Iguassu
Falls
Iguassu
Falls are on the border of Argentina and Brazil. The number of actual
waterfalls that make up Iguassu falls varies between 150 and 300 depending on what
you are reading (and I guess whether they counted in the wet or dry season)! The
falls need to be viewed from both the Brazilian and Argentinian side apparently
– so we were quite happy to go back to Argentina for another steak and some
good red wine.
The
Argentinian side has a full day’s worth of walkways that go right in, under and
over a significant number of the cataracts. As well as the cataracts trails
there are nature trails which we did, but we inevitably saw more wildlife
around the cafeteria! The coatis (South American raccoon) were particularly over
friendly, being pushed out the café with a broom, rummaging in the bins, or standing
up to sniff at your bag. The Brazilian side gives a better overview of the
falls but was not such good value for money with only 1 main walkway, and we
were done by early afternoon. So we went into the bird park next door, which
had large aviaries in a lovely rainforest setting, with plenty of tame toucans.
Toucans prefer the tops of the canopy so although we’ve seen quite a few toucans
before, we have not been able to get any good photos until now.
Near
Iguassu Falls is Itaipu dam, which is built across another river that joins
with Iguassu just below the falls. Prior to the 3 Gorges Dam on the Yangtze
River in China, this was the biggest dam in the world, though they still had
some dubious statistics about why Itaipu Dam is still the biggest dam in the
world (highest production level across all months of the year, and area
destroyed vs energy generated!). This river is the border between Paraguay and
Brazil and the project was a joint venture. We did the technical tour with a
group of German engineering students who couldn’t comprehend that some
efficiencies had been sacrificed for the sake of politics!
The bus from
Iguassu Falls was an eye opener. It seems most Brazilians don’t go to the falls,
instead they go to Paraguay or Argentina to buy cheap electricals, toys, and animal
print bed linen and lots of it. People had 4 or 5 times the size of our backpacks
and the coach company had scales to enforce their 32kg limit. We travelled to
Sao Paulo, and got the next bus straight out to our next destination!
Paraty
Paraty is an
old colonial town located on the coast. The buildings are white-washed, the
streets are cobbled and closed to modern traffic, though horses and carts are
still allowed. Behind the town rise forested hills, along the coast there are
lovely beaches, and a bay dotted with islands. We had a couple of days there
exploring the town, walking to the next beach and a day on a schooner cruising around
the bay.
Ilha Grande
From Paraty
it was not too much further along the coast to Ilha Grande. Until recently the
island hosted one of Brazil´s most notorious prisons and consequently large
parts of the island were never developed for tourism and now the forests are
protected. We got a lovely pousada (guest house) at a bargain rate as its low
season, up the hill away from town with a beautiful rainforest garden! There
were quite a lot of English people on the island. It’s winter now and the
temperature is only in the high 20s, which the Brazilians think is way too cold
for the beach, but for Brits it’s perfect. We had a day on Lopes Mendes Beach (getting
there involved a boat trip + 20min walk), which according to the information on
Ilha Grande is the best beach in Brazil. We did a speed boat ride around the
sheltered side of the island with some great snorkeling (too much snorkeling to
take photos). The islands, and surrounding landscape are based on underlying
granite, and Ilha Grande has a very distinctive peak called ‘Parrot peak’, so we did the trail up to the top of that on
our 3rd day. It was 1,000m up as we started on the seafront, and given
the relative high humidity the walk was very sweaty! The views across the island
and the bay from the top were superb, even if the drop was a little dizzying
(no hand rails!)
Rio de
Janeiro
We arrived
in Rio in time to make it to Sugar Loaf Mountain for sunset. The sky was a
lovely red colour - looking across the pollution of Rio de Janeiro! The summit
is 400m above the bay and reached via 2 cable cars. It’s necessary to ‘change’
cable car at an intermediary hill. I made Phil walk up the first hill. It’s not
possible to walk all the way up – there are only rock-climbing routes to the very
top. From the top you can see that Rio really is squeezed in between the ocean
and the high mountains rising behind. In the centre of town there was a
concrete monstrosity lit up in multi-colours at night, which we assumed must be
a casino, however it turns out that this is Rio´s modern Metropolitan Cathedral.
We stayed
in Ipanema, a couple of blocks back from the beach. We did a few tourist-tastic
things in Rio: caipirinha on the beach at sunset watching a no-hand volley ball
match(?!), coconut water from a coconut, and a churrascaria rodizio, which is
an all you can eat buffet with freshly cooked meat on skewers brought round to
your table, for you to accept or turn away depending on a card you’re given
which you turn over on the table (or alternatively how many spare notches you
have left on your belt!)
Ouro Preto
We are now
in Ouro Preto, which is Brazil´s answer to Potosi (big mining city in Bolivia,
the source of the Spanish Empire’s silver). Ouro means gold! This is a lovely colonial
town nestled on a hillside. It hasn´t changed much since the gold ran out
around 1900. It’s full of overtly decorated churches – obviously paying to
decorate a church was the way to demonstrate your wealth. One small church that
we looked in today contains 434kg of gold. It is in the state of Minas Gerais
which is famous for its hearty food: the porky bean stew is ok but the
chocolate, strawberry pizza served with ice cream for dessert was definitely my
favourite!
