The end is nigh. Having spent the last 2 days back on Ipanema and with all our important stuff packed away, bar a complete disaster on the taxi journey to the airport both our objectives of our time in Brasil are, you'll be glad to know I'm sure, complete. We treated ourselves last night to a meal at what is basically an 'all you can eat' bbq but in a restaraunt. You head to the buffet for some salad before an army of waiters come to your table with all sorts of cuts of meat and give you what you want. A nice touch is that you're given a small card green on one side, red on the other which lets the waiters know 'yes' or 'no' for more meats. This means that you're not completely pestered for more meat all the time which is nice.

And today, we've just come back from the beach and having a small farewell beer in the hostel before catching our taxi. I think that we just want to get there now. Personally I'm looking forward to a few things I've missed like fresh milk, salt and vinegar kettle chips, homous and those little pork pies from sainsbury's. The fresh milk is the big one though. Everything's UHT here! Rubbish!

So maybe, just to complete the trip, I'll post again after getting home. It's been an amazing 4 months and we cant quite believe it's over but here it is. 4 hours time and we'll be sat on our flight to London. Definitely looking forward to seeing everyone though!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Location:This is it.

A loaf of sugar and a visit to see Jesus.

I forgot to mention that when we visited the Museum in Niteroi we found the probable hiding place of Osama bin Laden. Alert the feds! The little sign hanging under the door says something along the lines of ´Where the taliban come to meet´. Great.

The Sugar Loaf in all it´s glory.

The clouds rolling in. They were moving pretty rapidly over that little ridge.

Jesus with some scaffolding.

Us two at the top.

We tried to visit the Sugar Loaf mountain but things didn´t go quite to plan in the end. We´d heard that you could climb up to the first station and so saving half the price of the cable car lift fee. We asked a handful a people on the way and everyone pointed us in the direction of a path so off we went. Unfortunately, the only path we saw upwards said that it required climbing gear including ropes and the such. So dressed in our beach shorts and flip flops, this route might be out of even our flip flop trekking league league (think back to Kat´s flip flop trek in Bariloche). The walk was nice anyway and we headed back to look at the price of the cable car up. At 20 quid each (of course only 5 for Brasilians) we decided we´d save our money for the visit to Jesus the next day. The mountain sure looked nice from the bottom though.

So today, sunny again and after the obligratory visit to Ipanema we headed up to see the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer. We had another funny example of how tourists are sometimes treated here when we got off the bus at the bottom of the hill. There are two options up to the statue, either a cheaper option of the train or a slightly more expensive option of a minibus. The minibus drivers all congregrate around the bus stop waiting for the prey and the first thing we were told was that the train had ´broken down´! We thought we´d check and of course it hadn´t! The cheeky bugger! So we took the train up and up and up we went. It got so steep at some points you started to realise how high up the statue is.

It turned out that we´d timed our visit perfectly. Just as we stepped out to see the view the clouds slowly started rolling in. It would have been desperately dissapointing to go up only to be up in the clouds! It was great to see the whole of Rio and the only pity was that the statue itself is under restoration and so is covered in scaffolding. Oh well, the view was still great.

So here we are, our last full day tomorrow before we head home on Thursday. We have nothing to do now but sit on the beach and wait for our flight home. Not that we´ve totally exhausted the city of everything to do but we´re sure that sitting at home in the UK next week, what we´ll want to remember is plenty of time on the beach. Milk it as much as possible! I´ll give another little post before we catch our flight..........

Reality check on Ipanema.

Well what a day. Amazingly, it was sunny again so it was the usual journey down to Ipanema. This time via the 'hippy market' which is on every Sunday. After hearing and reading good things about it, it turned out to be nothing special. Just another tourist market full of stuff that looks ok in Rio but would look completely out of place anywhere else. Bit of a shame really.

So we made the usual trip and headed on to the beach. Everything was going swimmimgly for the first few hours, wall to wall sunshine and nice dips in the sea but after a few hours we had an incident that would remind us again of where we are. While Kat was buying a new bikini top, the seller warned us about 2 guys that had just set up camp next to our spot. He said for us to look after our stuff which initially we thought was maybe a bit paranoid. However as soon as we sat down we saw that these guys were blatantly and openely going through the bag of the people next to us looking for something to take. We couldn't believe it, and worse we just physically couldn't do anything about it. After not finding anything in their bag they quickly took a chance and made away with the bag of another chap who had gone for a dip in the sea. We just couldn't believe it. The worst thing is is that everybody around saw this happen but didn't want to do anything about it or say something to them, including us. Unfortunately, the worry that they might pull a knife or worse on anyone who confronted them got the better of everyone. We were helpless and just had to watch as they took and quickly dissapeared with this guys's bag. I have never in my life seen such blatant stealing. They were obviously banking on the fact that everyone was too scared to confront them. It was a big reality check after spending 2 previous days on the beach being completely carefree. We'd already decided when we first came that we wouldn't take out camera about but seeing this today has made us even more aware. From now on I'll be carrying our cash in my pocket.

