Florianopolis. Lagoa da Conceicao. Barra da Lagoa. These are the places that we spent our last 3 days, and let me tell you, we struggled with the names! Although Florianopolis was a bit out of our way between Iguassu Falls and Montevideo, we had heard in various different places throughout our travels how amazing this place is. And it certainly did not disappoint. [Read more…] about What’s the name of that place again?
Brazil
Getting soaked at Iguassu falls
The incredible Iguassu falls is made up of 275 cataratas (waterfalls in Portuguese) towering at 80m tall. The falls borders both Brazil and Argentina, and according to our Lonely Planet, the only way to see the falls properly is to visit both sides.
After an early morning flight from Salvador to São Paulo, a layover in São Paulo, and then a further flight from São Paulo to Foz de Iguacu, we had made it to our final destination. Being that taxis from the airport to the city centre were quite expensive, we opted to take the bus, assuming that the town would be small enough to navigate from the bus window. As it turns out, Foz de Iguacu has a population of 300,000 people and is not so easy to navigate from a bus window. Ryan and I are both terrible on public buses, constantly panicking that we are going to miss our stop, and in a moment of panic, we jumped off the bus too early, having to take a cab from where we were to our hostel. As it turns out, this was still cheaper than taking a cab all the way from airport, so we’ll chalk that up as a win; although, I have to admit that I was fairly disappointed with our inability to successfully take a public bus.
Hostel & Pousada El Shaddai turned out to be a wonderful choice, as they helped us sort out our trip to the falls from both Brazil and Argentina, and helped us arrange our overnight bus onwards to Florianopolis. After getting a good night’s sleep, we (successfully!) took the public bus to the Brazil side of the falls. After paying the entrance fee and hopping on the tourist bus that winded through Parque Nacional de Iguacu, we made our way by foot towards the falls. As we got closer, the roar of the water was unbelievalbe, and getting my first glimpse of the spectacular falls was a pretty big “wow” moment for me. Photos and words can not do justice for how magnificent the falls were. There was water everywhere, crashing down over the rocks and into the Rio Iguacu. The beauty of the falls is complemented by the lush greenery that surrounds the falls. As we wandered along the 1km walkway, I snapped about a hundred photos of each waterfall from every angle. Just when I thought I had seen the best part, we would round another bend and get another amazing view. As we got higher, we were able to walk out on a grated walkway to the Devil’s Throat, where we felt the full effects of the waterfall’s power, getting wetter and wetter the further we walked out. By the end of our walk, my hair was drenched, and my clothes were damp, but it was well worth it to get a view of one of the most powerful waterfalls, as well as to look out over a few of the others.
When we had finished exploring the waterfalls, we headed across the road from the park entrance to Parque de Arves, which is a tropical bird park. Although I’m not the biggest fan of what Ryan likes to call “animal prisons”, it was pretty cool to see tropical birds up close. Although many of the birds were caged off, there were larger cages that we could walk in to get up close and personal with the birds. Seeing a toucan up close was definitely a highlight for me. I also enjoyed the owls and macaws, and being able to hold a macaw at the end was pretty awesome. We finished up at the bird park, and caught the bus back to our hostel, stopping at the supermarket for bus snacks for the following night. Upon arriving back at our hostel, we found out the wifi wasn’t working, which would normally not be a problem, except that we needed to print our reciprocity receipts to get into Argentina the following day (thanks for charging us a reciprocity fee, Argentina!). We frantically wandered the streets in search of an open Internet cafe, and luckily found a woman who was willing to help us. We packed and got everything organized for the following day and headed to bed to get a good nights sleep.
The following day our driver picked us up at 8:30am, and we headed over to Argentina. The driver took our passports into the border crossing, making the entire process quite simple. Upon arriving at Iguazu falls in Argentina, we immediately set out to do a jet boat tour up the Rio Iguacu and into the falls. On our way there, the sky opened up and we got caught in a complete downpour, so we were soaked before we even got on the boat. The boat went over some pretty crazy rapids that even scared me a little bit (hard to do), although the views of the falls were well worth it. After snapping a few photos of the falls, the boat drove into 2 different waterfalls, where we were soaked by the powerful spray of the water. Despite swallowing too much water, it was a pretty cool experience. Fortunately, within an hour of finishing our boat tour, the sun came out and we were able to dry off enough to continue exploring the falls. We took a train to the very top and had another opportunity to wander out to the Devil’s Throat. It was neat to do this from the Argentina side, as the view was completely different than the Brazilian side. Looking out over the falls, all I could see was opaque white, which was both scary and thrilling. It is so crazy to think that if you jumped off that, you would fall for multiple meters before hitting the water and being held down by the powerful force of the falls. We spent a few hours exploring the falls from all angles, and visiting as many view points as possible. The whole experience was unforgetttable, and definitely a highlight of the trip thus far.
