jd's blogspot

Well, decided this morning that we would go across teh border to Paraguay for teh day. Apparently, its brilliant for cheap shopping, especially electrical goods. We get the wood shaving bus again, and then hop on another bus across the border. Well, that was teh easiest border crossing I have ever done!!! Literally, just drive straight over and thats it. No one stopped us, no one asked for passports - nothing. So, I noticed an immigration office and wandered in just so I could get my passport stamped, so they did. I was chuffed! I know, im easily pleased. Anway, I digress, the whole journey took less than an hour. you can actually get a motorbike taxi across if you like - there are literally hundreds of them waiting at the border. its nuts!

 Arrive, and teh place is a bit mental. It looks very grubby and there are dozens and dozens of stalls selling everything you can imagine. behind all teh many many stalls, and tons of street hawkers,who persisted in trying to sell us socks!!!! were shopping centers and department stores. it was bizarre. you went from poor people trying to sellus socks in 35 degree heat, to spotlessly clean and westernised department stores with all the good cosmetics and labels. you could get any electrical device at really cheap knockdown prices. My only splurge was a 1GB memory card for my camera. girls went a bit mad and bought ipods and accessories etc. got really good deals, and you can still haggle the price down. I was chuffed with my memory card. all teh others wanted USD60 for 1GB, but i got mine for USD30.

the journey home was definately an interesting incite into South American efficiency!! Get on the bus to head back across the border, naively assuming that it would be as swift as teh journy over. How dumb was I!! The first give away was teh fact that the traffic comingBrazil was moving very smoothly. Whereas teh traffic heading into Brazil from Paraguay was at a standstill. Clearly the Brazilian authorities are a lot more active than the Paraguayan!! it took us the best part of 2 hours to do approx 10 miles - I am not joking. and to our delight, the bus had no air conditioning!! I get a great photo of the motorbike taxis, all backed up across the bridge and literally squished up 8 deep, waiting to get through immigration. so, the bus arrives at the booth and a woman gets on and just walks through the bus and she only speaks to us. We cant understand what she says, possibly that we need to get an exit stamp from Paraguay, but we dont. and then she gets off teh bus.  and that was all that immigration did to everyone, in so creating an enormous backlog of traffic and some incredibly sweaty passengers!! but, it was a good day and we did not come back with any socks!!! they clearly need to target their market better!

Supposed to go to see teh Brazilian side of teh falls today, but as the weather is awful (downpour of seriously heavy rain, thunder and lightning), decide that a day in bed and playing on the internet is a much better idea. Catch up on blog, reading and phone home. Need more days like these!

20th November 2006.

Get the bus from the hostel to go to Brazilian side of the falls with two other girls. (bus, by teh way, has wood shavings all over the floor???? Cant figure that one out, but there you go!!) have a great day wandering around teh National Park. Brazilian side doesnt have the same WOW factor that the Argentinian side has, but is still amazing. It onlys takes about 2 hours to do this. Todays trip to the national park and falls is more of a take it in moment, whereas on teh Argentinian side, it is really a spectacular experience with some amazing sights/views. Its just way too difficult to describe it - I do believe I might be speechless!!! there are quite a few racoons freely wandering around all teh people. Quite big animals, nothing like ther cartoon characters!!!!  Did have a few photos of them, but will explain that one later!

Spend teh rest of teh day with the girls lounging around the pool with a few drinks and books. Have a good laugh.

well, get up when we wake up. Head to the travel agents that is attached to teh tour group that we were in teh Amazon with. need to see how we are going to get out of Manaus. this has created lots of issues. the initial intention was to go by bus up into Venezueala. Go to see Angel Falls and then head for Caracas and fly to Quito in Ecuador. Sounds good in theory, but due to visa/immigration problems we have had to replan all of this. In order to fly from Caracas to Quito, there are no direct flights, we were going to have to pitstop in Bogota, Columbia. Problem, they wont let Irish passport holders in without doing an interview in London prior to departure. After much research, and an email home to get Mum to call teh Columbian embassy in London, we discover that we can pitstop in the airport for a few hours without any problem. Sounds like we are all ready to go, until we discover that the Venezuealan authorities have different entry rules depending on whether you fly in or come in over land - stupid, I know!  You can enter no problem if you fly. However, if you cross the border by land from Brazil, you have to have a visa already arranged. And this involves doing an interview in London prior to departure. So massive spanner thrown in the works there!!

