Brazil - The Rodizio

Buffalo Bronco Rodizio, Foz de Iguaçu, Brazil.

The rodizio grill is usually $R60, however with the hostel card we could get it for $R40 (£13) each.

After a couple of warm up cervezas we went through to the eat as much as you like restaurant. Effectively there's a salad and sides buffet (enormous) and every couple of minutes a waiter comes around with a straight off the grill meat on a skewer. The cuts in Brazil are different to those in SA or UK. I made sure we made our way around the entire cow, marking off ratings on the cut guide they gave us.

Their asado grill was impressively large. Mands and I went to have a look and then were invited in for photos. The waiters started to take a liking to us at this stage and we were getting preferential selections of meat. Careful not to take any more than a minimal amount of sides and no carbs, I sliced through round after round of deliciousa carne.

We spoke to an elder French couple at the table next to us. Mands says that when the boys were talking meat, the French lady rolled her eyes at her, in a here they go again way. Just when we'd finished my last mouthful of steak, the French man says to Mandy: "I don't know how he eats so much meat and has a flat stomach." Yes Messier, I don't know either.

Postre (deserts) were also a plentiful and with no room left in our stomachs, we did the only sensible thing for a backpacker, loaded up a plateful of desserts as as well!

Great night out!

Brazil & Argentina - Iguacu Falls

We flew into Foz de Iguaçu town from Florionopolis via São Paolo. It's quite a sight with dense jungle like vegetation split by a brown river and then opening up with mist bellowing up where the tons of water crash over the falls.

The falls border three countries... Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. We'd be visiting the first two, being the main attractions.

We took the local bus into the town and with no hostel booked, we went in search for one. I decided one one, the first I've chosen the whole holiday - my wife does a masterful job at this so I usually watch from the sideline. Phew, it passed. And it had really good wifi in the room - many places have had no wifi or only available in the reception area.

The hostel told us about a rodizio grill, Buffalo Bronco, two blocks away where we could get a discount and great food. More about that great meal in a separate post.

We caught the 120 local bus to arrive just before the national park opens. We entered the bus station correctly through the ticket booth this time - yesterday we walked in on the side of the road that's a very open entrance, but were descended upon in a Royal Marine like attack by the security guard. Can't believe how cheap the busses are.

Our backpacks were with us as we'd head straight over the border to Argentina. After a good game of tetris, we puzzled our 2 backpacks, 1 daypack and the rolled up painting from Salvador into the one locker.

An open top bus took us to the start of the one kilometre walk along the falls to wards Garganta do Diablo (Devil's Throat). From the first lookout area, the falls were impressive. The river flows down and then along the side of the drop points creating the cataratus (falls) a good kilometre long.

As we walked along the trail the waterfalls grew in size (width) and ferocity. specialist boats offering water tours were dwarfed by the powerful cataratus. We could see people one the Argentina side who were mere specs, but have real perspective on the height of the falls.

Along the path, we saw a 2 meter black and yellow tree snake some tourists had spotted, before the The Devil's Throat appeared - quite fitting. It is truly impressive.

A viewing platform is built out over the falls half way up. We covered the camera in a plastic bag, put the waterproof cover on the day pack and headed out on the platform. The water crashes down and creates a mist or even rain that hits you side on. In a couple of minutes we were drenched. With the mist, amazing rainbows are created with the sun penetrating through.

Still soaked we walked on to the lunch area next to the start of the falls. Initially an exciting find, the raccoon like animals quickly turned into the devil's pets as they tormented those having lunch. We could see how this happened with some visitors giving them food where clear signs police against it. One crazy mother held her baby next to these wild animals for a close up photo!

Instead of catching the bus straight away, we walked back along the train to get to see the great waterfalls and glad we did as we got tom see another perspective as we walked.

We negotiated the taxi driver down to our expected tariff to drive us through the Brazilian boarded to the Argentinean border (great tip from the hostel instead of taking bus after bus through each stage). Before long I was standing on Argentinean soil! A local bus that lucking accepted Bolivian Reals took us into the Argentinean side town of Puerto Iguazú.

Mands took control of hostel booking again, booking us into a small converted house with a pool. After posting off same items to the UK (including Miguel, the painting from Salvador, I'd accidentally left at the bank 5 minutes earlier), we cooled off in the pool.

Now refreshed, we were ready for our first Argentinian parrilla. These grills are served on a steel tray with coals underneath to keep it hot and include pork sausage, black pudding, beef ribs, chicken, kidneys and stuffed small intestine - all went down well except for the stuffed small intestine, one bight was enough as I couldn't work out what it was stuffed with! Parrilla's are available throughout Argentina, but will be sticking to straight meat form here out.

