Ilha Grande, Paraty & Trancoso

Looking back towards Abraao, Ilha Grande

After the wedding we head south of Rio to Ilha Grande and Paraty led by our legendary Brazilian guide, Lu. For the next two weeks we ride on the coattails of her friends and family’s generosity. 

Mostly photos from here on…

Godfather duties. It was hot and steep. 

Old aqueduct on Ilha Grande

Sofia and Tiago out for lunch

Champagne V

The walk to Lopes Mendes beach

Kids at the back with skipper and mate up front. A rare moment when they weren't tending the bbq or bar.

A big thanks to the crew who delivered up a banquet of chorizo, steak and chicken hearts - the perfect hangover cure - followed by samba lessons for all.

Another beautiful island for lunch, samba and snorkeling with turtles

How it should be done

If all else fails, smile

We get dropped off at Paraty and spend a few days exploring the old colonial town and the surrounding islands. Lu continues to spoil us...

Paraty old town

Sofia amusing herself while Lupo di Mare waits in the bay for us to finish a liquid lunch

Brazilian lunch blurs into evening at Sergio's place

View Island life at Sergio's in a larger map

Floundering for somewhere to eat without Lu to direct. A disastrously funny last meal out.

After 4 days in Paraty we sadly say goodbye to most of my family. It resembled National Lampoon's Vacation at times but was a special and memorable holiday.

So from here we headed 2hrs north by plane to Trancoso. Lu had taken my brother to Trancoso a few years ago and the place had been built up to mythical proportions. Expectations were riding high but even tropical rain couldn't dampen the experience.

Everything Jetstar will never be

Macaw at Praia do Espelho, Bahia

Praia do Espelho

Trancoso is (quoting from the LP): Sitting atop a grassy bluff overlooking fantastic beaches, this tiny rustic village has a relaxed air with a pretty assortment of guesthouses. It’s known for its wide, grassy and, most importantly, car-free quadrado (square). This central plaza has a grazing horse or two and football-playing lads and a small church at one end. Surrounding it are tropical foliage and colorful buildings, which house expensive boutiques and open-air bars and restaurants. The sight of the quadrate at night is magical.

5 days here fly past.

Nic's favourite houses in Trancoso

An afternoon spent lounging and being waited on hand and foot

Trancoso by night

Leaving Trancoso we say goodbye to Luke, Lu, Sofia and Tiago and we're back to just the two of us. Muchas gracias to Lu and all her friends we called favours on. It will be a big effort for NZ to match this when we return the hospitalities.

Slowly catching up. Back in the present, we're still in Bolivia (survived death road) and heading out to the jungle tomorrow morning. Back in 5 days to close out Brazil.

xN&G

Rio and the wedding

I’ve been gazing at this picture for 15 minutes trying to draw some inspiration.  Sitting on our hostel balcony in the Bolivian countryside, surrounded by clay houses and dusty streets the contrast with Rio couldn’t be starker. And as the heat of day wears on, all that comes to mind is why I didn’t spend more time in that beautiful pool.

Now I remember why: 3 nights and 2 full days in Rio left no spare minute for idle poolside time. But rushing around the city cramming in as much as possible felt like the norm in a place bustling with activity. Everywhere you looked there were people busy doing things; football, volleyball, jogging, rollerblading (oh dear), cycling, swimming. At night the bars and restaurants spill out onto the street with people drinking and dancing. It’s hard to see how the locals find time in their day for work (says the pot to the kettle).

Just a few weeks before we arrive the Santa Teresa tram derails killing five people. Plastered on walls throughout the neighbourhood are these yellow posters mourning the loss of a local icon

We arrived at our fabulous house (another strike of luck, despite a few initial concerns that the smoothy owner’s elaborate story about the place was a big scam and fears we’d come back the next day to find all our stuff nicked) to salted meat cooking over hot coals and crates of cold beer. We’d become well acquainted with the Argentinian obsession for BBQ, but it was a surprise to find that Brazilians love it just as much. Seemingly the trick to their delicious churasco is to lather the meat in rock salt. I guess it makes sense that the secret to BBQ, the cooking option tailor-made for people that can’t cook, should be so simple.

Family shot on escaderia de saleron

Our first morning is spent roaming the hillside suburbs of Santa Teresa and Lapa. They’re a colourful mix of old buildings now occupied by a new generation of artists and bohemians, if not falling down or being converted to fancy hotels.  We all love the views across the city and harbour that live up to everything Rio is meant to be.