 Plan B - forget about Venezueala and Ecuador, forfeit one of our flights that was already booked from home, and just fly straight down to Igaussu in Southern brazil. So thats what we decide to do, as it would have cost us a small fortune in flights to do the initial route. We have already spent well over a months budget on the flights in an out of Manaus, but was well worth it.

So we book flights from Manaus to Igaussu. Again, we have flights with one connection, or so we are lead to believe!! We end up flying from Manaus to Brasillia, to Curitiba, then finally onto Foz de igaussu. Again, we end up changing time zones everytime we land. End up very confused all over again! But thats all the flying we are doing for about a month, so all well there. We have terrible turbulane on the last flight. so bad that all inflight services are cancelled. I have to admit, i was very nervous, but the woman a few seats behind was screaming. it was very bad. but we had a good laugh once we had actually landed.

 17th November 2006

arrive in Iguassu. really hot. Get ripped off in the taxi to the hostel, but thats life! Had to pay R$25  (E10) for a 5 min cab ride.  hostel is lovely, has swimming pool, games area, soccer field, basketball court, serves food all day and does dinners for E4. meet another irish girl in the bar and an english bloke. all have just arrived, so decide to go see the Argentinian side of teh falls in the morning.

 18th November 2006

 tour leaves at 8,30 from hostel to Argentinian side of the falls. Get driven around town for a bit, see some of teh local people. See where the river seperates Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. then head over to passport control in order to get over the border for the day. get stamped and away we go.

get to park entrance, and guide shows us teh routes we can take through teh national park. we have all paid for the long boat trip (well worth teh extra cash). we start off in the back of a truck which has seats in it and head off into the park/jungle for about 4km. dirt tracks, so nice and bouncy!! then get to where we board speedboats. put on rainjacket and lifejacket. boat ride is really cool. very fast along soem great rapids, and then the highlight. the falls come into view. WOW they are spectacular. The photos just dont do it justice. they are incredible. you have to see them and hear them to really get the full effect. so the baot stops twice so we can get photos. we are all given big rubber/plastic bags to cover our own bags and cameras. so guide tells us to put all cameras away as we approach teh falls. it is absolutley fantastic, we get soaked. we go under all the mist and the end of the falls. it was excellent. All teh cheap tourist, who wouldnt pay for the boat, missed out on the really fun part. we get out of the boat and are allowed to wander around the park for some truley amazing views at our leisure. we have about 7 hours to do what we wnat. so teh four of us set off climbing to get the views from the top. wow, I am at a loss for words as to how to describe them - unbelievable. so we get to the bigger ones, ¨teh devils throat¨, they are so much better. there are numerous falls all falling into the same river valley. it is mind blowing. they are so high, birds are actually flying below where we are standing. The sound effects were something else.

have to go and see the Brazilian side tomorrow. Apparently, there isnt as much there, but still has to be done.

lie in this morning - 7am!! Go out to a local house this morning, takes about 40 mins in the boat. all teh houses are on stilits, for when the water rises in wet season. Houses consists of a kitchen and a bedroom with a load of hammocks for the whole family. few kids wandering about. Apparently, they all go to school from 6am to 11am . the ¨school boat¨ picks them up. the school is further down the river in the main village. The village is actually called Brazil Village. the house has a collection of animals all over the place- chickend (one pottering about the kitchen), pigs (one is tied to the stilits under the house, cos he is a bit wild). there is a big male pig locked in a poen out the bak. Cat, dogs and piglets everywhere. in the garden, there are cashew nut trees, brazil nuts trees (these are enormous) passion fruits trees, limes, pineapples, and loads of other fruits and nuts. I want a garden like this. Behind teh house is a pineapple plantation. there are loads of them. they seel each pineapple for R$0,50 which is about E0,10c. so cheap. Herman chops one with his machettee and cuts it up. we eat it off a few leaves. its really delicious. the woman in the house makes us some sort of tea by boiling leaves in water. its got a citrus flavour to it - very nice. and she has also made tappiocha, which is yummy. am really liking the food out here, its all so fresh. she has a few bits of jewellry ladi out on the table that we can buy if we want. all teh girls buy something. its nice stuff. we want to bargain her down, but dont feel its the right environment for haggling!   head back fro lunch - more fab food. then we have a break and pack up for our night in teh jungle. we each bring our hammocks and mossie nets for sleeping outside. pack the boat with 10 of us, all our gear and food and drinking water for the night.  we have to go with another group, as we were supposed to go last night, we join up with them tonight and their guide. takes about 1hr in the boat to get there. arrive and we need to get our hammocks up asap, while we still have daylight. Herman spends ages securing and fixing my hammock - again the others are just laughing at me. Comments like¨oh yeah, as long as Judy has a safe hammock the rest of us can be eaten alive¨. The guys have to do theie own!! Dinner time comes, am glad I have my swiss army knife with me. we have to sharpen branches into points so we can skewer the chicken in order to cook it over the fire.  Emer helps Matteua (the other guide) to make a table from a few pieces of wood and a machettee. So glad I have a torch. teh 3 girls decide that the loo will have to be a collective vist. as none of us are too keen on wandering into the darkness on our own. the toilet rules are if you have a little deposit, then you can go where you like. But if you have a larger deposit, then it must be at least 10 meters away!! you can follow the trail of toilet paper from the larger deposit areas!! you can smell them too!