Iguazú Falls day, Argentinean side day. A local bus took us out and we joined the short entrance queue. Good to see there are discounted rates for Argentinians and interestingly, further discounts for those living in the province and also discounts for neighbouring countries. South Africa really needs to be doing more of this.

You have to take the world's slowest train to the central station and then a mother train to the Devil's Throat. We met Nick, a young South African doctor in the queue and had a good catch up with him and his interesting national service stories about bullets and machetes.

The Devil's Throat was heaving with people. We shuffled along to get views and for photos. The different view further shows the river demonstrating it's power. The water spray here was much stronger than the Brazilian side so we were soaked in seconds.

A train back to central station and we headed out along the trails towards the Jungle Tour start point. This was the boart ride that that takes you right up to the falls.

The boat was the largest semi-rigid inflatable I'd ever seen. It had seating for forty people and the captain had a specially built two meter hight platform at the back of the boat to get his advantage point. We were taken to two waterfall points first for photo time and then right into the spray and the waterfall base. What power! We had to close our eyes at stages with the water lashing across. The closer he got to the falls, the more the boat would cheer, egging him on. It's a short powerful 15 minutes, but worth every Peso!

In the afternoon we walked the upper circuit, along the top of the waterfalls and again incredible rainbows encircled each waterfall.

The final waterfall had an unexpected "treat" waiting, an older man was sitting in his underwear, legs crossed, meditating and rocking forwards and backwards. Of course I snuck up and had a photo in front of him.

Now which side is better to visit? It's worth visiting both, but not to sit on the fence on this one, I'd choose to walk on the Brazilian side if only doing one.

Back at the hostel we cooled off again with a swim, Mands had her last play with the kitten an we headed off for a pizza, before the start of our longest, coldest, hungriest bus ride ever...

Brazil - Florianopolis

We were flying from Puerto Seguro to Florionopolis via São Paolo. The check in desk informed us that the flight would change slightly, and rebooked us. No problem until São Paolo where the transfers desk said that our second leg would be from the airport on the other side of São Paolo. The airline realised the mistake and again rebooked us, finally getting us to Florionopolis. The actual flight down the Brazil coast further highlights how much beach Is on offer.

The island is known as the Brazilian version of Ibiza, with similar clubs and enjoys a good party. We opted to stay in a quieter area, but close to the beach.

It's still a large island and to get around the local busses take ages, as they don't go the most direct route. We hired a cr as was suggested, a lawn mower sized engine (1 litre) in this Golf GOL. With constant right, right, right (drive on the right hand side of the road) reminders, my navigator and I arrived at the hostal. It was very basic, but a good location.

Straight down to the beach just as sun disappeared, along with a couple of beers and caipirinhas.

Looking for something to eat we found a beach football game starting up under floodlights. Grand stands full of people surrounded the ground and as far as we could work out, the regional teams league. All quite serious and one guy in the local team had a serious hoof on him.

The next day was straight onto the beach. A short drive away is one of the main surfing beaches called Praia Mole. We were one of the first people on and had the full stretch of soft sand to choose. Now being very Brazil beach experienced we hired our chairs and umbrella, got out Mand's sarong (no beach towels in the whole of Brazil, and sat down in our Brazilian costumes. These are a good deal smaller than regular costumes and board shorts, so we needed to continue working on tanning the whiter bits.

I love body surfing. A beach is not a beach without waves, but although Mole had the waves, the accessible waves would dump right close to the shore line. They were as powerful as Durban's Salt Rock waves. This meant that we'd swim through them behind the impact zone and this would give us good people watching opportunities, of which there were plenty. Many less adept wave swimmers entered the water and would be taken out over and over with each new swell.

Beach tennis is popular, but is something to behold. No rallying to each other, it's full on war. Old vs young, male vs female, no holds barred!

Our beach waiter would bring out drinks to us and we tried our first acai, frozen berries and chocolate, muesli and nuts - a good morning snack.

Mole was a great beach.

After lunch, with the scorching sun beating down, we headed up the coast. Mozambique was the next significant beach and is kilometres long, but only a hand full of fisherman and bathers.

We continued up to the northerly part of the island stopped in a couple of more places, but nothing anywhere as nice as Mole. We eventually reached the more known party spot, Jureré praia. We walked up the narrow beach next to the calm ocean and nothing much was happening - no Ibiza beach bars with DJ's playing while someone on a saxophone blows out rifts surrounded with people dancing. The big parties had been, but now the second week after carnival it was super quiet.