The van picked us back up just as it began to pour rain again, and although it poured the whole way back, it stopped long enough for us to grab some dinner, get our stuff organized and get to the bus station. Unfortunately, our bus was was 45 minutes late, which is not the way you want to start off a 14 and a half hour journey, but what can you do. The overnight trip was actually quite pleasant thanks to a movie, bus snacks, and of course my handy sleeping pill. Waking up the following morning, I was looking forward to arriving in Florianopolis and getting a start on the day. Even with our late start, we should have been there by 11:30am at the latest; however, we continued to make stop after stop and before I knew it, it was past 2pm. We finally arrived in Florianopolis around 2:30pm, bought our bus ticket for our next journey, and then made our way from the bus station to Barra de Lagoa, 2 public buses and 1 hour away. This time, we successfully made it to our destination, and it the cute little beach side town was well worth the adventure.
Salvador
After taking a 5 hour bus from Itacare to Bom Despachio, waiting 45 minutes, and then taking the 1 hour ferry across the bay, we arrived in Salvador. Stepping off the ferry in Salvador was like stepping into a new country. [Read more…] about Salvador
A vacation from my vacation: Itacare
With a population of approximately 25,000, Itacare is small fishing village on the coast of Brazil, located in and around some of Brazil’s most beautiful beaches. The town is the type of place where everyone seems to know everyone, and many of the tourists have fallen so in love with the place that they have stayed long term, becoming another one of the well known locals. [Read more…] about A vacation from my vacation: Itacare
Buzios: Lifestyles of the rich and the famous
After leaving the club sometime after 4am, stopping for McDonald’s and getting to bed around 6am on our last night of Carnival, we got up at 8am to try and catch a bus to Buzios with our Contiki tour manager’s next group. Fortunately, there was room for us on the bus, and we made the 3 hour journey north of Rio to escape the chaos that is Carnival, most of which I slept for. [Read more…] about Buzios: Lifestyles of the rich and the famous
Rio Carnival… The party continues
Carnival happened so quickly that each day has blurred into one for me, but I believe I left off at Sunday. That morning we were off to do hang gliding, and being the adrenaline junkie that I am, I was super excited. A van dropped us off at the beach and we were all herded into a busy building and asked to sign up on a computer. Then, we paid our national park fee and were given a card with our information on it, and then told to wait. Half of our group was tossed in cars and sent up the mountain, while the other half of us (me included was left to wait). By the time I made it up the mountain, Ryan was strapped up and in line to take off, and within a few minutes he was running off the giant green platform and flying into the abiss. I was the last to take off in our group, and I had to wait over 2 hours before it was FINALLY my turn. After strapping you into your suit, the guide explains take off to you, and you practice running. Then, they strap you to the hang glide, and you practice your positioning and get a feeling for what you’re in for. By this point, I had built up 2 hours of anticipation, and I was ready to go. My turn finally came; the guide counted down 3, 2, 1, run, run, run, and one second I was running and the next second I was trying to run, but my feet couldn’t touch the ground. Instead, I was flying! It was the coolest feeling. To my right were the mountains of Tijuca national park, to my left, the beach sprawled for miles, below me were the high rises of the rich and the famous, and behind me was one of the many favelas of Rio. We soared through the air, and I took in all that I could, before we made a dramatic turn over the ocean to prepare for the landing. The next thing I knew, my guide was telling me to run once again and all of a sudden, the beach was below my feet. It was exhilirating. Being the last one down, the group was eager to go, so after getting my video and photos, we headed back to Ipanema and went straight out for lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant. It was a bit pricey, but really delicious.
After lunch, we headed straight to the hippie market to get costumes for the Sambadrome that evening. The market, like everything else during Carnival, was packed, and the group got split up within a few minutes of entering the market. Nevertheless, we all found fun head garments, hats, skirts, and necklaces to decorate ourselves in, and we finally felt like we fit in at Carnival. One of the Carnival traditions is to dress up in a silly costume, and the streets looked like they would in Canada on Halloween night. It is also a big thing for men to dress up like ladies during Carnival; from Minnie Mouse to Wonder Woman, we saw it all! Unfortunately, no men from our group got that dolled up for the evening’s festivities. By the time we had our costumers and glitter purchased, it was nearly 4pm, and we had only an hour and a half before we had to be ready to go. This was turning out to be a common theme this week; no time for resting, just go, go, go.