In the midst of all of this though we met a really nice guy on the beach who went to share a few too many beers with after the clouds inevitably came over around 4pm. He is absolutely desperate to get a British or European passport and leave Brasil, which we find both hard and easy to understand. Being gay he'd be willing to marry either a man or woman to get the passport and made us think a bit of how, despite the weather and relaxed lifestyle here, all is not well with a lot of people.

So tomorrow we're hoping to head up Sugar loaf mountain for a nice view of Rio before heading back to the beach. An even bigger reality check awaits us in 5 days though!




-- Posted from my iPhone

Back in Rio de Janeiro. The final destination!

And here we are, our final destination. All we´d been hoping for was some sun and finally over the last 2 days our prayers have been answered. After a couple of days of cloudy overcasts and very bad weather forecasts our luck finally changed yesterday and we were treated to a morning of glorious sunshine and again today. Naturally, when it´s sunny in Rio, you head to the beach so we´ve enjoyed two days back on Ipanema. It was a strange feeling walking back on to the beach the first time thinking back to November when we first arrived in South America, we´ve been and done so much since last time we were here.

When the weather wasn´t so good we headed to the modern art museum which you can see in the photos. I absolutely love it! It looks like something out of a James Bond film doesn´t it. Dr No´s lair or something. Fantastic. It was completed in 1996 if I remember. The art inside wasn´t very impressive but we spent a while just sitting outside looking at the building.

So we´ve been really glad that the weather turned for the good in the end. The clouds still tend to roll over in the afternoon and we´ve just had the most amazing thunderstorm with amazingly heavy rain but the mornings are very sunny and hot. So this means that objective number one of our time in Rio is slowly being addressed. We plan to head up Sugar Loaf mountain and to see the Jesus statue over the next few days but, being quite high in terms of altitude, both are a bit weather dependant. There´d be no point going up only to have your head in the clouds, literally. Other than that we haven´t many plans. Maybe a few nights out and a trip to a restaraunt. The hostel we´re staying in is nice enough with a good bunch of people in it so it´s not hard to spend the evenings watching a film or chatting away.

We´re heading back to Ipanema tomorrow to visit a market and then hopefully back on to the beach. Look back at the photo of us there in November. The sight of that mountain as a backdrop to the beach really is fantastic. It surely has to be the best city beach in the world.

I´ll try and do another little update before our time is up. It´s a bit mad to think that we´re heading back to London in 5 days. Not somewhere else in South America which we´ve come accustomed to but London. Cold, grey London.

Parati.

Unbelievably, the rain continued. Yesterday I think I broke a personal record in that I watched 4 films in a day. It started raining at around 2pm on Sunday, carried on all through the night and all day on Monday and finally when we woke up this morning it wasn't raining. And when I mean it rained for 2 days, it wasn't a drizzle, it was proper rainforest type rain. Even in the UK, I haven't seen anything like it. So that is the reason for the record breaking day yesterday. We, and I think everyone else in the hostel, just stayed in the front room and watched film after film until it was time for dinner, followed by another film before it was time for bed. We actually enjoyed it! It was a great excuse to do absolutely nothing.

So finally today we had a break in the weather and decided to have a little explore of the 'historic town centre' followed by a trip to a nearby beach. The old part of the town is really very pretty with a nice relaxed atmosphere and an almost european feel to the architecture. It was once an important colonial port for gold trading followed by coffee so I assume there was a fair bit of money about at one point. There's no trading out of here now though I don't think so it's all tourism, although in a nice way. Not 'in your face' at all.

We were recommended the beach we headed to in the afternoon firstly by people on the salt flat tour and the also by a few people on our way here. 'Paradise' was how everyone described it and after arriving I think that especially with some sun, this would be very true. Unfortunately, after a pretty overcast morning the rain returned and put a bit of a dampener on our beach excursion. We met a really nice family on the bus on the way though so enjoyed sharing a few beers under the parasol and running around with the little one.

