Category: Travel

The formatting on the blog has gone funny, so if you scroll down past the federal police blog you will be able to read all about last weeks adventures!

 

It is official we are going to the Copacabana!!

Our flights and hostels are booked for next week.

We start our adventure after our placement finishes on Saturday this week, when we fly off to Buenos Aires for three days, then fly to Rio for a further three days before we fly back to cold and wet England!

 

Our current sound track includes these;

The Coffee song by Frank Sinatra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVGXcjM9SOQ

Copacabana by Barry Manilow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMHp9a5FwrI

Buenos Aries by Madonna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK7Nr8ag0aE

 

Our journey home from the waterfalls turned out to be rather interesting, about two hours into our journey the bus stopped randomly. Grace and I were just falling asleep after an hour of moving around to get into a comfy position. The interior bus lights came on and in our sleepy haze we looked up to find three federal police men standing in the entrance, one with a massive gun (!) I thought I was dreaming and closed my eyes again; it was only when they started to deliver a long speech all in Portuguese that I realized that it was real!  One of the police men checked the toilet at the back and stood there, one stood in the middle and the other one in the doorway with his massive gun (he was quite old with a beard and also wore a woolly hat, the whole look made him actually look quite funny).

We drove for another hour with the police men onboard and then the bus pulled into a federal police building. The middle man spoke again in Portuguese and asked if everyone understood what he said, us and two boastful Australian men behind us asked if he could translate into English. When he did he said there was nothing to worry about, that they were from Brazilian Customs and were here to stop illegal electrical goods from the Paraguay markets entering Brazil´s markets in Sao Paulo and Rio.

Waiting at the police building were another 8 police men, one of the main men went to the back of the bus and got 5 young men in their twenties off. I had the seat window so I watched as they all got off and got their very large square bags out of the bus. All of the police men looked as if they knew the young men already, probably repeat offenders.

They cut open all of the bags to reveal ´´Motorola´´ mobile phones, DVD players, ´´Samsung´´ CD players and some other larger electrical goods. I worked out that one bag contained about 48 mobile phones. Then police men then put all of the goods into very large plastic bags, cable tided them up and took them away, numbering each bag and giving the number to another police man who was filling out paper work for each of the offenders.

The police then came back on the bus and got 2 girls off then 3 more older people, then sorted through their luggage. The older people’s luggage did not contain anything illegal and were allowed back on the bus, as well as one of the girls and a man but the others were taken away and did not return to the bus. All the while the man with the gun stood by watching and each of the offenders when being questioned was surrounded by police. This took one hour to complete meaning that our 14 hour bus journey was now going to be 17 hours!

Grace was not very happy about being woken up and dozed throughout the police searches; she was also more worried that the police would go through our own bags only for them to be greeted with a bag full of dirty washing and lots of bird merchandise!

Sorry for our lack of blogs over the last few days, we are staying at the head of conservations apartment, she does not have wifi so we have to use her computer that is in Português, has a funny keyboard, auto corrects words into Portuguese and the mouse broke yesterday so we have had to borrow one from the Pinacoteca today (Friday)!

On to Sunday….

Sunday started well a good breakfast of rolls and doce de leite with coconut for me and Grace has sliced banana on her roll. Very tasty.

We packed up our belongings (but left them in lockers to collect later), settled our bill and said goodbye to our new Mexican and Peruvian friends. We confidently trekked out of the hostel gates in search of the bus stop that was supposedly just around the corner, when we waited at the corner for 15 minutes we decided to go to the shop opposite to get some water and food just in case we couldn´t get any. While in the shop we asked where the bus stop was and the kind men (drinking beer at 10:30am) pointed to a road and told us to go down there. We found a bus stop down a quite rural town road and waited another 20 minutes. When no bus had arrived yet we decided to go and find a bus stop around the corner on a busier road, when we did we waited for 20 minutes on the wrong side of the road and watched a bus drive past, so we went to right side and got out some Ruffles (crisps) to eat while we waited and waited. We then gave up and hailed a taxi to the bus terminal. The taxi driver drove us to the wrong bus terminal; he started to take us to the other one and then suggested he drove us to the waterfalls. We told him to stop before the waterfalls and dropped us at the Bird Park instead. The taxi was R$70 or 20 English pounds between us both, a bit more expensive than the R$2.85 or 85p each bus ride.