We drove the 30 minutes back to the Lagoa close to where we were staying and Mands got treated to her favourite food, Sushi. I ordered salmon hand rolls and they were the best I'd ever eaten.

On our last full day we headed down to the south of the island, Pantano do Sol, the fishing side. Locals ambled up to collect their fresh catch from a small fishing boat and families chilled on the calm beach. Too calm for us, so we headed off to Matadeiro beach further up on the east coast.

This too didn't seem to have much happening, so we grabbed an ice cream and went for a walk. A few minutes on and we found the path to the proper Matadeiro "by foot only" beach and you need to cross a small river to get there. Where the river flowed into the sea, two net fishermen tried to catch their dinner. The river outlet kicked up well forming waves that a group of surfers took advantage of.

We set up in front of a beach bar and soaked up the rays. That was for all of 5 minutes before I was lured into the ocean. Fantastic body surfing waves curled in one after another. A good three foot face came crashing over and peeling left and right. The waves were a good distance out and a great surf in. Probably the best body surfing ever. Mands and I went round after round of sit, soak and surf.

There were no non-swimmers here like we'd seen in Mole, but we did see three people being rescued after a rip took them out a bit far.

More surfers, competitive beach tennis and football skills on the beach - these Brazilians all seem quite comfortable with the round ball.

Matadeiro beach was fantastic!

I'd said we'd go to a place I'd seen on the hilltop next to the lagoon for sunset, so we headed there. The lagoon is huge so for sunset you have the added reflection off the water.

We headed down to the lagoon's waters edge for a dinner and now expected accompanying live music.

Ending off we needed to get the rental car filled up with fuel. Sounds easy, but with most cars in Brazil now a petrol / ethanol hybrids, I had no idea what to do. Licking there are petrol attendants and after a few questions from them and a few clueless yes answers from me the car was filled.all good.

Florionopolis brought an end to our fantastic Brazilian beach time. We leave with local swimming costumes, good tans and new havianna sandals. Will we ever use a regular towel again?

Off to waterfalls, a kilometre long!

Brazil - Salvador and Carnival

Salvador was a mixed bag, starting off poorly, but ending well...

The city of Salvador is further north up the coast from Rio and referred to in our travel book as the jewel of Brazil. It's the African soul of the country where descendants of African slaves preserved their culture more than anywhere else. After a 2 hour flight we arrived, but trouble... I'd picked up travellers tummy, but after an extended stay at the airport loos, we braved the taxi.

Mands booked our accommodation 9 months ago and had the confirmation form with address to hand for the taxi. No one seemed to know where the address was (Mands always does good research, so we knew it was in a good to stay area). The taxi office phoned the hostal and they explained how to get there, but then said they didn't have a booking for us. An argument later, they said to come through and they had another place to accommodate us. The conversation had got Mand's back up and we decided I should take over discussions when we arrived - or we may be out on the street and being Carnival, it would be near impossible to find anything else.

The taxi dropped us at a square already heaving with people. The hostal is right in the middle of the Afro carnival section! Someone from the hostal met us at the square and lead us through. No negotiating was required as they had cleared out a room and remade it for us, having realised their mistake.

Looking down from the first floor small bands were already making their way up the street in colourful others and with early revellers starting out. Further cobbled streets and overhead carnival decorations lit up against the piercing blue sky.

Our travel book went on to say that it you are going to be pick pocketed in Brazil, Salvador carnival is the number 1 spot. With this in our minds, we cautiously walked to the nearest bank machine a block away. The full amount for our accommodation was required up front. The bank wasn't working. During carnival every few blocks was a tourist help stand, so we got directions to the next bank. Trying to cut a long story short, most banks are closed in the area to protect visitors. We found a bank an hour later ,after a good urban adventure, in Cidade Baixa (lower city). The cash machine with per transaction withdrawal limits made us draw 3 times and each time dispensed cash in BOL 10 notes. We split up the money between pockets, shoes and underwater and safely made it back.

With my stomach, I couldn't eat or party that night, but we would watch some of the festivities from our window.

The Afro section celebrates Salvador's African roots. It spans a good 15 square blocks in the historic Pelourino or Pelõ area, Salvador's centre of tourism, activities and night life. Already present arts, crafts, music and tourist shops display their wares flowing onto the road. Further informal sellers display more items on the pavement. Ladies in more traditional Swiss rimmed puffed out dresses try o entice you into their shops.

We we walked around and found a place where Michael Jackson had a photo on the balcony when he was here with the now famous Oldum drumming band. I had to have a photo there too. A bead seller came over and told us about the Salvador ribbons we'd seen tied to a church a block away. He tied one on each of our wrists and gave us a full set, of course leading to a sales pitch. We did support him, but only bargaining down 300 percent for the necklace.

