Paraty

14/05/13 to 17/05/13 - We didn't see any parrots in Paraty, which is probably why they pronounce it "para-chee". There are however plenty of lovely old colonial buildings painted.different colours and streets filled with the biggest, most uneven cobble stones ever. Walking was more like rock-hopping. A charming lovely town it was and wonderfully quiet.

The surrounding scenery was awesome too, with the tranquil bay dotted with jungly islands and the odd boat. We took a boat trip out into the bay, stopping at a few beaches and enjoying the hot sunshine (we got our tans back that had begun to fade a bit). There was some snorkeling, but nothing like as good as in Asia or Oz. The islands we passed looked like ideal hideouts for bond villains.

We yet again stayed longer than planned, eating breakfast on the beach each morning. On the final night the rain came, which wouldn't stop falling the whole way to Rio the next day, and even the day after that. Not the way we had imagined Rio to be. This was like Devon weather, and there was little to do than stay indoors.

Sao Paulo

12/05/13 to 14/05/13 - Usually most tourists tend to skip Sao Paulo as it is the commercial and economic city of Brazil, with lots of horrible tall glass and concrete buildings. We went there because we had to collect Flora’s new debit card that her bank had sent over. However, we found that for a couple of days, this city had some good things to offer.

The first day, we walked from our hostel which was in a safe area near Faria Lima metro station to Parque Ibirapuera. On our way we visited the Museu de Casa Brasileira, where an exhibition of young South American Designers and Graphic designers was held. We continued to walk towards the park on almost empty roads but as soon as we reached the park, we knew that most of the people from the city were there.

As it was Sunday, we visited (for free) another couple of museums: the Museu de Arte Modern with pictures of “Lady” Andy Warhol taken by his friend and the Museu de Afro Brasil, both situated in the park.

We walked again up to the Avenida Paulista to reach the metro station to go back to our hotel. As we weren’t sure of the way, we asked some people who told us that the nearest was 5 mins away (Brazilian time though, as it took us 15 mins!)

The next day, as it was Monday, we went to the trader’s district to the bank to pick up my card, passing the Estacao de Luz train station, and happened to wander through the trader's district, where each street specialised in a different product. We picked two streets at random and had the pleasure of passing hundreds of bridal shops, mannequin shops and fabric shops. There were some nice old buildings in amongst it all. After the bank we went to Mercado Municipal for lunch, where we had quite possibly the biggest low-carb sandwich ever.



After lunch we went to Edificio Altino Arantes, which used to be the tallest building outside of the United States when built in 1947. The building looked like a small version of the Empire State Building, as its architect was inspired by it. The view from the top was extraordinary, with skyscrapers in every direction as far as the eye could see. You'd think a city this size (19million) would be dirty and smoggy. Maybe it’s due to the fact cars run on ethanol, or the breeze from the sea, but the air was surprisingly clean and clear.

We finished the afternoon by walking around the centre to see the Cathedral da Sé and the Municipal Theatre.

In the evening, we went for few drinks near our hostel in the famous bohemian area Vila Madalena. There was a nice live band playing samba and later a couple of girls were dancing.  Flora tried to copy them from farther away and they caught her trying to dance samba. She had a thumbs up from one of the ladies and she made a sign for me to join, but at this point after 5 minutes trying, she was tired (imagine doing 180 steps in one minute….)

The following day, we were supposed to head to Paraty in the morning, but we realised that the bus was fully booked at the time we wanted, so we had time to visit the Museu Pinacoteca do Estado near the old station and go to the Beco de Batman (a street covered in grafitti which was a bit like a smaller version of Valpairaiso, but without the nice buildings).

Chui - Ilha de Santa Catarina

05/05/13 to 11/05/13 - Welcome to Chui. The border between Uruguay and Brazil is the high street, Avenida de Brasil. One side of the road you are in Uruguay, all the shops accept Pesos and everyone speaks Spanish, cross the road (avoiding the motorbikes) and you are in Brazil, the currency is Reals and everybody speaks Portuguese.

We were in Brazil for just 10 minutes, the shortest time ever spent in any country, before we had to cross back to Uruguay. Due to a misunderstanding with our Uruguayan driver, we got our passport stamped at Uruguayan immigration 2km from town and then got back on the bus to be dropped in the centre of Chui. A nice Brazilian girl from the bus helped show us to the bus stop over the road in Brazil, but it was the wrong one. After asking around a bit we had to walk back to Uruguay (means crossing the road again) and go back to immigration again to wait for our bus onto Brazil.



We were waiting in the dark and could hear insects/frogs making a strange noise that sounded like bottles being clinked together. It was cold and we were glad there was a fireplace in the immigration. Some old chaps were watching Snow White and The Huntsman dubbed in Spanish version.

After about an hour the bus arrived and we jumped on, travelled about 2miles across the border again and stopped at Brazil immigration.



The buses in South America so far have been luxury compared to Europe. The seats are huge, recline almost flat and there is loads of legroom...sometimes your feet can't reach the footrest. This time all the standard seats were full, so we had to pay a little more for Executive class. This bought us an even wider, leather seat, and a big hot meal, like plane food but so big we couldn't eat it all. We also got to watch a film. Unfortunately, we were sitting next to a crazy old lady who kept asking Flora every 30 minutes (the total time of the journey being 13 hours): “Sorry lady, are we nearly there yet” in Spanish… so Flora didn’t really sleep much.



