beaches, with a backdrop of steep, jungled mountains plunging into an island studded bay, Paraty is one of Brasil’s most exquisite and well preserved historical gems’

Sounds good to me, lets just hope it lives up to everything I’m hoping it is. I’m pretty certain that it will J , can’t wait to get there although I’m enjoying the journey immesnely!

First night and day 1 in Rio

Arriving in Rio was so exciting although when you arrive at night you just can't grasp the full beauty of the place as it is simply lights and you can't see the full picture so I couldn't wait for the next day to actually see it for real in daylight and also get some well needed sun on my face having been in 6 inches of snow for the past couple of weeks back in the UK! I wasn't prepared for the 30 degree c heat at midnight though!! On arrival at the hostel Jucati I was pleasantly surprised that the guys in reception were expecting me and that they spoke pretty good English. I couldn't wait to see my friends with whom I worked for 2 years again having not seen them for quite a few months since they had been travelling down through US and Mexico before flying down to Rio. I got to the door and found the rather scary levitating head looking at me through a hole. So it began, the adventure had started so we decided to head to Ipanema for catch up drinks.

Having returned at 4am and then my alarm going off at 7 meant I was a little groggy the next day although I did go back to bed sleeping in patches although I was keen just to get out and see the place so we got up and headed towards Copacabana beach. Stepping out in daylight in Rio for the first time was an awe inspiring experience, the glaring hot sun directly above you, the forest covered mountains surrounding the high rise buildings and the sites, smells, amazing new flora and fauna, amazing new architecture (not new in the modern sense but rahter new to me) and the whole geological scenery cannot be summed up into words and all I can do is recommend anyone who is keen on travelling who has not been before, it has to be done!! I actually said to my friend Lee today that this is definitely the most amazing place I have ever been and I have been to my fair share of places! It is the immersion in the new culture and meeting new people and seeing new places that I've come for and I have not been disappointed! Even trying the food here has been an experience, we went to an all you can eat buffet today where they came to the table with skewers of every different type of meat you can imagine which was fantastic, a real meat feast and something I've never experienced before. Another experience here which I'm trying to get used to is going outside to be warm which is the direct opposite to the UK where most of the time you go inside to get warm!

So we went to the beach but unfortunately didnt swim just got our feet burnt by the scaldingly hot sand. The heat is intense, I thought I'd be okay havin been to places like Mexico and Egypt but here the heat is unparalleled and I would advise anyone who comes to try and have water and suncream on them at all time! After the beach we went to Fluminese's ground to buy tickets for their game against Bangu only to find the game was at the ground of Flamengo, the Maracana stadium which was an amazing experience if you like the beautiful game, it's a must! The game was a good one with Fluminese coming out 3-0 winners although again the heat and dehydration really takes it's toll so you must be prepared to buy lots of drinks off the vendors inside the ground as you're not allowed to take drinks into the stadium.

It's been a fantastic day and tomorrow I will do a full city tour including the Christ the Redeemer statue, Sugarloaf mountain and a trip to the forest which I'm immensely looking forward to and will tell you all about it ion the next blog although unfortunately the weather is forecast to be stormy but I'm sure that'll be an experience in itself.

Flight to and arriving in Rio

Flying is always easier when you have someone amiable sitting next to you that you can chat to. Luckily I

ad a nice Italian guy callled Luca next to me who spent much of the journey helping me to learn the basics in Portuguese, he even had me repeat sentances after him so I could work on my accent and then get me to guess what the sentance meant which I can quite proudly say having never learnt Portuguese in my life I got all corrrect although I am pretty good in Spanish so much of it was just guessing on words that sounded similar. Since Luca was pretty much fluent in Portuguese I jumped at the chance when he suggested we shared a taxi to our hostels as I would've had no clue what I was asking or for that matter whether I was being ripped off so thanks to Luca I got safely to my hostel and at a good price after much haggling. Nice one Luca, thanks for the help :)

Adam, Lee and Steve's South American Adventure

So here it begins, January 19th 2010. I'm flying to meet my two mates so that we become the 3 amigos touring the grand continent of South America. We had always planned this and now it's becoming a reality! Bring on Rio de Janeiro!!