Monday morning we woke up, packed our things and ate breaky at the hostel. After leaving our belongings with front desk we headed for the local bus to the falls.

The bus is the 120 and costs R$2.90 and takes around 40 minutes. and the ticket into the falls costs R$52.50 (unless you're from Argentina, Brazil or Paraguay).

Once you arrive at the park you hop on a bus that takes you to various stops (adventure tours, boat trips, jeep safari rides etc). We just hopped off at the beginning of the trail (only 1-2km long) and walked around the cliff face.

The trail overlooks the falls from afar (majority of falls on Argentinian side) and gives you a spectacular view of how enormous they are and how much power they have. 

At the end of the trail there is a walk way that goes out into “The Devils Throat”. It takes you out and into the middle of the falls and gives you a great up close view. 

Theres not much I can say to explain how beautiful and amazing this place is… So instead I’ll post lots of pictures. 

This arvo we’re off to Argentina. We’ll be doing the Argentinian side of the falls tomorrow. I’m sure it will be just as amazing.

We arrived in Foz do Iguazu after an 18 hour bus trip… Needless to say everyone was in great spirits. 

After finally finding our hostel via their cryptic clues “Get on the centro bus, get off across the road from the gaucho building, the hostel is right there” we found the hostel.. 

Its important for me to note here that there are multiple buses to centro (all taking different routes) and there are multiple gaucho buildings AND when we did indeed find The Gaucho hostel it was NOT “just across the road”. 

We dropped our stuff at the hostel and went and got lunch. Again were staying at a Che Lagarto, this one was a 9 story “high rise” (comparatively to other hostels) and had an roof top deck with a spa and pool and an amazing view of the city.

That night we went to a Brazilian all you can eat Churrasco BBQ, Buffalo Branco. For $60 Reals (Just under $30 AUD) each we had access to a huge salad, vegetable, rice, pasta, chips and dessert buffet as well as being brought meat skewer after rack of ribs after chicken wrapped in bacon after… you get the picture. This place was awesome, the food was fantastic and the device was great. Although the price is almost 3 times of what you’d normally spend on a meal in Brazil it was totally worth it for a little bit of a splurge on our last night.

After dinner we headed back to our hostel rooftop for Free Caiprinia hour. This took place between 7:30 and 8:30 and in this hour you can have as many free caipirinhas as you’d like. It also happens that this hour coincides with a stunning sunset over the city.

Not bad Foz do Iguazu.

Tomorrow we’re going to the Falls!

We left Paraty on Boxing Day around lunch time and got a 6 hour bus to Sao Paulo - the biggest bus depot in the southern hemisphere. Whilst being made notably less mobile by all of our stuff, we had to kill another 6 hours or so inside the depot. We spent most of the time getting dinner, looking at the switchblades for sale and breaking the all time record of the basketball free throw arcade game. 

We jumped on a bus to Florianopolis at 11:30pm for the first of what I’m sure will be many uncomfortable nights “sleeping” on a long distance bus during this trip.

Anyway, we got to the Florianopolis bus depot at about 11am the next day, and as no one could be bothered working out the local bus system after a pretty average nights sleep, we jumped in a cab that cost about $35 AUD to our home for the next week - Barra Surf Hostel.

Our stay in Barra da Lagoa was for the week over New Years Eve, one of the busiest times of the year. Naturally this came with the associated crowds and traffic, but more about that later.

We were warmly checked into Barra Surf Hostel by Rodrigo and Mariane, the husband-wife team of owners who wasted no time in recommending an awesome pay for weight lunch place and some nice places to swim after. We had a big feed and went for a shortish walk to explore the neighbourhood, as well as check out some local natural pools around the headland from Barra beach. 

The pools were pretty crowded, but we found a nice spot to swim off the rocks in a little cove about 5 minutes walk farther down a trail. Sammy also made friends with a 4 legged local who chased him around in and out of the water for about 10 minutes, and made it exceedingly difficult to scramble back out onto the barnacle covered rocks. He didn’t think it was as funny as I did at the time, but definitely saw the lighter side when the dog repeated the process with a Brazilian guy about 5 minutes later.

The next day we took a bus to Lagoa da Conceicao, and then jumped on a ferry up the lake to Costa da Lagoa in the search of some more little waterfalls as described by our host Rodrigo. We ended up walking the wrong way for about half an hour, but still managed to have some fun in the sun walking around the lake and stumbling across a private little beach for a swim. Some locals pointed us in the right direction eventually through broken portuguese-english and we eventually found the waterfalls. These weren’t as big as the ones we saw in Paraty, but it was still a nice place to have a splash.