 after dinner Herman asks me if I would like to caymen spotting again. so 4 of us go wiht him and Matteau. Herman wants to use my torch as he claims its better than his!! The others are off again with their smart comments - they are getting great mileage out of this one!! Off out in the darkness we go - find a few frogs. Herman catches a male bullfrog , its very small but really loud. then he catches a female one. its about 3 times teh size and really brown, slimey and ugly. I happened to ask, why were the women ugly, to which Herman turns to me and says ¨women are always beautiful¨. At which point all I can hear are the three behind me pissing themselves laughing!!!  head back for camp, its baout 9pm, so bedtime. Have serious difficulty getting into my hammock as its really high up. With Tamaras help, I finally get in. Cant move an inch, as its so tight. Look like a Mummy all wrapped up. Herman lets me play games on his mobile to keep me entertained. The rest of teh group must hate teh six of us and Herman, as we keep chatting and laughing for a while. Hermon tells the story of when he set up camp in a different location and mid way through the night he was awoken by feeling hands on him. thought it was a jaguar - reaches for a torch and a machettee. admits he was terrified, when one of the lads interupts and say, we dont really want to know that our guide is scared of teh animals!!! Yeah, we feel safe out here now!! it turned out to be an aardvark - very funny. Have a great laugh and eventually fall asleep.

15th November 2006.

5,30 wake up!! pack up camp and haed back to base for breakfast. then afterwards we head out to a rubber plantation. the other groups boat breaks down, so we go over to see whats happened. the cord on the moter has ripped, so they have to row. we dock at someones house and walk the rest of the way. get the this 83 yr old mans house and all pile on to his deck. he shows us his goods - wallets, purses and the highlight for everyone, condoms. the wallets and purses are a bit ykue and made from very thick rubber. the condoms are hillarious. they are in a permanent ¨solid¨ state and are seriosuly thick. They look very environmentally friendly, as you could rinse them and recycle !!!! the jokes are hilarious. there are mostly blokes in the group and they are joking about looking for their size! then the old guy goes for a wash in the river. so we go off to see how they harvest the latex. the rubber tress are funny. you scrape the side and this white liquid stuff like milk trickles out and they collect it in a container. then we go over the to ¨factory¨ area, basically another hut with a bit of a fire going in a metal box thing and a few wooden moulds. there are an awful lot of Penis moulds, which starts off another round of jokes. teh old guy shows us how to make a condom. he pours a layer of latex over the wooden penis and then heats it over the fire/smoke and repeats this for about 6 or 7 times. so they end up being quite thick and coarse. course, we knew they were done fo rtourists, or at least we were hoping that wasnt the only method of contraception in Brazil!!!! then you hang your condom out to dry and you are away!!  Chris, one fo the americans makes one, so again lots of jokes about the size of the one he makes!

Head back to base for lunch. then we have to pack up, as we have to leave today. leave at 1,30 and after a boat, minivan, baot and another minivan and 3,5hrs, we get back to Manaus. we were not impressed with the germans. we all agreed that we would club together and give Herman a tip, cos he was soo good. well suggested that we each give R$10 (E4) and they said that it was too much and that Herman already gets paid for his job. it was utterly pointless trying to explain to them that he probably only gets about 20% of what we actually paid for it. so we made sure he knew it was just from the 6 of us. I think he knew anyway, cos when we had to get a minvan , we were divided into a group of 6 and one of 7, so he stayed with the 6 of us and packed them off into another one. then he gave me more sweets on the way home. more laughter from the others!!! the kept telling me I would have to get used to  catching my own dinner and have 8 children when I moved out toe live in the amazon to marry Herman!!

get back to Manaus, as it happens all six of us are staying in the same hotel. sa after a long shower and clean clothes, we all went off for dinner and a few beers and realxed before we all had to go seperate ways.