 

The Bird park itself was very interesting, full of a massive selection of native Brazilian species, and guess what…it´s time for lots of photos…

We loved looking at all of the different types of birds, plant life and animals there; it was exactly what we thought Brazil would be like.

After we had used up our bird viewing quota for the year (Technician Chris would have been very proud of us), we ordered some food at the restaurant counter and went on a `rekkie` (That´s right Mummy I used your favorite saying) off the gift shop. Then our lunches arrived that consisted of yummy fresh juices, I had pineapple and mint and Grace had passion fruit, Brazilian juices really are the best and two strange veggie burgers, with crisps on the inside but they were only R$5 or 1.45 pound sterling each!

Once we had re-fueled we headed back into the gift shop, where we purchased large amounts of gifts for all of our wonderful family and friends, let’s also hope everyone likes parrots…..

But because of our shopping extravaganza we ran out of time to visit the Brazilian side of the waterfalls, we did not mind though as we have seen the best side anyway. We would have probably had time but we thought it was best to not risk our luck with the public transport here. So we headed back to the hostel to be able to collect our belongings and get a lift with Giselli, our hostel owner, to the correct bus terminal to catch another ´´wonderful´´ and `´comfortable´ long bus back to Sao Paulo.

 

Everyone will be pleased to know that we did manage to get two buses in the correct direction, only making one mistake and getting off two stops early so we had to walk quite far to the hostel.

 

We woke up in very comfortable beds that were over a metre apart (for the first time in a month- a pretty big novelty!)

Our hostel owners, Joe and Giselli made us a typical Brazilian/Argentinian breakfast of big light bread rolls with cheese and ham, a selection of Dolce Leite (to Issy´s delight!) and bananas, all served with coffee or matte.

Joe offered to drive Issy, our new friends and myself to Foz do Iguaçu in Argentina to save us the hassle of getting three buses and crossing the border armed with a handful of pesos, next-to-no Portuguese and my half forgotten Spanish.

We arrived at the border in the hot sun. Issy, our Peruvian friend Daniel and myself all got our passports stamped with no problems but the Mexicans had forgotten their Visa documents so had to enter and return through Argentina stampless! Hopefully this won´t be a problem for them- Joe assured us that the border officers won´t make an issue of it as long as you have enough R$.

The first noticable difference when we got into Argentina were the swarms of big yellow butterflies that met us on our way to the park. They were everywhere and so beautiful. I am sorry that I did not take a photo! Once we were in the park they crowded around the puddles by the road to have a drink.

Foz do Iguaçu was like a large theme park complete with little trains to transport the tourists, toilets, bins, gift shops and cafes on every corner. It was difficult to imagine how the land had appeared to the native people who used to live in the region, let alone the Europeans who stumbled across it in their colonizing endeavours.

Our first stop in the park was La Garganta Del Diablo or “The Devil´s Throat”- a dramatic title!

The journey to La Garganta Del Diablo built up its mystery and intrigue: the trains through the forest, followed by several walkways over the river that took us through palm trees and bushes.

 

 

 

 

 

The next thing to happen was almost as unbelievable to us as standing on top of one of the seven wonders of the world: Issy spotted a man wearing a Preston North End t-shirt on top of La Garganta Del Diablo! We went over and I told him that I was from Preston and  gradually out of nowhere appeared nearly ten men jabbering away in pure Lancashire. “eh tha´s a northern accen´ if ever ah ´eard one” was one greeting. It turns out that they are helping to set up a factory in Brazil and were having a day out in Argentina too. We chatted in the world´s finest accent about Tetleys, beans on toast and our terrible Portguese before one man revealed that he lived in Eccleston, shopped at Sweatshop in Chorley (where I have worked for the last two summers!) and knew Chris who I used to work with!