The we started the next day by going to the local Tartaruga - or sea turtle sanctuary, which was just around the corner from our hostel. All the guides were in portuguese, but there was plenty of written information everywhere in english so we could get a gist of what the place was about, and also learnt a bit about some other local sea life. We saw some sad, sick old fellas who had been rescued and appeared set to live out their days in the enclosures, but also some cute young ones who looked like they might be fit for release in the hopefully not too distant future. I always have mixed feelings about critters in cages or tanks, but due to the language barrier I can’t really make judgement on this particular spot.

We had fun spending the rest of the day at the beach mucking around on some soft boards that were free to borrow from the hostel, and sampling all of the tasty corn and other treats being sold on the sand. That night we had a few drinks and tried to go out to a “Green-Go” party, where every time a green light behind the bar went on you got 2 for 1 drinks. But, when we got to the club we were met with a line a mile long that wasn’t moving, so we walked around for a bit and then got a bus back home to bed. 

Now is probably a good time to mention that Florianopolis as an island is absolutely huge. Although the bus system around the island seemed to be quite thorough, due to the ridiculous traffic from the holiday crowds (turning 10 minute drives into 2+ hour drives), we more or less stayed around the central/east side of the island during our stay, and thus didn’t get to see a huge amount of what the area had to offer.

On new years eve we started the day by hiring some sand boards on some nearby dunes. Sand boarding is so much harder than it sounds, kinda like trying to snowboard on really icy snow, but it was still lots of fun laughing at each other getting axed trying to make it down the hill. 

That night we had an absolute feast for dinner put on by the team from Barra Surf Hostel. $R35 (about $17AUD) got us all you could eat Brazilian BBQ meats and salads, cooked on a coal fire in drums on the hostel rooftop. We also got a delicious home made dessert by Mariane and a cheeky glass of bubbles to wash it all down. After the feast we all stumbled down to the beach, which was packed with tourists and locals alike to welcome in 2015. There was plenty of fireworks, cheap capirinhas and people in white clothes (for good luck). 

The next day everyone was dead. Not legit dead, but close enough. We slothed around moving only to go to the beach, lay on the sand and lay in the shade at the hostel. 

The next day we again lurked at the beach, packed our stuff (we were leaving the next day) and went for a little surf. We booked tickets to see David Guetta that night, which was quite a memorable evening, and not necessarily for all the right reasons. We booked our tickets and transfers and were told to meet the bus down at the beach at 9:30 pm to get a bus to the concert. Now I’m pretty sure we’ve mentioned this before, but people like to do things pretty late in Brazil, and that is especially so with partying. We didn’t know how well this would eventually turn out in our favour.

We met the bus at 9:30 at the beach, and the driver eventually let us on to get out of the rain at about 9:45. The bus didn’t end up leaving until about 10:30, but this was ok because there was a convenience store and some public bathrooms across the road so we could all stock up on beers for the trip into the concert, and then let them out the other end. 

About an hour into the trip and 14km or so from the concert, the bus hit a complete standstill in traffic. Naturally by then everyone on board had a few beverages under their belts, and Brazilians and gringos alike were peering out of the rainy bus windows for dark corners we could possibly duck behind to take a leak. However, despite the bus being completely stationary for 5-10 minutes at a time and no end to the traffic in sight, our driver would not open the doors for us to relieve ourselves. Eventually afraid of someone making a mess on board, he relented and pulled over onto the side of the road. Everyone rushed out and found the nearest bush to duck behind and the driver even stepped out of the bus for a durrie.

After answering natures call we went back over to the bus and found the driver still standing out on the street looking pretty wired. We also found a bloke we had met earlier in the night, lets call him “Jim” was still sitting on the bus, shotgun up next to the drivers seat. “Jim” was about 40 from an undisclosed location in Australia, and had bragging about how much coke he was going to ingest tonight. By the looks of it he had shared a fair bit of his stash with our driver. Anyway, whilst everyone was off the bus, driver included, Jim thought it would be funny to hop behind the wheel and drive the bus a little in the traffic. He made it about a metre in total before the coked up driver and his mate rushed on board, dragged Jim out onto the footpath and threatened to belt him over the head with a tyre iron. Shit hit the proverbial fan after this, and combined with the gridlock on the road, we abandoned our transport and started looking at other ways to get to the concert. 

We tried to hail down other buses which refused to stop, but basically ended up walking the remaining 12km or so to the concert along the shoulder of the gridlocked highway. Eventually we got there, tired and muddy but safe, and just in time for Guetta’s set at 2am. Thank God for Brazilians and their late starts!