Overall, Amazon was fantastic. I loved it. Would have happily done a few more days out there. the group was brilliant. we had such good fun and Herman was great. Highly recommend it to everyone. If you do ever get to do it, use Iguana tours - brilliant. they did everything and did it very well.

well, the flights were very interesting. we were flying from Salvador to Sao Paulo to Manaus. Ah, but no one told us that we also had to stop in Victoria. so we end up going Salvador, Victoria, Soa Paulo, Manaus. We have to change time zone everytime we land. Personally I dont recommend getting three flights in the space of 8/9 hrs and changing time zones everytime you land!! we arrived in Manaus so confused and disorientated.

 oh my god, its boiling hot. its well over 30 centigrade. am very suprised by Manaus. was expecting a hick town with a few jungle tourist offices. but its actually a big city with a population of about 2 million. teh guy from the hostel collects us from the airport and tells us that it can get up to 45 degrees and they have seen tourists land, come outside and leave immediately cos they cant take the heat. get to hostel, its a bit rotten, but not much we can do. they guy takes us shopping. its a duty free state. eventually get shorts - god Brazilian women are tiny. it was impossible to get something that wasnt vacume packed to my ass! Guy goes into details about their amazon tours. Im tired and cranky and so give him a gooid grilling about it. book it for US$285 for 4 days/3 nights. go to tour office to pay and see their other hotel, well its so much nicer, we get him to drive us back to the other one, pack up and move.  all set for the jungle tom morning.

12th November 2006.

get collected at 7am. meet the rest of the group, 3 americans, 1 australian, 2 germans (couple) and the two of us. meet our guide Herman. Everyone is aged between 24-30, so got a really good group. Tour includes everything - accommodation, food, drinking water, activities, transport etc. the only thing we have to pay for is beer.  get a minivan to teh pier in Manaus. Wait for the others to arrive. look around the fish market while we wait. Some of the fish are enormous and really expensive, about R$250 each (E100). Hermon introduces himself to me - he has taken a shine to me!! Hes nice and quite cute.  get in our boat and head out and see the Meeting of teh Waters, where the Rio Negro meets the Amazon/Solimanas. Its weird, you can clearly see teh brown water meet the black. they dont mix because of the different acidity levels. they are also two different temperatures. you can actually feel the difference when you put your arm in. really strange.

head off to the next village. swap boat for an old battered VW van.  There is a shopping area, where they stock up on drinking water and a few other bits foir the next few days. drive for about 50 mins. stop at a pertol station and get watermelons and loo stop. driver drives down the middle of teh road to avoid the bumpy  bits at the sides! Stop to look at waterlillies - not the biggest in teh Amazon, but still really pretty. go off road, down a red/brown dirt track - this is more like it! arrive at a small  house and get out and then load into a tiny boat, so all 10 of us and our bags and food and water for 4 days. dont hknow how the thing holds us all afloat. dont really want to know either! quite a few people live out here, randomn houses/sheds dotted about the place. sail for about 1,5hrs and arrive at our base. see sopme birds along the way.  pitstopped at this enormous tree along teh way. its hugh. we climber up the side using vines, to look in at the baby vultures that had nested in there.

base camp is nice. kitchen and dining room are in one building, which is floating on the river. its floating because when its wet season, it rises to the same level as teh sleeping area (about 70 steps up the river bank). we are all given a hammock and a mossie net to sleep in. you can sleep indoors or outside under the roof. we pick outside under the roof, as it is incredibly hot. inside is not an option. teh 2 germans sleep indoors - thankfully. they werent the easiest to talk to and they are all over each other like a rash.

after lunch, food was amazing (freash fish, rice noodles, pineapples ) we go piranha fishing. I caught about 7 - was good fun. they are clever little fish, they kept eating the bait off the hook and not getting caught. you can feel them doing it. we run out of bait very quickly, so Herman cuts up some of the ones we have caught and we use them as bait. its well over 30 C, i have factor 50 sunblock and loads of DEET and I still get eaten alive! hands are seriously filthy and slimey after handling teh bait and fiah.