We appreciated a bit of North/South banter when they almost wouldn´t let “the southerner” in the photo.

After this excitement we went to take a boat ride to the falls with Daniel. The ride was so much fun and we got completely drenched but it did make the watefalls seem more like an amusement park. It is hard to describe how beautiful they are-we could barely believe that we were there- so I will just put some more photos on.

We rushed to the shop  for postcards and treats before falling into our next drama.

Joe and Giselli had told us that they would pick us up outside of the entrance to the park at 6pm. 6.15, 6.30, 6.45 they still were not there. The other tourists had left, the park was closed but for one guard and some builders and the  sun had nearly set.

Where were they? We had already paid them so maybe they had just taken our Money and left us?

We tried to phone the hostel using the guard´s phone as none of our none-Argentinian phones worked but there was no answer. We decided to take the last bus to the Argentinian bus terminal and then get a taxi through the border to the hostel. We had no more Argentinian pesos, only Brazilian reals but managed the bus anyway. It was a good job everybody else spoke fluente Spanish or we really would have been stuck!

We got off the bus in a touristy part of Argentina and found some taxis to take us to the border. When Issy and I got out to have our passports stamped again the woman started frantically questioning Issy about our hostel in Portuguese and then thrust a phone at us. Giselli´s panicked voice yelled out of the other end telling us to stay where we were and that she and Joe were coming to get us.

Our whole group were pretty miffed with them but when they showed up fifteen minutes later looking distraught and apologising profusely, we figured that they hadn´t just abandoned us. Apparently they had been stuck in the queue for four hours and couldn´t contact us. We drove back to hostel with them where they gave us our Money back and Giselli made us a great desculpe-dinner of tomato salad, Brazilian beans, rice, mandioca and beef for everyone who ate it. We were all so hungry and tired that we really appreciated it.

Joe and Giselli went to bed straight after and left us all to talk. We learned about how Brazil´s universities work for students of other South American countries, the diferences between Brazilian, Mexican and Peruvian dishes (Mexicans really do like enchiladas, just like Old El Paso taught us, while Peruvians like fish cut with lemon!) and what their impressions of England are (the Spice Girls and tea!)

After dinner we listened to diferente types of South American music and discovered that all South American people are great dancers- even the ones who say that they aren´t can “1,2,3,4  and twist” better than most!

We crashed at about one for more adventures on Sunday.

 

We are going to double blog for the next few days to try and catch up with the days we have missed, I am starting with Friday 4^Th October and Grace will publish Saturday 5^th October. Valeria (head of the department) told us we will have Friday off at the museum so we could go and see the waterfalls, we did not have much choice about not coming in, they told us to go. But this also meant we did not have to polish the hammock!

After 17 LONG hours on a so called “sleeper executive” night bus that smelt of port-a-loo (My friends and family will know how this was 17 hours of “character building”) from Sao Paulo the evening before, we were very pleased to have arrived in Foz do Iguacu. Foz do Iguacu is a Brazilian town that is on the boarder of Argentina and Paraguay and hosts one half of one of the natural wonders of the world – The Iguacu Falls.

The bus arrived 3 hours later than expected into Foz do Iguacu around 1:30pm, so we got a taxi to the hostel we were staying in, a wise option following our track record for getting lost. While driving to the hostel we realised we were very far away from the cosmopolitan life of Sao Paulo and we had reached a real Brazilian town. Foz do Iguacu is a large town around the size of Ipswich for the Southerners or Chorley for the Northerners. Our hostel the highest rated on Hostelworld but was not near the town centre or the waterfalls but along an average street, it looked like a Swiss chalet but painted a forest green colour, no sign signifying it was a hostel, only a hammock hung outside and a large Brazilian flag was hung between the front windows. We were welcomed by two dogs a bulldog called Thor and a Terrier type dog called Einstein, who were both very friendly shall we say. We got to our room an 8 bed mixed dorm, showered, changed and headed towards the bus stop to go to Ipaitu Dam recommended by Giselle our hostel owner. This was our first time using a normal bus in Brazil and it was quite exciting, for a bus journey that is, each bus has a driver and ticket attendant who sits at the front next to a turnstile, you give him your money R$2.85 or £0.78p and he lets you through; quite unusual in our English world of ridiculously priced tickets and no ticket attendants because of Oyster and travel cards.

