Brazil - party central!

Things Brazilians are brilliant at: 1) partying 2) carnival (see point 1) 3) samba (see points 1 and 2) 4) the body beautiful 5) thong bikinis 6) making caipirinhas

Things they are not so good at: 1) salads 2) queuing 3) being quiet, especially when rocking in from carnival at 5am.

We love Rio. FACT. On arrival, we pop up to the bar on the roof of our hotel, for 'just the one', to find that England are playing Brazil. We proceed to have three caipirinhas, which the barman liberally tops up with cachaca on an ad hoc basis, while watching the game. At the end, I fall off my chair, but its unclear as to whether this is because England beat Brazil, or due to the cocktails.

Needless to say, we have a lazy day on Ipanema beach after this topping up the tan, before heading out on a tour the following day to see the sights of Rio. Our tour guide, Mabel, takes no prisoners and by 9:30am we are in the queue for the cable car up to Sugarloaf mountain.







Feeding monkeys on Sugarloaf. Rabies alert!

The cathedral inside is pretty cool, then we all head for lunch where every one gets a bit more chatty after shots of cachaca from the ten litre bottle.









After lunch, we head up to Christ the Redeemer. Mabel has a cat fight with the lady responsible for getting people up to the Christ, and the whole tour group launches into a rendition of 'this is how we do it' on the drive up, much to the amusement of the driver, and possibly something to do with the lunchtime cachaca. Up at the statue, it's hot, hot, hot, and very busy, so having taken the obligatory 'arms out' shot, we head back into town.





Usually when writing this blog, I'd use my photos as an aide memoir, but I often left the camera behind, as everyone told us we'd be mugged in Rio (we weren't). Therefore, I am sadly unable to show you pictures of the rather wonderful Brazilian national dish of feijoada - black bean and pork stew, served with rice, very garlicky spinach and manioc flour. This fortified us for our trip to carnival that evening, which fortunately I did take the camera to.

Ahhhh, carnival. The whole city goes bat shit insane, and looks like one big hen/stag party - men in skirts, whole groups dressed as pints of lager and both sexes in wedding veils. We can't get on the Metro at our nearest stop, so have to surreptitiously follow the locals to one we can have access, where the queue is bout an hour long. We are saved by a man who does us a massive favour and sells us two tube tickets at a mark up that we are happy to pay to avoid the queue. The tube ride itself is wild, everyone sings, dances and bangs on the ceiling in time to the drum that someone has helpfully bought with him.

We're finally in the Sambadrome by 9ish, just as the first parade starts. It is amazing, indescribable, a riot of colour and music and costume, and honestly ranks as one of the best nights of my life. Some snapshots are below:
















By 3am we are ready to call it a night, having danced and drank for several hours.

The next couple of days are spent topping up the tan on a very busy Copacabana beach and eating wonderful crepes and great Mexican food in Ipanema (there is only so much Brazilian food one can eat) before we move on to the peace and tranquility of Igazu.

San Pedro de Atacama and Bolivia

Well Toto, I guess we're not in Santiago anymore. San Pedro de Atacma is a dusty little town with no paved roads and a certain amount of charm. It's the gateway for our three day trip to Bolivia to see the Uyuni salt flats. But first, we have sandboarding and a trip to the Valley of the Moon to undertake.

I tried snowboarding once. I lasted three minutes. I fell and banged my knee and decided there and then that I intensely dislike winter sports and would never ski or snowboard again. I had hoped that sandboarding would be better. It was hot after all. I could get a tan. And then I had to climb a sand dune at altitude with my board, and that alone nearly killed me. Heading down the dune took longer than coming up it and involved an disagreement with the instructor as to whether or not what he was asking me to do was even possible, according to the laws of physics. I retired gracefully.



The Valley of the Moon was much better. We were taken to salt caves and a lunar landscape before another climb to a vantage point to see the sunset with a glass or two of Pisco sours.




Salty.








We awake at ridiculous o'clock the following morning for our journey to Bolivia. We have been told to bring lots of water, but also that there are no toilets (go figure) and that the accommodation is basic. It is therefore with some trepidation that we cross the Chile/Bolivia border.




The landscape is incredible. There's nothing for miles, apart from llamas. We stop at many lagoons, and get to have a swim in a natural hot pool, which is like bath water.








Our group is lovely, and after some llama spotting by another lagoon, we retire to our accommodation for the evening.





Unfortunately, we're 4,800 metres above sea level and the temperature outside is dropping below freezing. The altitude sickness is starting to kick in and we all feel a little grotty, so it's an early night in our dorm.

Still not feeling brilliant in the morning, we leave to see some rocks in the dest. Sounds wild, doesn't it? They're pretty spectacular though.