 after dinner, when its dark (it gets dark about 6pm, as we are so close to the equator), we go Caymen hunting. they are like litle crocodiles. Use a torch to search. Herman keeps letting me do things first and explaining everything to me as opposed to the whole group. have a bit of a blonde moment in the boat, when I turn around to two of the americans and ask them which one has a really loud ticking watch?? Emere just turns around and say, Judy you are in the jungle , its the insects ticking!! oops! Herman catches a caymen. he comes back so I can hold it and get a photo. everyone who wants to can. they are cool. really smooth. its illegal to poach them, as they used to be very popular for shoes and handbags. teh others in teh group are beging to take the piss out of me about Herman. even the lads have noticied. Bless him, but hes not very subtle! Everyone is in their hammock and asleep by 9,30. since we have no electricity and have to be up by 5,30 there isnt much else to do. Am so glad I packed a torch!

 13th November 2006

get up at 5,30 - bright out, need as much daylight as we can get. we go birdwatching. See a few vultchers, herons, comerants, kingfishers and a few others as well. Hermon asks me if I can see them all. the others are really begining to take the piss now. Danm German couple keep lunging at each other for a kiss, but they have failed to notice that everytime they do that, the whole boat (whcih is very small) tips over and we all end up clining on for dear life. we dont intend to end up in piranha infested waters!  group is becoming to 2 of them and the 6 of us. Herman is sticking with us!  go back for breakfast. again food is delicious - fresh bread/cake, pineapples, watermelons, coffee.   head out for a trek in the jungle for a few hours. we all pile into the boat again - the seats are wooden bench things. all of our asses are begining to suffer!! Jungle trel is cool. Wander about. Herman explains all about teh flaora and fauna. he has a massive machettee - man those things are sharp! he chops things out of our way with great ease. he cust a hugh palm tree leaf into a few bits and then opens out the leaves and makes me a fan! he makes one for the girls. teh german makes her own!!  He cjops a shelled fruit with his machettee. inside there are white squishey bug thing. he says you can eat them, so one of the guys tries and says it popped in his mouth. apparently, they are better if they are toasted. so Hermin starts a fire using a few twigs, some steel wool, two batteries and a few tissues. never seen that done before. Toast the bugs like marshmallows! agrees that they are marginally better taosted! not convinced either way is good. move on and come across a hugh ant colony. Apparently, if you rub them into your skin they act as a natural mosquito repleent. the guys try it out and get eaten alive by teh ants! really funny. trek back to the boat - its started to rain. we are about 40 mins by boat from the base. my god, when it rains it pours. it was so heavy. we get so wet that all our underwear is soaked through and we had raingear on!! mental note, when it rains in the amazon - stay indoors! Get back to base and the other guests just laugh at the sad, sorry state we are in. we are supposed to be sleeping outsied in the jungle tonight, but its not really encouraging any of us at the moment. the 6 of us are so wet, and dont have spare trousers, we are all thinking about not going into the jungle for the night. The lightning is mad, its a red/orange colour. weather gets worse, so we all decide not to go tonight. I am nominated to talk to Herman bout the possibility of going tom instead. the logic being, he will do anything i want and doesnt care about the rest of the group!! So trek off in the rain, down to the dining room. Herman is all packed and machetted  and ready to go. He agrees that we can go tom instead. Germans not too impressed with the majority rule, but hard luck. its so awful out, that we hang in our hammocks with a few beers and just have a laugh for the afternoon.  Germans go fishing!! when rain stops, Herman appears and calls me over to him to show me the sun, ¨one of Brazils greatest assets¨. Others seriously taking the piss out of me now. Then he gives me some of his sweets! now they were only halls menthols, but in the middle of teh jungle its not easy to run to the shop and pick up a box of dairy milk!! the others are ready to vomit at this stage!!!  Have dinner, Hermon asks if teh food is to my satisfaction. Emer and Tamara are sitting there going ¨what, do you not care if we get food poisoning??¨. starts raining again, so only thing to do is play cards and have a few beers by candle light. Herman buys me two beers and gives me a caiproina (cocktail) - think he wants to get me drunk!!! Go to bed about 10, knackered. Emer, Nate, Tamara and I are literally on top of each other. our 4 hammocks are in a space about 2 metres squared.