We woke to the sound of Brazilian jazz funk and Bossa Nova on the stereo, and the landscape had changed from the brown, cow-filled plains to lush jungle capped hills and lakes as we made our way through the south of Brazil up to Florianopolis on the east coast.

Eventually we were there and took two buses to go to the other side of Ilha de Santa Catarina in Barra de Lagoa. Our Spanish was useless as even though Portuguese is similar to Spanish on paper, when spoken it sounds so different (Brazilian Portuguese sounds so different to Portugal too). We didn't understand anything, but people were.helpful, and the bus conductors showed us exactly where to change buses and when to get off.

Our guesthouse was right near the sea and we could hear the waves during the night. We also could borrow some free beach gear such as surf and body boards, bats, balls, beachmats, etc…. We were supposed to stay only a couple of days but we couldn’t resist the free caipirihnas every night, the huge breakfast buffet, the nice walks and a few nice and empty beaches within walking distance. We also met nice people while we were there, coming from UK, Canada, Sweden, Peru, Argentina and Holland… and it felt like a small family. Eventually it was time for goodbyes as we booked some tickets for our next destination, Sao Paulo.

Summary of Uruguay

ORIENTAL REPUBLIC OF URUGUAY

Distance travelled:  522 km

Classic cars encountered: 45

Cows encountered: millions

Decommissioned aeroplane pubs encountered: 1

Ears bitten: zero

Modes of transport: ferry, bus

Our Route:

Montevideo - Punta Del Diablo

30/04/13 to 05/05/13 - We arrived in Montevideo, in the early evening and stayed in Pocitos on the east side of the city. Pocitos is famous (trust us it is) for hosting the first ever world cup match, because the main stadium was completed a week late. The Pocitos stadium no longer exists, but the area is now the safer and more affluent area of Montevideo. We had pre-booked a hostel and we happened to stay with a good bunch of people, with everyone sharing meals and drinks as well as travel advice. There were a few characters, including a Uruguayan man who looked like Jack Nicholson and had a scary laugh, and an American ex airforce pilot who believed the FBI were chasing him.

Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay and we spent the next day touring the old city, with some nice, unique and also some not so nice buildings. The main square included a mausoleum to the country's founder General Artigas, which we stumbled across by accident as it was underground and guarded by two guards. The place had a nice, spooky ambience with the starship-like lighting and soviet-like block lettering on the walls.



After a fair bit of walking, it was time to try the Uruguayan version of Parilla, so we went to Mercado del Puerto. We went for steaks and they were every bit as good as the Argentine version. We were also given a free glass of Medio y Medio (half and half), which is made from half champagne and half white wine. After walking some more we returned home to try some Uruguayan maté, which is different from maté Argentina.



For our final day in Montevideo it was raining heavily, but there was one thing we couldn't miss so we walked for 45 minutes getting thoroughly soaked on our way to Estadio Centenario, home of the inaugural Football World Cup in 1930. As you can imagine, Flora was well chuffed.

In truth the stadium wasn't a looker, but it didn't really matter as we visited the Museo de Futbol, inside the stadium. We got a view of the pitch and imagined it was 1930 and this tiny nation of just 3 million had just won the first ever world cup (Uruguay have won it twice, which makes them the best international team ever on a per capita basis). The 90,000 fans must have been going wild. Hopefully they had better weather than us. The museum had some old, blood-stained shirts and antique boots, as well as numerous trophies. Probably the best were the posters in typical 1930s modernist style, and they fitted with the Art Deco design of the stadium, with its tall concrete tower. The place was a reminder of how football used to be in the good old days. As we left a cheerful chap said "Goodbye and good luck for the next world cup".

Things dried up a bit and we went to the Torres Garcia museum, where Flora was much happier. This was interesting and his paintings and sculptures and toys showed his interest in geometry. We delayed our bus out for a further day to rest a bit and dry out.

The next morning after yet more Dulce de Leche on toast we caught our bus to Punta del Diablo. On the way we saw ostriches, millions of cows and a pub made from an old aeroplane. PDD was a surfing town, a bit more built up than we imagined, the place Uruguayans go on their holidays, with small guesthouses and bungalows for rent but it was off-season so it was quiet. Except our hostel which had several wedding guests, and due to their noise late at night, we didn't sleep much. We wandered the long beach the next morning before leaving Uruguay in the evening for Brazil.

Colonia del Sacremento

29/04/13 to 30/05/13 - We woke up early to catch the ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacremento in Uruguay. The crossing of the River Plate took just one hour and we checked into a hostel before exploring the old town. It was a nice place, with cobbled streets and a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish style colonial houses. The streets were dotted with old rusty classic cars, which we thought were just for decoration until we saw a few whizzing past.

The museum in Colonia is split across 7 or 8 old houses, which made it a nice little treasure hunt to seek out the various houses and meant there was no need for the council to build a bigger building to house the museum. Like most of the museums we had visited recently in Argentina, there were plenty of old uniforms, swords and pistols dating back to the invasion of the southern Europeans and the subsequent territorial battles that followed.

The next morning we took a pleasant stroll along the 5km beach to an abandoned colloseum/bullring which we had a quick look inside before catching a bus back to town. Our bus for Montevideo was leaving shortly, so we grabbed a few empanadas and dashed to the bus station.