The streets were buzzing with people. We finally got to see some capoeira, the martial arts dancing. Band after band marched through and informal drinks sellers had their cooler boxes out - definitely cheaper than Rio.

We tried different food, some good, some less so. A great find was the queijo de coalho sellers (cheese of the coal) - Effectively a melted cheese kebab. A 10 cm cheese rectangle, on a kebab stick, dipped in origanum and slowly melted over coals in a portable bucked. At $R3 they were a treat. Acaraje is Salvador's staple street food, a dough ball sliced open with cheese, vegetables and whole small shrimps with some spicy sauce - Mands enjoyed this, me less so.

Isabel, São Paolo girl we stayed with in Rio, had told us about the Ghanji men being a not to miss event. It's thousands of men (only men) dressed in white cloths and head dress with blue beads and ribbons. They were formed as a peaceful movement and took on the name from Ghandi and their dress from a movie (we think it was the jungle book). Isabel said the men would line the streets and wash them with water. No washing this time, but they were in all their whites and blues forming a massive Trio of their own - quite a sight

One evening we did venture down to the start of the main trio routes. The trios are huge articulated trucks with enormous speakers and the band and singers performing on top of it. It's bigger than any truck you've ever seen. You can buy expensive tickets and be part of the cordoned off procession around it or, risk your life and be "popcorn" (that's what the Brazilians call it ) and jump up and down with any space left. Police patrol in groups of 6, always in a line - fights break out and they are there to break it up. We skipped getting in any of these.

We had 3 days of carnival and one post. For the last day, we headed to Barra beach for a good few hours of sun and then great sunset over the ocean, next to the light house. The melted cheese guys also made it to the beach, so had to have more of them with our cervezas.

Mands found us a great restaurant and we had more traditional moquenas (traditional stew) this time with Camerones (shrimps). The travel clinic travellers bug meds had worked great by this stage!

I must also mention the per kilo food, we would have this a few times in Brazil when we were tired of Saltados - you pick from a buffet and then have it weighed and is very cost effective. You may need a stronger stomach to keep up on these.

Before leaving, we were fond of a painting that we'd seen in one of the studios. The paintings here are not prints, but have displays of some really good artists. A bit of hard negotiating and we got our optimistic price we were aiming for. Miguel as he's now been named is a character in the painting chilling on his hammock - let's hope he makes it back to London in 1 piece in the post.

After a crazy few days in Salvador, we're looking forward to talks good beach time.

Brazil - Ilha Grande

Ihla Grande, the famed island 150km south of Rio, was our next stop. We took a 8am bus from Paraty, arriving 2 hours later at Angros Dos Reis to take the 11am ferry across. The large catamaran ferry take around an hour to cross with last twenty minute spent rounding the island to Abraao, the only town on Ihla Grande. It was quite a cloudy day but the island still looked beautiful with it's tall peak behind the town and rolling hills covered with green Atlantic rainforest. The pathways are all sandy and buzzed with bicycles and people - the only cars allowed on the island seemed to be a tractor and an ambulance.

We checked into the accommodation and then headed to the little beach near the port for an hour or so before the heavens opened! Luckily there are a few shops to potter through. And we were okay having a bit of downtime.

The following morning we had decided we would hike to Lopes Mendes beach, one of the most beautiful in Brazil. A 3hr hike through rainforest, we were very glad we had opted to wear decent hiking shoes. There were some steep sections that were rocky and muddy and people in flip flops were having a hard time of it.

It was a beautiful walk with views of the beaches, birds and one massive shongololo, around 75cm, and nearly trodden on by Warren!

Lopez Mendes was fantastic, a long beach on a bay with waves, clear water and the finest white sand either of us had walked on. It squeaked under our feet. It was cloudy again, but on a beautiful blue day the beach must be magnificent. As we'd see, Brazil is spoilt for beaches and islands. We had gone armed with rolls, tomatoes, cheese and ham slices and picnicked on the beach. I should also mention we had our very own pepper for the rolls that Wassie bought - through all our meals in Brazil, not one place had pepper. We'd had a good two hours on the beach and body surfing in the waves before it started to rain and after hanging around under the trees for a while, we decided it was time to hike back. Half an hour in the heavens opened on us and it was quite a hike. But we made it back in 2hrs 15, very grateful for a nice shower at the end.

That evening we found a great little place serving various barbecued wraps and noodle dishes. There was live music and the food was delicious and reasonable - all in all a winner in backpack land! The noodle chef heard we were from South Africa, so came over for a chat as he was looking at going traveling to the motherland in the coming year.