Dont really do much today, just wander about the old town and take it easy. there are a few odd smells around some of teh streets - especially of sewage, but not alot I can do about it! Wander into a jewellery shop before we head back to pack. Dear god, it was hilarious. Teh guy was like Borat, you know the Ali G character. ¨its nice¨. he was showing us his precious and semi-precious stones - ¨you can make rings, necklaces, braclets¨. ¨your eyes sparkle like the aquamarine stones¨. he is the most metrosexual guy I have ever met. he proceeds to tell us that he is not gay, that he is just into his appearance. He has two kids in New York, there is no problem with his manhood!! I dont know how Emer and I kept straght faces. Needless to say we come out empty handed. we left the shop and burst out laughing. he gave us his card so we could email our order!!

 head for the airport at 11pm. flight at 3,20am to Manaus. This is the only country I have ever been in that flights run every 10 mins for 24hrs. the airport is really busy.

Well, hostel is nice. although the fact that there is a school of drumming somewhere in teh immediate vacinity is a tad annoying, but earplugs were a great invention! Makes a change from the wake up call we got in Ilheus - a rooster and a dog at 6am. Stupid dog got all excited by teh rooster and joined in!!  Having said that, the kids were really good at the drumming and it was fun to watch. Apparently, they were in some Michael Jackson video - a bit disturbing, as they were all young boys!!

Salvador is lovely, has a very European feel to it. Nice squares, some fab archetecture. Didnt really do much here, just wandered about and took in the atmosphere. Just relaxed & watched the world go by. We fly to Manaus tonight, via Sao Paulo. Looking forward to that, so we can get started on our Amazon trek.

Have 22 hour bus journey to Ilheus, just south to Salvador in North eastern Brazil. Bus journey rather nice - reclinig seats, air con,  tea/coffee/water, tv (although, it does only show very random things in Portuguese). Get to see some of teh countryside of Brazil - varies between stunning and lush to really dry and harsh. Culture shock has set in - see some very poor people living in little huts on the roadside, trying to farm tiny plots of land. A real eye opener is all I can say. Arrive in Ilheus - sweet lord it is an absolute dump. the hostel is miles out, literally out in the wilderness. Am very annoyed with teh hostelling internatioanl website, as there was some definite false advertising going on there! The two eldery people that are running the place are ¨down on the farm¨, bless them they havent got a word of english, which for a hostel is not really good. there isnt even a place to get drinking water here. the loo doesnt flush and there is a dead lizard on the floor. we are booked in for 2 nights, but will be out of here first thing in the morning.

 8th November 2006

get out of that hostel faster than we can get a taxi. get an 8hr bus to Salvador. arrive after another nice journey. Still havent figured out why we randomly go through police stops every few hours??  book flights to Manaus for sat night, so we can do teh Amazon trip and then intend to leave Brazil for Venezueala. first hostel we get to has been closed for over 12 months, so I think they might need to update their literature!! get one a few mins down the road.

Easy day in Rio. Go to beach in Ipanema & chill out for a while.

3rd November 2006

went on a tour of teh ¨Faveala¨ (shanty towns/slums) in Rio. Got picked up by tour guide and there are a few other ¨gringos¨ as well. Drove to teh shanty town, then at teh end of the hill have to get on to a dirt bike, no i am not kidding a dirt bike!! in order to get to teh top. Stupid me wore a little summer skirt, so had to hike it all the way up in order to get onto teh motor bike. My driver takes off ahead of the others and races up through the narrowest, windiest roads ever. I come so close to a bus at one stage that I really can see myself ending up in the back of it! Get to the top after a 5 min hair raising journey. so he dumps me off in the middle of a slum and drives off. no sign off the rest rest of the group. minor panic, but teh others turn up shortly afterwards. we are allowed to take pictures, but not of any of the guys with guns/walkie talkies/bombs!! Walk our way down hill through the Faveala. we are allowed take pictures of the kids. they like seeing themselves in the screen on a digital camera. Gringos without digital cameras are considered ¨poor¨. Meet the best known hit man in the faveala!! Waste gets worse as we get lower down - as it rums downwards the smell increases. there are chickens randomly wandering about!! go to an artists studo - wow the paintings are really beautiful. if it wasnt my first stop, I would love to have bought some of them. they really are fab. Tour is excellent and am really glad I did it. Very educational. we are not allowed to give money to kids as they are supposed to learn that they need to eran a living by selling things.