Although Guetta’s music isn’t normally my cup of tea and despite the fact getting there was an absolute debacle, we all still had heaps of fun at the concert and it was definitely worthwhile. The abandoned bus was meant to take us home after too, so we ended up having to get a $40 cab back to the hostel.

We managed about an hour sleep before getting up for breakkie and a local bus to the depot for our 18 hour trip to Iguazu Falls!

Next stop.... Foz do Iguaçu!

Wednesday we set off for Lopes Mendes.

Ilha Grande is covered in heaps and heaps of trails, treks and hikes. All of them graded  easy to difficult, all of them with amazing destinations at the end (depending on what you’re in to).

Our first trek on the island was to Lopes Mendes. Lopes Mendes is a beach roughly 6 kilometres from the Village of Abraão, where we were staying. 

It was apparently 2.5 - 3.5 hour walk through the rainforest and along beaches. So at 10:20am we set off. Well Sean, Rach and I did. Sammy was badly burnt from the day before and decided to give it a miss. 

We stole a couple of bananas and bread rolls each from the breakfast buffet and packed our things. We had been told to take plenty of water, food and snacks as it was a long trek and there was not much in the way of supplies over there.

Once we begun our trek we realised how god damn muggy it was due to the incredibly high humidity under the forest canopy. The first 20 minutes to half an hour is a solid up hill trek over rocks and dirt paths and once at the top the decline down the other side of the headland is just as difficult, causing serious stress to the knees. Going slow is a good idea (unless you’re impatient like the 3 of us and need to do everything 1 million miles per hour). After the first decent we arrived at a beautiful beach, Praia dos Palmas.

Palmas looked like all the other beaches on the island. Blue water, blue sky, white sand, an acai stall, a guy selling soft drinks and ruffles (crinkle cut potato chips, yum) and a couple of little taxi boats ready to take those who decided they had walked far enough back to Abraão.

We hustled on. After a water break of course.

The next “hill” was not as demanding as the first, but it was still hard and close to horrible considering how f@#$ing hot it was.
The next beach was Praia dos Mangues. Again beautiful, as all the beaches are however still not Lopes Mendes. 
Again we continued.

Finally we arrived at Lopes Mendes. In less than 1.5 hours. It was indeed beautiful, and had much less people comparatively to the other beaches on the island. We set up camp, dropped our things and got straight into the water. 

We ate our stolen bread rolls with tomato and relaxed reading our books. After a couple of hours, multiple swims and a little sunburn we headed back.

Rach and myself caught the taxi back from Praia dos Mangues. For only R$15 it seemed like a bargain. Sean however decided he would run back. Righto.

The taxi boat back was relaxing and much easier than the hike over. That being said, it was a good walk and I’m glad we did it. I’m also glad it didn’t take us 3 hours.

Once back in Vila do Abraão we checked Sean had made it back and was alive, each had showers, rested and then fetched some dinner. It had been a big day. 

On the first day of our Ilha Grande adventure whilst sitting at breakfast on the deck of our hostel… (amazing location) we were approached by a couple of people working for a boat tour company, Jeronimo Tours.

We listened to the spiel expecting it to be like every other boat tour company in Vila do Abraão.  (I never counted the number of boat companies, however there had to be at least 150, which is heaps considering the village’s population is only 3000). However, this one was different! 

Jeronimo Tours was run on a small boat, took only 20 tourists MAX, visited DIFFERENT locations to the other boats, or at least the best same locations at different times to the other companies (meaning we would have the places to ourselves) and included a massive BBQ lunch and a couple of cheeky bevvies. All this taking roughly 9 hours for R$120, roughly $55AUD. We were sold.

We packed our things, woke Sammy up (as always) and headed for the meeting point on the beach (under the big tree…..). There were multiple big trees all along the beach, but nonetheless we found it. We were taken out to Jeronimo’s boat via a smaller dingy, set ourselves up on the bow and got ready for an exciting day ahead.

Jeronimo turned out to be a real person! He was an Argentinian who moved to Ilha Grande almost 20 years ago, so he knows the island and all of its nooks and crannies incredibly well, he was also one of the original tours. 

All of Jeronimo’s crew were incredibly helpful and friendly, including his shaggy 4 legged crew member Pepa. Especially helpful to us was a guy called Joaquin, from Argentina also. He spoke great english and resultantly was our lifeline to what was going on at each stop etc. He was also really interested in the island and it’s history which really showed when he would tell us facts and information about the sites we were visiting and the island itself. 