An afternoon in Ipanema and Leblon for lunch and last minute purchases for the wedding, then a spot of beach time for sun and voyeurism. The girls, still not quite finished with shopping stay on, while the boys catch a taxi back home to let my brother-in-law (sorry Nick, it’s a convenient description) into the house, arriving a day later after a visa mishap.

We’re keen to get back before he arrives at the house, because for all its luxury at bargain rates there had to be a catch – it’s situated directly above Rio’s most central favela (Portuguese for slum). But as we approach the hill leading to the house the GPS has a meltdown and sends us in the wrong direction and into the labyrinthine streets of Santa Theresa. A $R30 cab is now reading $R60 on the meter and it becomes clear that the driver is hopelessly lost. 

We pass a police car parked across the middle of the road with the cops outside waving automatic weapons around and mustering people about. It seems certain that if we ever make it home we’ll find Nick standing at the gate stripped of all his possessions. The driver is sweating and panicking as the GPS continuously reroutes him on loops, and compounded by a lack of any coherent Portuguese from his passengers, the confusion and tension boils over in an tirade from the back seat. Finally someone spots a landmark and we’re back on track.

So coming up our street it’s a relief to see that Nick is not only in the company of his suitcase but also his taxi driver from the airport. He'd kindly stayed with him on the street (‘I can’t leave you here. It’s not safe’) and waited 30 minutes until we showed up, only then refusing any sort of protection money. Our driver, acknowledging his mistakes, writes off most of the fare.

Post-script: Looking back now on our time in Brazil these good luck stories seemed to keep happening to us. We now realise luck had nothing to do with it – Brazilians are just kind and welcoming people. 

Cristo looking great with J Beiber hovering around in his helicopter

Looking back at Copacabana from Sugarloaf

Day 2 we shake off caiparinha cloudiness from the night before (an alternate theory develops during the night that this is not, as is commonly believed, a Brazilian drink but actually has origins in northern NZ…) and charter a van and driver for the 10 of us. It’s another clear day and gives us postcard weather for visiting Christo and Sugarloaf. Both are tourist hangouts but compulsory stopovers. From these viewpoints it’s impossible to argue how any city could be look better from above.

From Rio we head a few hours north to the small town of Itaipava for my cousin's wedding. It had been much anticipated with around 70 people traveling from NZ/Australia for the big day.

Even with all the excitement leading up to it, I doubt anyone's expectations came close to what Nick and Sylvia put together. The ceremony and evening that followed were magical - a truly memorable day. Some photos below to try and recapture it all:

Lexi teaching Tiago to tango

The bottomless cocktail bar

View back across the pool at the marquee. The surrounding trees floodlit from below looked spectactular.

Farmhouse the following day for BBQ

Thanks Nick and Sylvie for an amazing day and giving us a great reason to set out on this big trip.

The recount continues soonish with the next stop at the beach (but probably not for a few days because in real time we're about to head out to the Bolivian salt flats...)

xN&G

Buenos Aires

We arrive in Buenos Aires to a hot sunny day and baggage delays. After 45 minutes standing around the carousel, the locals start up a slow clap that builds into a foot stamping, raucous chant that echoes down the arrivals hall. Welcome to the city of public protest.

Artwork befitting of grandad's basement drinking den

But after this delay, nothing else can upset our week here and we love the place. So much so that it's moved to number 1 on our cities to live list.

Our accommodation couldn't have been better - an old stone manor on the fringe of a leafy inner-city suburb. A great find by my brother who did well to book something that met all the requirements for the ten of us.  Built in 1916 and now run by the owner's grandson, the house and fittings have been carefully looked after to keep the original feel (opening the wardrobe I half expect to find Narnia). Thankfully there were some modern touches - a flat screen telly broadcasting RWC.

Breakfast at corner cafe

Our week is spent ambling around the streets and parks of Palermo, enjoying the pastries, coffee and sunshine. After 2 months of traveling by ourselves it takes a while to adjust to the group dynamic, but it's great to spread the planning duties around and be able to share our time here with my family.

Floralis generica

Recoleta cemetery - free for the living

Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer. From some angles it supposedly looks like two tango dancers locked in embrace. We couldn't see it, but a beautiful bridge all the same.

Museo del Bicentenario 

Our last few days are set aside for my cousin's stag night (and hens night for the ladies), whose wedding is the following week in Brazil. The stag, who is inexplicably allowed to disappear during the afternoon to run errands, seems to escape the punishment owed to him (or perhaps he didn't? recall struggling here 3 weeks on).