 4th November 2006

Go on a city tour of Rio that includes Corcovado  & Christ the Redemeer Statue. its a bit cloudy, but will have hopefully cleared by the time we get to teh top.  We have a few stop offs along teh way. we go to see teh famous steps in Rio (cant remember the name but they have been in U2 & Snoop Dog videos & CSI Miami). they are incredible. they are tiled with tiles from all over the world.

 Go to Santa Theresa part of town. all small windy, cobbled & narrow streets. They drive like maniacs up and down here! We drive up to the Corcovado and stop off at a few viewing points along the way. Views are fab, really unbelievable. Rio is just enormous. Go up further to see if we can see & feed some monkeys, but no joy. Arrive at the top, after a really steep road, with mad brazilians driving all over the place! Unfortunately, its still cloudy, so our view of teh statue and the city is pretty poor. get a few photos, but they arent great. no views of the city, as we are literally in a cloud! Statue is amazing. Finally get to see some monkeys on the way down. they ate out of everyones hands except mine. Do you think I should take it personally that monkeys dont like me!!

went out to a club that night for a girl in teh hostel, its her birthday. good night, free draught beer until 12, so we were happy. weird paying system. you get a little credit card thing when you come in and then they swipe it everytime you have a drink. dont like it. french guy with us gets ripped off.

 5th November 2006

Go to flea market. very great jewellery and art work. dont buy much, as need to keep money for the rest of teh year.

 Go to see a Botofoga V Flumenese (dont really know how to spell!) game in teh Maracana stadium. Oh my god, it was incredible. the atmosphere was absolutley electric. Brazilians are mental about football. I would love to be here when the stadium is at full capacity. they are jumping on their seats, singing and waving massive flags. one of teh flags is so enormous, it takes 12 men to carry it!! It is a definite highlight for me so far. Teh Botofoga fans are making triangular hand gestures signs at the other fans. Apparently it means attitude, respect & ethics.

6th November 2006

Go to watch Cameroon V Uraguay play in the FIFA Beach World Cup, which is going on at teh moment. Its boiling hot, so we only stay for the first quarter. Entry is free, makes a nice change for Rio !! Cheeerleaders appear during the break - oh sweet lord! They are dreadful. they just sway about with pom poms. there are a load of little boys shouting at them and jumping about as they watch. Why is just beyond me!

Go to the cable cars at teh Sugar Loaf mountain. teh cable cars scare me a bit, afraid my vertigo will kick in, but cling on to Emer and dont watch where Im going, so am fine. Views from teh top are fab, the best we have experience yet. Its where they filmed the James bond ¨Jaws¨ film in the 70s. there are samba dancers performing for a group og English guys on a business trip. they are trying to dance along with them women, but really are just making fools of themselves - which makes for good entertainment for us!!

Ok, loads of people have asked for the itinerary to be posted on this, so here you go. Dont have dates as everything is open to change.

Dublin - Madrid - Brazil - Venezueala - Ecuador - Peru - Bolivia - Argentina - Chile - New Zealand - Australia - Bali - Hong Kong - China - Vietnam - Laos - Cambodia - Thailand - Malaysia - Singapore - Frankfurt - Dublin. 

 Well, finally got on our way. Left Dublin for Madrid. Arrived safely. but to our delight there was an accident somewhere on the metro line from the airport to city centre, so we ended up getting a taxi.  Got to the hostel and then went out for food. Surprise, surprise tapas was the order of the day!  came out of the restaurant and there was an opera being performed from teh balcony of one of teh buildings in the square. its was really good but I had left my camera in the hostel, so didnt get any pictures.

 Got up early to head back to the airport in Madrid, and just as well cos it took us an hour on the metro and then we had to change terminals. then to my absolute delight when we got to the check in desk, the woman said "oh, Doyle (pronounced Dollie!) you have no seat¨ ,she kindly told me that I wasnt booked on the flight. Moment of heart failure for me! Apparently, when I checked in in Dublin they cancelled my Madrid - Rio flight. But the woman was really nice and sorted it out. so Emer was sitting in one section and I was sitting in between 110 Greek doctors on their way to Rio for a conference. Let me tell you, that was a long 11 hr flight!! took about 2hrs to get out of the airport, as customs had a massive queue. But got here and found the hostel. its very humid at the moment. we are off to teh beach and then there is the World Beach Soccer championships going on on the beach in Copacabana, so will check that out later.