Darren and Alison - World Travel Blog 2005/6

I have loaded another two CD’s worth of photos onto the site.

The photos can be found under NewZealand-South2 and NewZeaLand-North in the Gallery.

Enjoy
Matthew

As many people will know, Brazil is one of the world’s largest countries and, as such, it was extremely difficult for us to do this vast country justice in the last few weeks of our trip. If you’re short on time, as we were, we would definitely advise purchasing internal flights to enable you to see as many places as possible without having to spend a great deal of time covering distances by land. A word of warning though, if you can, try to sort these out in advance of your trip and purchase a Brazil air pass before you leave the UK as this should save you a lot of money.

Our travels around Brazil were to take in a whistlestop trip to Sao Paulo and visits to the amazing waterfalls of Foz do Iguacu, the Amazon jungle via Manaus, the wonderful mix of African and Latin American culture of Salvador and who could miss out the famous Rio de Janeiro?! Brazil is certainly a country of many contrasts and contradictions not only in terms of its geography and culture but also in terms of the huge gaps that exist between rich and poor. This was most clearly experienced by us during our favela tour in Rio where we saw rich and poor living literally side-by-side. (more…)

On one of our last days in Rio we visited the charming neighbourhood of Santa Teresa situated along the ridge of the hill that rises from the city centre. This is reached by the bondinho (little tram) which goes over the Arcos da Lapa, the old aqueduct to Santa Teresa from Avenida Republica do Chile and Rua Senador Dantas in Centro.

As we got on the tram we started off at a nice slow pace on fairly flat ground only for the tram to speed up the hill at a great rate along an extremely rickety track. It was rather white knuckle stuff especially going across the aqueduct which was possibly only inches wider than the tram itself and at a rather uncomfortable angle. The cost of the tram was very low but even this can be avoided, if you wish to take your life in your own hands, by hanging off the side of each carriage rather than taking a seat. This scary ride continues for around 15 minutes as you climb the steep hill up to Santa Teresa but once up there it is well worth it as you come across some wonderful restaurants and gift shops with great views across the valley below. We spent a great lunchtime sitting on the platform of one of these restaurants suspended over the slope below. However, even some dutch courage didn’t encourage us to repeat the tram experience and this time we walked back down to our original starting point!

As our guidebook quite rightly said, two of the must-see attractions of Rio for any visitor are the famous Sugarloaf and the statue of Christ the Redeemer, images which are familar to us from many picture postcard images of the city.

To reach the Pao de Acucar or Sugarloaf mountain you need to take two cable cars from the Baia de Guanabara which can be reached by any bus marked ‘Urca’ from Centro or Flamengo. Once there the first cable car you take ascends to 215 metres to Morro da Urca from where you can see the bay beneath you and the surrounding coastline. Here you will find a restaurant, souvenir shops, a playground, a helipad and an open air theatre. The second cable car takes you up to Pao de Acucar itself where the views of the city are stunning including the Corcovado mountain which houses the famous statue of the Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer). (more…)

We reached Rio once again by flying internally from Salvador and had decided to stay in the area surrounding the famous beach of Ipanema. Having taken a bus from the airport into this part of town we spent a fruitless hour (or rather poor Darren did!) trying to find accommodation. After a taxi to the opposite side of the bay and some more searching we managed to find accommodation close to the famous curved beach of Copacabana. Unfortunately we didn’t make much use of this during our stay since, although hot, it was overcast on most days. The area itself wasn’t too exciting either and consisted mainly of large apartment blocks for Rio’s wealthier residents and a stretch of restaurants and shops along the waterfront and one block behind this. However, our most interesting experience of Rio was to be a visit to two of the city’s infamous favelas. We were both a little uncertain about the appropriateness of such a visit but found an excellent recommendation in our guidebook for an individual named Marcelo Armstrong who was himself a favela resident and who provided such tours in order to educate people to what life is really like in a favela. (more…)

After our jungle adventure in Manaus we once again made use of the cheap internal flights available in Brazil to fly straight to our next destination of Salvador. This was really the only way to go now as we were sadly running out of time reaching the last weeks of our year’s trip and to travel overland from Manaus to Salvador would just not have been possible at this time.

