Well...
It has been a long time since the first and last blog on the Latin American experience - a lot has happened in the interim.
Carnaval in Rio was a hectic experience - there is no exaggeration at all in the stories of partying all night-sleeping all day. We compromised on the partying to allow for daytime touring which proved a wonderful, albeit tiring, experience.
After catching up with Tish´s brother in law and his workmate, we spent the first day on the treddly up and down Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Both were a visual feast, both for their human and natural scenery. Turns out that the Brazilians seemed unabashed about their bodies no matter what form they took. That´s right, whether the swimmers were disappearing amongst cellulite or muscle, there was pride in letting it all hang loose. The beaches were beautiful, with Ipanema having a particularly spectacular setting.
Nights were spent enjoying the incredible street parties that began with multifocal drum parades and converged on various city blocks (central squares) with lots of drinking, music, food and general merriment. We caught up with Tish´s family friends the Lanhams for tea one night which was a delicious pay-per-kilo meal of a massive variety and enjoyed a couple of nights in Lapa, an area well known for its street parties.
Daytime highlights included going up Sugar Loaf, the Christ the Redeemer statue, the tiled staircase created by a Chilean artist, the central cathedral and my personal favourite, a tour of the Favelas. Favelas are the equivalent of a ghetto or slum, there are 930 or so in Rio and are generally controlled by drug lords, although the government is trying to stop this. The history behind the development, the management and the current abolition of favela areas was fascinating - the areas themeselves are an absolute maze of buildings created by poor people unable to occupy more affluent areas of the city.
The Sambodromo parade was every bit as spectacular as advertised - the intricacy and extravagance of the costumes and floats was amazing and the local crowd was unbelievable. We were spent by 3.30am or so, at which stage the locals were still well in the swing of things... our hostel receptionist greeted us with ¨it´s still going you know, what are you doing back?¨.
We left Rio on our first overnight bus trip. Though it wasn´t the full works with layout seats and meals it was absolutely fine for comfort and got us into Foy do Iguazu-Puerto Iguazu just fine. We had a very helpful hostel employee help us with planning our days first to the Brazilian side of the falls and then the Argentinian. The falls were amazing - we were all very taken aback at the sheer volume/size of them. We also toured a local wildlife park which had some cool creatures including some Tucans!
We arrived into the central/northern Argentinian city of Salta two days ago which has proved a little more laid back. Tish and I hired a car yesterday which we drove a total of 522km including a trip to around 3100m altitude through the mountains on the way to a city named Cachi. The road between Cachi and Cafayete was cut off so we backtracked and took a different route to Cafayete which was absolutely amazing. There have been big storms in recent months as part of the wet season and so we saw a river running brown, the road literally severed in two in around 4 spots and plenty of dicey areas in between. We had to rally-drive home to get the car back in time which was an adventure in itself... I´m going to have to admit I´m not sure I´ll ever make a particularly safe (or therefore successful) rally driver. The hairy roads were compounded by the fact we were driving a left hand steered, manual car!
We have enjoyed a quieter day today and head off to Bolivia tonight on the midnight bus. We´re hoping to tour the Salt flats on a trip between Tupiza and Uyuni over the next week before heading to La Paz for a look-see.
The people have been absolutely wonderful. It has been rare to come across anyone who is anything less than completely friendly and helpful and I think they might find our attempts at Spanish as enjoyable as we do which at least makes that aspect of the trip stress-free. We´re expecting a fairly dramatic change in environment both physically and economically heading into Bolivia and Peru but fellow travellers assure us there are equally amazing opportunities awaiting. On that note - we have all but secured a trip to the Galapagos which is extremely exciting news for the end of our trip!
Hope you´re all well - I was very amused to talk to Chloe today who is having her first bus trip to school today and only 7 sleeps off turning 5!