The next day we had a little beach time, a potter around Abraao and caught the 12.30 ferry back to mainland to head to Rio.

Brazil - Paraty

Paraty is picturesque with it's well preserved colonial houses and churches , separated by the original cobble stone roads. What further puts this town on the map are the 55 islands and 100 beaches nearby.

We arrived in the late morning heat, dropped our bags, and at this stage pressing laundry, and made our way to the beach only a short walk through the old town and across the river.

A small number of beach bars and restaurants (more shacks than houses) lined the beach under the shade of large trees. I had a quick refreshing dip, but soon bounced straight out as it was dark water with moss underfoot - this however was more a harbour beach and the only one like it fortunately. We ordered some beers and shared a basket of cod fish balls for lunch while a guy started up on his guitar. After he finished, I offered him a beer for his efforts and he gladly accepted told me about him travelling through from Argentina.

Caipirinhas are Brazil's famed cocktails. The original is made with Cachasa (a sugar cane spirit), crunched ice, lime and some sugar. The bar staff were friendly and I asked about the Cachasa and if I could smell some. I guess my guitar man drink goodwill came back quickly as they gave me a double on the house as a welcome. It's very similar to cane in SA. Mands and I followed my taster with our first and by no means last caipirinha in Brazil - nice.

That evening, we wondered through the cobbled streets and and along the small dock familiarising ourselves with our temporary home. Mandy took some great photos with the houses and coloured doors reflecting off the water where high tide had run up onto the streets.

We found a really reasonable and fantastic mocequa (fish stew) restaurant. With a clear warm evening, we sat outside on the road, like most restaurants offered. All of the stone roads are fully pedestrianised and it's quite a sight against the old white buildings with coloured doors. On every second corner, there's a desert trolley that's wheeled in. The owner sells a variety of fresh cakes - we got recommendations on their most popular and tucked in.

As carnival week was approaching, the small plaza had a stage up and each evening one of the performing bands or dance groups took the stage for a live practice. It was packed with people and I got my first taste of what Rio will be like. Carnival fever starts in the beginning of January and peaks for the actual carnival week in February. It's all over South America, but it's Brazil that leads the charge.

To see the beaches and islands, you need to go by boat. We booked on a tour aboard a large yacht. This took us to 3 beaches and 2 snorkelling spots. The beaches had really fine sand and the sea was quite like the Mediterranean, no waves. Many guests took a dingy transfer to the beach, but we opted at each stop to dive off the yacht and swim in.

A man played on his guitar and sang all the way. He was quite good. We'd read about restaurants in Brazil charging for live music and this was our first, and definitely not last taste of it. It's actually itemised on the bill.

Snorkelling started with hundreds of fish around us at the boat as bread crumbs were dropped overboard. We headed off to the rocky section on the island and spotted 2 what we think are stone fish. We'd never seen anything like them before, but knowing they are poisonous, we kept our distance.

Another first, was the bikinis. All Brazilians wear less than the standard bikini bottom, any more than a cut away bum and you're wearing a granny costume. For guys, half wear board shorts and the others wear boxer like speedos. Hmm, this is going to take some getting used to.

After the boat the heavens opened and rained heavily for a good 3 hours. This could be pay back for all the good weather we'd had so far. I picked a bar and went I'm for a beer. I asked the waiter for a recommendation and a beer with a bear on came out. It was below average, but when the bill came it was anything but below average!

We went to Paraty 33 for a few evening cocktails. I had the big camera (SLR) with me and did a quick walk around town snapping away at the now glass like puddles that had formed from the rain. The town looked even better reflected on the water. Mands had stayed at the restaurant, while I was off with the camera, so we met up again just in time for the live music to start and then accompany our meal. This music too was good. As with the boat, the restaurant bill comes with a set fee per head for the music (between R$3 and 8). I'm leaning more towards this being a good thing as the level of music is raised and there's more live music around. Bad luck if you don't like their music.

We leave with fond memories of Paraty town.

Brazil - Bonito to Paraty (eventually)

Our travels started as planned with a bus from Bonito to Campo Grande. Here we took a flight to São Paolo, the largest city in Brazil. Mands booked flights well in advance and got them at a similar price to bus routes. Cutting the travel time is always the best option.

Although we were only in São Paulo airport and bus terminal, it is impressive. This is where much of Brazil's money is. It's impossible to count the number of huge sky scrapers across the city, some even with helicopter landing pads - with a population of 19 million, those who can make use of helicopters where possible can. The vast majority who can't creep along in traffic.