Ilha grande has a really interesting history involving slaves, pirates, political prisoners and gangs. Again, I don’t think we can do the story justice (so here is a link)

The day included 3 separate swimming/snorkelling/kayaking stops.

The first of which was Monkey Island. It was a deserted beach (that none of the other companies were allowed to visit) with a single house inhabited by an old woman who was there to sell soft drinks and water if we wanted. 

On the island Jeronimo and his crew supplied snorkels, kayaks and a large 5 person hawaiian outrigger canoe.
We stayed here for roughly 3 - 4 hours swimming, snorkelling, kayinging, sun baking and getting incredibly full on the insane lunch they provided.

The next stop was Lagoa Azul (The blue lagoon). We visited this around 4pm which was perfect as we had it to ourselves! Throughout the day we had seen heaps of other tour boats visit and all sit together at this tiny location. There was upwards of 15 boats visiting the same site at the same time!

The last stop was Bananal Beach. Here we had a swim and then went for a walk up to the Islands oldest church, and oldest Imperial Palm (which was huge!). Both of which were built/planted in 1834. Joaquin gave us all some information on the site and again, more on the islands history.
From the church site we walked down to another beach and were picked up by Jeonimo and the crew. 

On the way back to Abraão we were given a couple of drinks. A caipirina made from the famed 51 (the sugar cane liquor that had contributed to a few of our hangovers thus far) and a mix of juice and 51. 

The day was amazing and the weather could not have been better. We would DEFINITELY recommend this company. 

Thank you Jeronimo, Joaquin and the crew!

From Buzios we headed South for roughly an hour on a public bus. We arrived at Arraial do Cabo and found our apartment, ON. THE. BEACH.

Arraial’s beaches were beautiful. White sand, blue sky, aqua water and plenty of acai stalls.

Again like Buzios, whilst in Arraial we didn’t do much besides lay in the sun and explore. No complaints here.

Next stop, back to Rio!

We left Rio and headed north to Amacão dos Buzios, or simply Buzios. We caught a 1001 bus, it took 2.5 hours and cost $44.00 Reals (around $20AUD). The trip was comfortable  as thus far all the buses in South America are MUCH more comfortable than any planes I’ve ever been on. Once we arrived we found our hostel and got settled.

We were staying at Lagoon Backpackers, and as the name suggests it was situated right on a lagoon, well across the road from one. We had booked a 6 bed dorm but as none else was there we had it to ourselves. 

The hostel was walking distance from a central strip of shops and multiple beaches. We spent most of our time at Geriba Beach and eating at pay per kilogram restaurants (these were AWESOME and so so cheap).

We stayed 4 days in Buzios and during this time didn’t do much other than lay in the sun, read and just generally explore the town.

On Friday night we decided to play some drinking games with a deck of cards and a bottle of cachaca. We made a local cocktail the hostel owner showed us.

Ingredients:
- Cachaca
- Passionfruit
- Ice

And thats it.

Us girls finished up early whilst Sean stayed on until he was alone at 2am, needless to say he'd had better days than Saturday.

All in all it was a very nice and mostly relaxing 4 days, next stop Arraial do Cabo.

Monday we went to one of Rio's biggest tourist attractions - Christ The Redeemer.

We hadn't initially planned to go today due to weather forecasts of cloud and/or rain and after our last mishap at the view point we were happy to postpone this trip until we got a clear day. But after an hour or so of hanging out at the beach in the morning without a cloud in sight, we decided to jump on a bus and head to "Corcovado".

The public bus itself was easy enough, about 3 Reals per person from near our hostel in Ipanema and it dropped us right at the foot of the hill, across the road from the tourist centre. It was pretty easy to spot, with a train station and plenty of gift stores swarming with tourists. From here we paid a "collectivo" or minivan company 25 Reals each and were ferried up towards what we thought was going to be the top of the hill and the statue. This drive took about 10 minutes and was relatively pain free. It was when we got out that the fun started.

We got chucked out of the van into a sea of people with some very broken english/spanish instructions about where to go and what to do. We eventually worked out that we had to que up to get a ticket to the national park that the statue is located in, and then line up again to actually enter the park. We semi hacked the system, with the girls waiting in the line for the tickets whilst sammy and myself lined up in the park entry one. This was the beginning of a 3 hour ordeal of waiting in ques in the 35 degree heat despite all of our best efforts to beat the system. I had initially wanted to walk up the hill from the bus stop at the very bottom and had been talked out of it by the other three much to my annoyance. After learning the walk would have involved 2 hours of solid uphill slog in the 35 degree heat, only then to also have to wait in line for 3 hours with no food nearby I would have happily held my tongue and jumped at the easy option.