At 5:30pm, we began our adventure to the Sambadrome (Sambadromo in Portugese), and was it ever an adventure. We pushed our way through the busy streets, and got in line for the metro. The line was regulated to only let people in when a train was approaching, and with each group that was let in, there was a wave of pushing. As I was aggressively pushed into the building, I clung to my purse for dear life, and focused on keeping my balance with fear of falling over and being trampled by the crazy Brazilians in masks. Fortunately, our whole group made it through successfully, and the only real threat was one girl nearly losing her bathing suit top! After about 20 minutes on the metro, we made it to the Sambadrome and found our way to our seats in section 5, nearly half way down. For those of you who do not know what the Sambadrome is, it is a stadium with bleachers about 600 meters long on either side, with a space for a parade to go through. Each neighbourhood in Rio has a samba school that participates in the Sambadrome, and they have 90 minutes to perform, parade style. This means that there are dancers, followed by a float, followed by more dancers, followed by another float, and on and on. Each school composes a song to dance to, and has a theme or story to their routine. The school’s best dancers are always dolled up in the most exquisite costumes and are dancing on their own at the back of a group of dancers. The schools are judged on dance routine, song composed, costumes, how many dancers they have, floats, etc., and we were fortunate enough to be there for the top 12 to perform. The show started at 9pm, and I was immediately wowed by the number of dancers, the costumes, and the exquisite floats. There was every colour of the rainbow, and costumes as simple as a traditional samba dress, to people dressed as bugs, to people dressed as robots. One of the floats had a giant cowboy on it who was smoking a pipe, while another was composed of multiple rotating pianos with girls dancing and playing them. Another float had a giant canon that shot a man out of it, and into a net a few meters in front. It was all more than I had expected, and I kept saying wow and snapping more photos. After dancing and clapping for the first 2 samba schools, myself and many others in our group began to get tired…. 3 hours of samba is quite a bit! We stayed for the 3rd samba school and then began to make our way back to Ipanema. Some of our group stayed for the entire Sambadrome, which didn’t end until close to 5am, and I was impressed by their stamina – 2am was good for me!
The next morning we had a free beach morning, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever been happier to sleep without setting an alarm. I opened my eyes at 10:53, grumbled to Ryan that we weren’t going to make breakfast or the beach, and we proceeded to sleep until 12:30. We grabbed lunch and got ready for the afternoon, and then met up with the group for a favela tour. By this point, our group was really starting to click, and we joked with one another about the occurrences of the previous night. One of the guy’s in our group has a thing for letting one ball hang out of his shorts in photos, so cameras were past around in an attempt to spot the ball – don’t worry, I’ll spare your eyes!
The favela tour was one of the most eye opening experiences I have ever had, and probably one of the best things I have done on this trip. In Rio, approximately 1 million people (of just over 6 million people) live in favelas, or slums. For those of you that are imagining a bunch of gringos walking into City of God, it wasn’t quite like that. The favela we went through, like many others in Rio now, is monitored by police, and although it is still dangerous to go on your own, it is safe to tour through with a guide. The favela that we toured through is home to nearly 250,000 people, and due to the lack of birth control, it is constantly growing. Throughout the favela, there are thousands of cables connected to the power poles, as the people hook up their own cables to steal electricity. Apparently the electricity companies used to try to regulate this by coming in to cut the wires, but people in the favelas would shoot the workers. This must have happened one too many times, so the electricity companies gave up trying to regulate this. We began our tour on the porch of a house, where we had one of the best views in Rio. The favela is built up a mountain, and in any first world city, this view would be worth millions of dollars. As we winded our way through the favela, my nose was greeted with the smell of untreated water and sewage; I saw children smiling and waving, standing in piles of garbage. The streets are narrow and unkept, and the houses and people are dirty, yet friendly. We stopped to admire the local art work, as well as the jewelry made by the women of the favelas, before continuing on to listen to young boys play music on the side of the sttreet, while the children danced for joy, while spraying each other with foam. It was truly remarkable to see the pure innocence and joy on the face of a child living in poverty. It was eye opening to see the way in which these people live, and the fact that they don’t know anything different. Near the end of our tour I accidentally stepped in a pool of black water, leaving my Tom’s covered with what I believe was human poo. I immediately washed my shoes in the shower when we got back – you’re welcome, mom! Despite my far too close encounter with poo water, the favela tour was an enriching experience that I would recommend for anyone traveling Rio to partake in. That evening, we went for a group dinner where I accidentally ordered a plate of meat to myself (definitely thought I was getting a piece of grilled chicken with rice and salad), and then we headed to a local bar where we watched a live band play and drank too much sangria.
The next morning we got up and headed on a boat cruise in the bay, off the coast of Rio. It was so nice to be on a boat, soaking in the sun and the view, and enjoying the coolness of the water. The day was wasted away sipping caiprinhas, eating BBQ, jumping off the boat, and taking photos. It was a pretty perfect day, and none of us were ready to get off when the time came. Nevertheless, we headed up Sugar Loaf mountain to watch the sun set over Christ the Redeemer, and it was a pretty amazing view that lead me to solidify my conclusion that Rio is indeed the most scenic city I’ve ever been to. After a really delicious “last supper” we headed to a famous club called 00, where I was way too underdressed, but danced the night away one last time with my new friends. It was one of those nights that you just don’t want to end because you’re having too much fun!