Days are going by faster and faster and Brazil is proving to be quite a surprising country. In Salvador I got to leave my backpack at my host´s place and go relax a few days in Morro de Sao Paulo. This is an Island a few hours away.(I dont know if I already talked about this in my previous post so I will cover it fast) It was beautiful but a bit too ´touristically´aggressive and I had a brilliant time there with another french girl and guy from Spain (also speaking french) who I met at the hostel.
After that it was due time to leave Bahia and fly to Rio de Janeiro! Rio is a beautiful city! but I didn´t spend enough time at all there. I got to see the Corcovado, walk in the city centre and go to the beach in Copacabana, that is it... oh and go to Lapa one night to experience the street dancing of Samba. The city feels very european to me and kind of very safe or at least for the parts I have been to. I know it has probably not been always the case but this is how I felt. I was also very happy to be able to use the underground, I have to say that in any big city it makes your life so much easier to go around when you are a tourist. I guess this is also what was intimidating with Salvador. Not always knowing if the bus was going to the correct direction! I really had a great feeling with the city and can only hope to return some day for a proper full week in order to go around correctly. I left Rio quick because I wanted to take the opportunity to also visit Ilha Grande, an island a few hours away from Rio. This island is also absolutely beautiful and much more protected than Morro. There, tourists are not so necessary and the local population is more oriented on preserving the island. But for me it was the one chance to finally meet with someone who can relate to my life prior backpacking and it felt really good! So here we go! I met with Merissa (for people who do not know, Merissa is a friend from work who lived in London many years and moved back to Brazil a year ago). So it was a great opportunity to catch and actually learn a bit more about Brazil! especially discovering sweets! I am completely addicted to Brigaderos! but should not abuse them otherwise I´m going to put on extra fat! Bikini season is over for a while now anyway but that definitely not a reason! hehe!! I realised that my days in Ilha Grande would probably be my last days at the beach for a while! and I was very lucky because the weather was gorgeous, I had nice company and it was super relaxing with a bit of walks in the jungle/forest to get to the beach!
So after the state of Rio, I flew (again!) to Foz do Iguacu, which is South of Brazil by the border with Paraguay and Argentina and has a beautiful national park extending into Argentina with amazing waterfalls. I had high expectation after coming all the way there and hearing how amazing it was, but I can definitely say that I felt absolutely like the tiniest thing in the world when I saw the waterfalls. I started with the Argentinian side as it constitutes 80% of te 275 waterfalls. The most impressive is la Garganta Del Diablo (Devil´s throat) and it is so powerful that you cannot even see the bottom of it. So it was a beautiful natural show with lots of animals around!
Tomorrow I will go to the Brazilian side and in the evening take a night bus to Curitiba (10 hours on the bus, it is so far the shortest distance I allowed myself to travel by bus in Brazil...knowing the two flights I got so far would have been 25 hours by bus!!!)
So far I like Brazil for how surprising it has been. People are kind but always on the lookout (I guess it is part of the culture to be suspicious, for safety reasons) and it is very funny to realise how sporty people are. Boys and girls are looking after themselves very well but they are also showing off so much it gets quite funny at the beach! I guess I am also getting a bit more confident with the few words of portuguese I know and mixed with spanish. But mainly in Rio and Iguacu people are used to tourist so they speak english quite well and it feels good.
Only 9 days left to discover more Brazil and then I carry on South!