Back in Parati and we've just enjoyed a classic backpackers pasta dish. We had a nice surprise this morning too when the hostel 'upgraded' us from the dorm room to the private room so we're out of that dingy room I showed you last time. Tomorrow we're catching a 10am bus to Rio, our final destination. It's getting pretty desperate with the weather now. 8 days in Rio. We'd surely be the very unlucky if we didn't get any sun!

It was also with both sadness and relief that we saw the earthquake in Chile. Only 2 weeks ago we were in Santiago so it could have turned out very different for us. We were very glad though to hear that Hubert and Agathe and the family are fine. Let's hope that Chile can get things going again for themselves soon.

Some more photos.

A see through butterfly! Saw this on the bus journey from Sao Paulo to Parati.


For those who think that we haven't been slumming it enough on our travels. Our room here in Parati is a 9 dormer in a tiny room! You can just about see my bed at the top right and Kat's is at the bottom left.

Sushi wushi in Sao Paulo.

Unfortunately our only photo of Sao Paulo is some kind of carnival cow in the bus station when we were leaving. We decided to walk around with as little as possible which meant no camera and only loose change. It was a nice feeling actually walking around without being worried as much about something being stolen.

We hadn't really expected to much in Sao Paulo other than wander around the Japanese area and each as much Asian food as we could. We did manage that on the first day but ended up doing much more on the second day than we could have hoped for. The japanese area really was very nice and had a real feel of Asia about it (I imagined, I've never been) but, to try and save on the remaining funds, we stumped for some sushi from a supermarket. It was ermmm ok, not great and unfortunately reminded me of those packets of sushi you get in Sainsbury's and thelike. Sounding like the complete food snob, it just doesn't compare to the real deal.

So the next day, on the tip of the hostel owner Mr Wong, we headed to the tallest building in Sao Paulo where you're allowed 5 minutes at the top to admire the view. What happened the rest of the day ended up being a complete surprise in the nicest way. Having got a bit lost we were asking the local Police for directions when a nice lady came up to us out of nowhere and said she'd take us there just after she'd taken her shoes back to a shop. So off we went following our new tour guide. Inbetween Kat's Spanish and her tiny bit of English we managed to communicate well enough and talked about this and that on the way. The building is now owned by Santander bank and basically looks like a small version of the empire state building, by which it was apparently inspired. At reception we showed some identification and up we went. The view at the top really was impressive and the sheer size of the city quickly became apparent. The sprawling mess of buildings and roads just carries on far into the horizon and actually at one point carries on through a mountain valley until you cannot see any further. This place is huge!!

Our 5 minutes were up and back down we went. It was lunchtime and our new friend said she'd take us to her friend's restaraunt/cafe in what was the Arabic area. So what followed over the next few hours was a nice little tour of the centre of Sao Paulo, including an amazing food market filled with the most colourful and lucious looking fruits I've seen. There were fishmongers with huge salmon and butchers with little piglets (dead of course). Basically any kind of food you'd want, I'm sure you could have found it.

Our time came to say goodbye and both me and Kat were a bit stumped when the lady started crying as we were saying our farewells. We're still not sure exactly why but hopefully it was for the right reasons! We were incredibly lucky to be able to have a Sao Paulo citizen show us around and there was no way that we would have seen so much without her.

Also, this week the rugby game between Wales and France actually was on. So after our day out we returned to the hostel to watch the game, this time with Brasilian portugese commentary. This made it a bit to watch Wales play so dismally in the first half as I couldn't understand what they were saying. I'm also not sure that they understood what they were watching as one thing I did understand them mentioning was the Football world cup sometime in the 2nd half. Either they were bored, or thought that the competition would be an absolute walk over for the South American teams considering this weird version of football that France had started playing.

A 6hour bus journey from Sao Paulo and now we're in a nice place called Parati which reminds us a lot of Jericoacoara where we stayed in the north back in November. It's kind of like Jeri but a bit bigger and with paved roads. The unfortunate thing is that it's been raining for basically the last 5 days, or whenever we left Iguazu. It's been non stop! We've even bought an umbrella!

We're staying here until Wednesday before heading to Rio for our final week. We have 2 objectives for our remaining time in Brasil

1. Get a tan (we're getting worried with all this rain though).
2. Not to get mugged (we've been really either very lucky or very careful so far and still have everything we started off with).