Yet another lagoon trip beckons, but this one is full of wild flamingoes.




All the little dots in the background are flamingoes too.







Our tour group.

We spend a thankfully warmer night at a more sensible altitude the next evening, before heading to Uyuni and the salt flats the next day. They are like nothing I have ever seen before. Tens of thousands of square metres of salt, covered with a inch or so of water because its the rainy season, creates a giant mirror, reflecting the sky, the mountains and us when we play in the water.













After Uyuni, the tour is all over and we head back to San Pedro, glossing over a brief overnight stop at the place we stayed on the first night. It was a great trip, we met some wonderful people and the salt flats were amazing, but it was tiring, having to pee behind a jeep was no fun and we are desperate for a shower.

Fully restored, and still having a day left in San Pedro, we head out to their salt flats, which are dry, to get some silly pictures and swim/float in the salt lake, which is awesome.










On leaving San Pedro, we pop back to Santiago for a brief overnight stay before our early morning flight to Rio.

Let's get Spanish - Santiago

Apparently, you can't get jet lag crossing the International Date Line. You can however, gain a day, spend 11 and a half hours on a plane and end up pretty knackered. And thus, we spend the first night and first morning in Santiago fast asleep. It's a good thing we have accumulated a day, owing to the time difference between New Zealand and Chile.

We stir ourselves on our first afternoon to take a walking tour around Santiago. Our guide, Franco, is fabulous, and tells us loads about the history of the city and Chile's recent bloody political past, as well as showing us the best place to get Chilean food and a cocktail likely to blow your head off, the terremoto (earthquake).



Fabulous Franco





Outside the Presidential Palace, scene of Pinochet's 1973 coup


On the tour, we meet a lovely Canadian girl called Sarah, and the three of us agree it would be rude to not try a post-walk terremoto. We settle down in a bar in Bella Vista, and Franco joins us too. In case you're wondering what's in these cocktails, it's the cheapest white wine you can find, topped up with Fernet Branca and a splash of Grenadine, with a large scoop of pineapple ice cream. Sounds horrific, but they're actually not too bad.




Sarah and Vicky drinking terremotos.

Then we tipsily head off into the evening for some Chilean food.





Corn pie. We can't rave enough about corn pie. It's a meat (usually chicken and ham) pie, with olives and a whole boiled egg in it, and the top is made of creamed/blended sweet corn. It is fabulous. We also have porotos with bratwurst; beans mashed with pumpkin, which is wonderful too. We leave the restaurant stuffed and happy.




Corn pie - drool





The following day, we go the the Museum of Memory and Human Rights. I studied Pinochet's coup against Allende's elected government as part of my degree, so this period of Chilean history fascinates me. And it's deeply, deeply moving, the brutality of the army to those who protested against the state, the executions, and the thousands of people still 'missing', whose families have no idea as to their fate or their whereabouts. It's also heartwarming to see the footage of the 1988 referendum, when the country voted 'No' to Pinochet. We leave the museum in a somber mood.

That evening, we head into La Starria for a little bit of Chilean wine tasting - Vick has found a place where we can do wine 'flights' and nibble on some tapas. The wine menu is excellent, and we love the choices of flights we can do, although it does make us look like Edina and Patsy when they bring three glasses of wine each to the table.



Yes, we have six glasses of wine on the table. Deal with it.

Sarah joins us a bit later and brings along her cute American friend, Brett, which calls for even more wine, and we have a fun evening of casual banter, which rates as 'happy' on the drunk-ometer below:








Sarah, Brett and Vicky. Flying with wine.

On what is sadly our last day in Santiago, we go to the city's main church in the Plaza de Armas, then head to Bella Vista for another wonderful lunch (by this point I am ordering god knows what from the menu as my Spanish is practically non existent - this works well in Santiago, but less well in San Pedro de Atacama, more of which later).









Post lunch, we head to the Gabriela Mistral cultural centre. Gabriela Mistral was a poet, feminist and the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for literature. The cultural centre used to be Pinochet's army headquarters. Sadly, the art galleries are closed, so we get very little culture, but it's an impressive building nonetheless.




Ceiling of the cultural centre.

Our last evening in Santiago is spent packing and laughing hysterically at a bottle of wine on the shape of a man. He even has a little hat. Yes, we are easily amused.




We then head up country to San Pedro de Atacama, Bolivia and the Uyuni salt flats. Next blog to follow.........

New Zealand photos

Here are some of my favourite photos from New Zealand, I took over 500 so it was hard choosing! This is Helen and I with our wine tasting group, a bit soggy but very happy, the white island volcano mid mini eruption and lots of photos from my tramp in Abel Tasmin Reserve.