What we fail to recall at the time is that my brother-in-law, fresh off the plane from NZ that morning and thrust straight into the pub, doesn't have a key to our house. Somehow we find ourselves in separate taxis heading in opposite directions across the city - he's outlasted the rest of the house despite being awake for 24 hours straight.

So it's with surprise that we see Cam come down the stairs for breakfast the next morning. Arriving home alone at dawn, speaking no spanish, with no bearings of the city and only a business card to mark the address he scales the 8 foot high stone wall, another similar sized wall fencing the internal courtyard and then two stories of trellis to reach his balcony. Peter Parker would be impressed.

We leave BA wishing we could have had more time, but excited to be heading to the tropical temperatures of Iguazu. We splash out to travel on the Rolls Royce of all buses - Tutto Letto class, which means full recline seats, movies on demand, wifi and hot meals served with champagne. For half the price of flying and none of the airport hassles, we can't recommend highly enough!

Taken from the boat behind this one. The camera went straight into the dry bag afterwards and the boat charged into the falls.

We spend a day at each of the Argentinian and Brazilian sides of the falls, as well as a short tour of the Itaipu Dam (which is the highlight for me from a geeky engineering perspective). But the falls live up to the hype too. We were told that the water levels were relatively low, but it was still an impressive display. It certainly felt like enough water when they parked the boat underneath.

The boat close to saturation point

Itaipu Dam - the largest hydro dam in the world. 8km long and produces 14, 000MW which is enough to meet the needs of all of Paraguay and a quarter of Brazil. Hard to think how something of this scale is built (the face of the dam shown here is 65 stories high).  

Don't touch the coaties

But feel free to wear awful novelty hats and pose like a dick

Special cousin

More soon from Rio and the wedding...

El Calafate to Bariloche

So we find ourselves back in catch up mode after meeting up with George's family in Bariloche and getting caught up in the whirlwind of the Quirk Family Circus (George's term not mine...). Apologies, the next few blogs may be brief.

Laughing at George's moustache? You might have to zoom in to find it.

From Torres del Paine we headed for El Calafate, excited to see Perito Merino glacier which we had heard so much about. El Calafate welcomes us with a fantastic sunny day, and we settle in at our hostel to plan more adventures. We have heard a lot about nearby El Chalten and decide to head there to do some hiking the following day. The weather a 3 hour bus-ride away is completely different from sunny El Calafate and we end up nearly running a supposedly 4 hour walk in 1.5 hours - the camera didn't make it out of the bag in the horizontal rain, but it was supposed to look like this (the lake was frozen solid when we saw it though). We spend the rest of the day warming up with hot chocolates until the return bus comes to collect us.

Cerro Fitzroy

The following day the weather is looking good and we are up early to get the bus to Perito Merino. On board we bump into some friends we had met on Torres del Paine. We arrive at the boat to see the glacier and as we are herded onboard, we get our first taste of mass tourism. Having barely seen any tourists for the last 2 months during low season in Patagonia, this comes as a bit of a shock.

Perito Merino Glacier

But Perito Merino doesn't disappoint, it is absolutely breathtaking how big this thing is. The average height of the front face is 74m. Unfortunately we aren't lucky enough to see any pieces falling off as it was such a cold day, but you could hear the ice constantly creaking and crashing down. Again we end up taking shelter with hot chocolates as icy winds continue.

Team uniforms: with Michelle and Tom, Suesanne and Sven

Back on the bus

We steel ourselves for our next long haul - a 28 hour bus ride covering 1841km to Bariloche. Fortunately the only option for this drive was to take a full cama bus - which is supposed to mean a flat bed. This wasn't quite the case, but the journey wasn't as bad as we expected despite our decision to sit in the front row which at times felt like being on a roller coaster.

Bariloche

Bariloche second time around was completely different from our first brief visit. The sun was out, the puffer jackets were gone and we met Georges' parents and sister here. We spent the week exploring the sights around Bariloche and walking through a lot of snow.

The black glacier. A touch underwhelming.

George and Stewart played a much anticipated round of golf at Llao Llao Resort though they were restricted to playing the same 9 holes twice as the ash is still being cleared from the course.

Hard to tell the fairway from the bunker 

A Sinclair victory

The Seven Lakes drive to San Martin

On our final day Harriet, George and I headed up Cerro Catedral for our last day of skiing in South America. After a mild week the snow was quickly disappearing but we had great BBQ chorizo and beers for lunch and the skiing was pretty fun too.

More coming soon...