On arrival in Salvador we caught a local bus from the airport and alighted in the area known as the ‘Cidade Alta’, the main historic section of Salvador. This area was really beautiful and the main thing that sticks in the mind about Salvador is its great mix of Latin American and African culture. Sadly the background to the African culture lies in the role it played in the slave trade but this influence can be seen in the wonderful music, dance, religion and cuisine of the town. (more…)

After the debacle with trying to get flights in Sao Paulo and after visiting the amazing Foz de Iguacu Falls we made our way by plane to Manaus. This was an early flight from Foz which meant having to get a taxi transfer to the airport rather than being able to take the much cheaper option of the bus. However, everything went without a hitch and we arrived in Manaus where, as soon as you stepped out of the air-conditioned airport, it immediately felt hotter and much more humid than where we’d come from.

We negotiated our way out of the airport terminal and walked a short distance to the bus stop to catch the bus which would take us into Manaus. It was there that Alison broke the cardinal rule of talking to a tout! To be fair, this guy, who was called Armstrong, seemed quite friendly and unassuming and was generally just chatting with us but, of course, there’s always something they want and eventually he got round to asking if we had a hotel and a trip up the Amazon sorted out. To be honest, at this stage in our trip we didn’t feel much like spending time shopping around in a very hot and sticky Manaus so it was quite good taking some tips from him. In the end he recommended a hotel, which in fact had been the one we’d planned to go to in any case, and so it was quite good letting him take us there rather than finding the place ourselves. The hotel was pretty rank, even by budget standards, but by now we’d decided to go on a jungle trip the next day so it would only be for the one night. (more…)

The main reason for coming to Fox de Iguacu is to see the waterfalls there. The falls themselves are divided between Argentina and Brazil and it’s possible to see them from both sides.

Although the falls are probably the star attraction, there is one other which is worth a visit if only to admire the scale of the construction, and that’s the Itaipu Hydroelectric Plant, the largest in the world.

We only had a few days to play with because we had our onward flight to Manaus already booked. Originally we were thinking of doing the tour to the Argentinean side first, but because we were also hoping to go to the hydroelectric dam we changed things around to fit. Providing the tours to the dam are on, which usually means any day except Sunday, one day is enough to visit both the Brazilian side of the falls and still have time to visit the Itaipu Dam. In the end, that is exactly what we did. (more…)

The following morning, refreshed and less stressed than when we’d left the airport the previous evening, we returned for what should have been an easy ride to Foz de Iguaca.

Of course this was too easy and we were in for a second surprise. On the advice of the airline staff we arrived back at the airport three quarters of an hour before our shuttle was due to leave. There was already a fair queue at the shuttle stop which we simply just joined. When the coach arrived it wasn’t a small one, but a normal standard size. As I watched the people in front I was already thinking to myself we’d be lucky to get on this one, and sure enough that was the case. Then came the bombshell, they only had one bus and the next one would be an hour later! (more…)

From memory the journey to the international airport in Buenos Aires takes about 40 minutes or so and is definitely an easy ride. We arrived as usual in good time and had no problems getting our plane in Argentina. All the fun started at the other end when we arrived in Sao Paulo. The original plan had been to stay at least one night in Sao Paulo sorting out the air tickets and finalising the remainder of our plans. Brazilian airlines operate something known as a ‘Brazil Air Pass’. This allows you five internal flights which have to be taken within a 21 day period all for a fixed fee which is considerably cheaper than buying individual flights. However, there’s a snag and it can be quite a big one if like us you are unaware of one important stipulation which our guidebook failed to highlight. The snag is that you have to have purchased the ticket outside of Brazil and in conjunction with an international ticket. For us this was a bit of a problem as we were now in Brazil so thanks to the guidebook not being clear about this, we were unable to take advantage of this deal as we were standing in the airport at Sao Paulo and as such were clearly in Brazil. (more…)