We needed to get from the airport to the bus station. We didn't take a helicopter this time so joined the rush hour traffic for a slow tour of the city. Over an hour worth of transfer, but this gave us some time to read up about a little on what São Paulo had to offer - pretty much the best of everything for a large city.

At the bus station, we learnt we'd missed the last but to Paraty. Instead of spending the night near the bus station, Mands organised for a bus to the small beach town of the Flintstone sounding Ubatuba. We'd arrive at midnight, so booked accommodation from an Internet cafe. Big discount for the booking, looked good and close to the bus station - perfect. All booked, but the confirmation address and the website used for the booking (booking.com) had completely different locations mapped, with the latest address a few km's from the bus station. Arriving at a small beach town at that time and trying to get to the hotel was going to be interesting.

The bus transfer was 2 hours and noticed people asking the bus driver to stop alomg the route for them to get off, before the end of the journey. I spoke to the driver, mentioned where we were staying and a couple of minutes later, we stopped at the door of Hotel Navada! Great timing!

The reception man was on his back watching a movie on his laptop when we arrived. He seemed overly excited to check us in and show us our room. He proudly opened up the curtains of our room - we were on a side facing room that opened on an empty car park, so not too sure what the fuss was about.

My Portuguese is bad, super bad. I tried to explain the next morning that we want to catch the bus to town so we can go to Paraty. I could see a bus stop, but for whatever reason we were directed to the beach. We followed this anyway and the holiday houses made way to a picturesque beach with glassy water. Maybe he was showing off what his beach had to offer, but we were still going to head on to Paraty. We headed back to catch a local bus to town so we could take the final transfer.

We waited and waited and no busses came. Finally with nerves a little frayed, a bus arrived. It ended up that we were a good 20 minutes outside of the town!

The coast is something to behold. Mountain ranges run along the coastline, covered in lush green trees and plants. The sea extends as far as the eye can see with deep blue shining out. Many islands are off the main land. They protrude out of the ocean, some small others large enough for a few towns. We'd be staying one one, Ilha Grande, in a couple of days.

We didn't know what stop we were to get off and didn't know if we'd perhaps missed the stop as we'd been travelling a while. We asked a lady where we'd get the bus to Paraty and she was't sure, but news spread and soon there were 5 people on board trying to help. We'd red about Brazilians grouping together to make a plan, and now we'd got to see it first hand. After much discussion, a boy said he was going there so could help us.

Finally we were able to catch the final bus on our trip to Paraty, the scenic colourful town with cobble stone roads that modernisation forgot.

Brazil - Bonito

Coming from the ranch, we had higher expectations when arriving at our Bonito hostel. Our private room was not available, so we we put into a 6 sleeper bunk bed dorm room, at least just the 2 of us. Catarinos hostel.

Bonito is a small own catering for family holidays and crystal clear water activities. It's hot throughout the night and can't think I saw anyone in more than baggies and a t-shirt. There's only one main street lined with pop up evening street eats and drinks (similar to a caravan stand with plastic tables and chairs on the pavement), bars, restaurants, ice cream shops and tourist wares.

Trip advisor ranks Bonito Pastel as the top place to eat. It's a small more fast food type place selling pastel varieties. Pastels are rectangular deep fried pastry 5 cm by 10 cm with a filling inside. These are popular snacks all around Brazil. Mands had the local fish and I had the top rated caiman with gurava sauce. Can't say I tasted much caiman, but it was good.

We were lured into a ice cream shop on the way back, but the exotic fruit specialities did not compare with a regular chock mint.

Further problems at the hostel as the email booking for Rio De Prata snorkelling wasn't confirmed and has limited numbers per day. Anyway, sorted out with a bit of name dropping.

We had to take a private taxi an hour to get to Rio De Prata for the for the snorkelling, but a bit of money later and we where there. It started with a huge buffet lunch (probably to justify the price) and then we were kitted out in wetsuits, booties and we hired an underwater camera as that is where the action would be.

While insects attacked me and the sun burnt my wetsuit onto me, others in the group slowly entered the one at a time walkway like it was their first time in water. Finally in and while others were given how to snorkel lessons Mands and I were given the all clear competence approval to get started.

I could feel small fish biting on my legs. Mosquitos had left their mark with some nasty looking bites (I don't react we'll to midges or Mosquitos). The fish were eating the dead skin around the bites. Just like a fish pedicure I've seen advertised in the UK. Apparently these fish were of the same family.

When they said crystal clear, they weren't kidding. And fish, fish all around. Couldn't tell you what types with our Portuguese only guide, but many - see our photos and more impressive videos.
Our guide then pulled our heads from the depth to show us a caiman open jawed, 2 meters away. It wasn't too bothered with us, and I didn't really want to bother it, so we headed down river.