Eventually after all the lines and heat, we got to the foot of the statue sunburnt and hangry and saw what all the hype was about. The statue wasn't as tall as I had imagined, but the view from the hill at the big man's feet was absolutely amazing. Corcovado stands smack above the centre of the city, towering over everyone and offers easily the best view in town. I can't even begin to describe how good it was, despite the huge amount of people there. We spent a good hour at the top snapping the typical cheesy tourist shots, asking people in terrible broken portugenglish to take photos with our camera, helping them out with their own, and just generally soaking in Rio from above before deciding to head back down. The way down was much easier with less people and hence much less waiting time.

I have to note here that apparently the crowds we experienced at Corcovado was abnormally huge. Obviously it is one of the biggest tourist attractions in town, but we visited in the busiest time of the year and found out later that 2 or 3 huge cruise liners had arrived that morning and had dispersed their floating populations straight up Corcovado around the time we had chosen to travel there. That compiled with the first sunny day in a while, it was bound to be busy. However, although the lines were like pulling teeth for our impatient little crew, it is still something I would recommend everyone makes the time to do if they ever get to go to Rio de Janeiro.

The next day we spent at the beach, cruising around downtown and spending time speaking to what seemed to be every single citibank employee on both sides of the Pacific (but I won't bore you all with those details).

Next stop - Armação dos Búzios

After stumbling off our plane exhausted, hungover and not speaking a word of Portuguese we arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

We got our transfer from the airport to the hostel and stumbled into the lobby. We were given keys and a coupon for a free caipirinha (a Brazilian cocktail, not today thanks) and we walked up to our dorm.

Our dorm consisted of 5 bunks (for 10 people) and a tiny bathroom, it was hot and there was very little room for us let alone our bags. This being said, this is what you get when you pay $16AUD for a bed in Ipanema.

We went for a cruise down to the beach and had a much longer swim than we did in chile as the water was closer to 20 degrees than 10. We got some food and had an early night.

The next day everyone was feeling MUCH better. We got some information from the staff at the hostel and decided to embark on a walk/trek up to a view point - Vista Chinesa (or Chinese View).

The walk was really nice, but was far from the easiest thing we’ve done. It was about a 20km return trip, looping around part of the big lagoon in central Rio and then heading 4km up a really steep winding road through the forest on the side of one of Rio’s many small mountains. The side of the road was lined with a fairly constant stream of cyclists slogging it up the hill and flying back down the other side. 

We finally made it to the view point at the top to be greeted by some thick cloud making it nearly impossible to see out over the city, seriously wrecking our photo opportunities. Lucky the walk was nice!

We cruised back to the hostel, stocked up on some lunch and had a quick dip at the beach before getting ready for the big event of the day. A pilgrimage to Brazil’s largest shrine of their national religion, FOOTBALL!!

We got picked up at the hostel with some other people by a local tour operator and headed straight to the Maracana, to go watch Fluminese play Corinthians. We were led in by our guides with a herd of other gringos towards our seats amongst the home teams supporters, Fluminese.

The Maracana is a serious stadium, probably not as big as the MCG but still impressive. What was more impressive though was the atmosphere and noise the 16000 odd supporters managed to make in this huge cavern. The stadium didn’t look more than 30% full, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a crowd that loud at any Australian sporting event. It was that impressive that I swear half of the gringos sitting near us didn’t even watch the game and spent the whole time crowd watching.

Corinthinans opened the scoring early, but ended up going down 5-2 in a hugely exciting game, much to the delight and surprise of the underdog Fluminese fans surrounding us. 

We left the stadium with the big group and got split up back onto the mini buses that took us straight back to the hostel for some dinner. The football day out cost us 120 Reals, a serious mark up when we worked out the tickets only cost 15 reals at the gate. We thought it was worth it though, when the transport to/from the game, and the guide who got us into and out of our seats safely was all included. Especially when we don’t speak a word of Portuguese, we all had cameras with us and the stadium was on the other side of town. #noregrets

Last week our Brazilian visas arrived in the mail! Woo hop it's all getting very real!

A tiny bit of advice on booking a visa appointment (or getting a visa), make sure you give yourself plenty of time!! We had to wait 6 weeks for the next available visa appointment when booking ours!

With only 3 weeks until lift off the past few weeks have involved visiting various stores to pick up all kinds of things for our travels. Thus far  we've purchased padlocks, a micro fibre towel, sleeping bags, thermals, mosquito repellent, vaccinations, a go pro and much much more! Who knows what else we'll need to pick up before we go.


We're both winding back from work now and looking forward to relaxing and getting ready over the next few weeks!