We were very unsure as to what to expect as we did not even realise there was a dam there! When we got off the bus we decided the best plan was to follow other people, so we did and that lead us to a control point with lots of police men who pointed out this was the route across the border to Paraguay and that the dam museum was on the other side of the road, quite confusing as there was no obvious signs. At the dam museum a kind man spoke to us in English about the Queen and explained what there was to do, we only had time to complete The Panoramic Tour, an open top bus tour of the dam. We paid and headed for the restaurant to eat, on the bus we only had crisps and bread so we were desperate for normal food, but there was only a sandwich selection -more bread!

After our food we headed for the complimentary movie about the dam, this was spoken in Portuguese and had Spanish subtitles it was very hilarious and cheesy (side note – cheesy does not translate very well into other languages, we have tried many many times to explain but it does not make sense), lots of slow motion shots of exceptionally happy people. Facts we did not know about the Dam, they have a university, research centre, educational centre and a very big dam that produces energy for Brazil and Paraguay.

On the panoramic bus tour the guide spoke fluently in three languages Portuguese, Spanish and then English just for us – very impressive, unfortunately we had to sit next to two large Brazilian tourists who thought it was necessary to take photographs of everything in sight and take up two sets of seats so they could get the window seats, tourists are the same where ever you go in the world! The bus stopped for two photo opportunities and at one stop we saw a massive lizard happily walking around the perfectly manicured and landscaped land. The management of the dam plant a tree for every member of staff who retires in their memory; there are currently around 1500 trees.

The dam its self is very interesting for a dam made from concrete, my Dad would have been in absolute heaven!

A few facts about the Dam:

• It produces energy for Brazil and Paraguay, but only 9% goes to Paraguay the rest is sent to Sao Paulo and Rio.
• The Parana River is the natural boarder Brazil and Paraguay.
• The iron and steel used to make the dam is enough to build 380 Eiffel towers.
• The earth and rock excavated at Ipaitu  was 8.5 times greater than that of the Eurotunnel
• The volume of concrete used is 15 times more than the Eurotunnel (Dad fact)
• If Brazil was to obtain the same amount of energy from oil fuelled thermo electric plants they would have to burn 536,000 barrels of oil a day.
• The highest point of the dam is the equivalent of a 65 storey building.
• The Ipaitu spillway is 40 times greater than the average flow of the Iguacu falls!

Overall we were both surprised at how interesting a dam that we did not even realise existed could be. Ipaitu dam certainly created a tourist attraction, mostly for bus tours.

On our return to the hostel we took a bus, but it didn’t stop where we asked and wanted it to so we got off in the town and went to a restaurant, what we did not realise when we went in was that it was a Churrsoco or BBQ restaurant, great for a vegan and someone who does not eat red meat! The kitchen staff stared at us because we were English, couldn’t speak Portuguese and then didn’t eat meat! We were certainly a novelty for them.

We tried to get a bus to return to the hostel, but after 20 minutes of not being able to find a bus stop we decided to take a taxi, then waited 20 minutes for one to arrive at the taxi stop on a main busy road! But taxi driver did not know where Hostel Manga Rosa on Rua Florianopolis was, so after he asked for directions we did make it back, it was very amusing and at least he now knows where Hostel is. Once we arrived at the hostel we met the other people staying that night, 4 Mexican’s and 1 Peruvian, who all went to Cutiphia University and decided to also travel to see the waterfalls that weekend. They invited us to go with them to the Argentinian side of the waterfalls and we accepted their kind offer seeing as we did not have a clue how to get there otherwise.

We slept very well in a lovely horizontal bed readying ourselves for the excitement of the waterfalls.