I've not snorkelled in a river before, but no swimming is needed, just float and throw out a fin to go left and right.

The rapid section was fun. The guide motioned that it would be a good place to take a video clip. I swam in front and Mands had the camera. Round the corner, I was sucked with the faster flowing water and bobbed around with the water deciding where it would throw me. Mands now with one hand soon gave up on the video recording and changed to survival mode!

Our snorkel was about 2 hours long and well worth it.

We collected our photo and video copies and waited for our now elusive taxi to pick us up. The video girl kept us entertained by showing us the 4/5 meter anaconda recorded where we'd been swimming in September 5 months earlier!

We decided to give one of the caravan street food. I ordered the biggest everything on it burger and Bhrama beer - it was great! Next to us was a regular bottle store selling the usual beers and spirits, what wasn't usual is they also had chairs and tables out on the pavement and you could then sit and enjoy on the cheap. London could do with some of these with a pint having hit £4 at our local.

We bumped into the Scottish/ English couple at our hostel who we'd crossed the border with. They then told us about the tour they were oversold by Mr nice - it was still good but the ranch name was different and that pool they had looked forward to didn't exist. There is no such thing as a free lunch, particularly if it's at a border.

Cheers Bonito and the Pantanal, beaches here we come.

Brazil - Trancoso

Trancoso was a last minute overnight stop after our flights were rearranged (yes, more flight changes!)
We flew into Porto Seguro in Bahia, around halfway between Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, heading for some much need relaxation and beach time!

On landing in Porto Seguro we took a very expensive (for the distance) cab ride down to the ferry dock in order to cross the river to Arraial d'Ajuda. From there we hopped aboard one of the minibuses heading to Trancoso which takes around an hour. The minibus driver very kindly phoned around to find out where our accommodation (Trancoso Tenis) was and then proceeded to drop us at the front door. I love Brazilians! Some of the friendliest and most helpful people you will meet.

We had splashed out on accommodation here having come from our room with no windows in Salvador and it being Valentines Day  and were happy to be shown to our extremely comfortable room with amazing big double bed and gorgeous private bathroom.

We wondered down to the beach and spent the afternoon relaxing on a beautiful white beach with turquoise water and waves! En route back we started investigating the bus to Caraiva the following day. We started to wonder if it actually existed after the tourist office wasn't sure if it was actually running. We decided to leave that problem for the next day.

Trancoso is beautiful at night. There is a grassy green square (more like a field) with a tiny white chapel at the top of the cliff before the beach. There are little restaurants scattered all around the field with open air seating arranged under the big trees which all have different colour lights hanging from them. Very pretty and very romantic.

We had a wonderful meal under one of the trees, only interrupted by the restaurant dog, a pug, which was not scared to come looking for food. You could hear her from a mile off sniffing away.

The next morning we continued our hunt for the bus to Caraiva, getting a different story from everyone. We were eventually directed to the shopping square where there was a shop/cafe called Philadelphia and there would be a timetable in the window, and you could get the bus from there. Off we set, reaching the square only to not find the cafe. A bit of asking around and we were directed to the cafe with no name, where there was no timetable visible. Again we asked about the bus to Caraiva. We were sent to the checkout man, who is apparently the walking talking human timetable and the only person in Trancoso who know the bus times to Caraiva. Luckily three a day were still running and we could make the midday one. (This was just post Carnaval and the end of the high season where bus service drops to one trip a day.)

After lazing around the pool for an hour we were back at the 'no name no timetable displayed' cafe Philadelphia to catch our midday bus. It arrived 45mins late but we were just so excited that the bus actually existed and we were finally on our way to Caraiva.

Brazil - Explore Pantanal and Mei Lua Ranch

We'd been given a few good experience traveller suggestions, hard sell tours and many Internet options, but in the end we stayed with Mandy's original choice for our time in the Pantanal.

Mirjam, a Swiss lady who married a Pantanal born and bred legend (more about him later), had been very helpful providing us information pre and post booking. Mirjam and Marcello ran a tour company called Explore Pantanal. It's been very successful, and with guests querying why they don't have their own accommodation, Mirjam decided to give it a go and develop a small offering on a ranch.

Mandy booked on Ranch Mandovi with them after reading the reviews available and picked up that is was a more personal touch experience. A week before arriving we found out that they have closed that ranch and replaced it with a new improved one. Mirjam said she'd honour our booking at the new Mei Lua Ranch.

We expected our bus from Corumba to Miranda to stop outside a restaurant before the bus station stop. We didn't expect the restaurant stop was for the driver to have a meal for half an hour or that the bus stop was an easy 200 meter walk away across the field opposite. Anyway we arrived with a taxi waiting to take us to the ranch.

It's only 10 minutes from the town so we were there in no time, winding along the clay road through fields with herds of white cows and bulls. We'd not seen this breed before with hanging skin from under their neck and virtually no hair. Not sure how they survived in the blistering sun, but they seemed happy enough. The ranches are impressive with grand entrances and the cattle troughs all covered in stands with orange tiled roofs.

We passed Mirjam on the way, flagging us down to say hi. We pulled up to the main house and Hector came to meet us, then show us to our room and around the ranch dotted with palm trees and hammocks. We'd been travelling for hours, so it didn't take long before we were in their large pool, floating our temperatures down on their pool noodles - these seem quite popular in Brazil.

With the sun setting we grabbed the camera and walked down to the small dam with wooden jetty and watched the sun slowly disappear and the resulting orange and pink sky frame the black silhouettes of the palm trees on the ridge. We snapped away with the camera and Mands then spotted fire flies darting around next to the jetty.

It was only the 2 of us staying at the ranch that night, but an American, Brandon, and Marcelino joined us for a great chicken stew dinner. Brandon is staying on the ranch for a few months to help with online marketing, a new video and website.

Marcelino is Mirjam's husband and Mr Pantanal. Long hair in a pony tail tied with a feather, khaki trousers and bare foot - always bare foot. He told us tour options and as we only had two nights, we wanted to cram in as much of the Pantanal experience as we could, so we changed or plans and decided on a half day 4x4 / walk half day boat tour - they are flexible like that.

Hector ran in saying that there was a snake outside, so Marcelino charged out, not wanting to miss the opportunity of our first show, see, taste, feel experience. It was a baby, but Mands still put up her don't bring that snake near me warning before he got too carried away. He explained that diamond head snakes are poisonous and this had a diamond head. it wasn't too happy about being handled so was biting Marcelino at every opportunity who would merely suck out the venom and spit it away. He kept saying it made him light headed and would joke to be stumbling around a bit. Tomorrow would be interesting with him if this was the start.

Our ranch breakfast was impressive with a full spread of fresh fruit from the ranch, baked cakes, fresh rolls, cheese, ham and the best avo we may ever have eaten. We gulped this treat down with fresh fruit juice and coffee and headed off with Marcelino and Mirjam's eats and drinks cooler box. Marcelino thought it would be a good video opportunity for Brandon and at last minute brought him with.

We had an hour transfer in the car to get to the river, where we'd transfer onto the 4x4. Along the way we saw macaws, toucans and rhea (large flightless birds similar to ostriches). The 4x4 was had an open top with benches and sun canopy. We headed down a gravel road with farms and bush on either side. When Marcelino spotted something we'd stop and go look. The first was for monkeys.

They were high in the trees and without warning, Marcelino started with his imitating whoooa whoooa calls and grunts. This whipped the monkeys up into a frenzied chorus and much jumping around. Wish we'd got it on camera.

The truck stopped for our bush walk, with Marcelino leading together with his waist belt and knife (all local men seem to carry one when in the bush) and still without shoes. He'd walk, call out to birds, listen to birds and plot his route. Man it was hot. There was quite a bit of suspense as we were in the land of pumas and jaguars. A few large rodent and bird sightings later and we found big cat tracks and he motioned not to stray too far. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the cat, but perhaps it saw us.

Onto the truck for a lunch of rolls, water and Guarana cold drinks. Guarana would turn out to be a favourite for Mands. We could see more monkeys and a troop of raccoons cross the track as we ate away.

The next stop was for capybara, learning males have a mud like spot on their snout and then caimans. More like caiman city. Stacks of these reptiles lying packed together in and out of the water. These were white caiman and dwarf caiman, largest probably two meters, but still sizeable enough to be on lookout for anything being too interested. So got some great photos really close to them, definitely the highlight of the tour.

Further along we found caiman and learnt that they would be present in every waterhole and along all river banks. Literally hundreds of thousands. Marcelino pointed out that capybaras and caimans are happy to lie next to each other and we found many such strange pairings. The caimans are very different in size, number and behaviour than the African crocodiles we're seen previously. African crocodiles wouldn't put up with any rodent, no matter what the size lying in dinner range!

Following our land tour, we returned to the main river and changed onto a small boat, probably only three meters with a ten horse power motor on the back. We cruised up the river with more bird and capybara sightings before stopping at a sand beach for a river swim. Marcelino said not to bother about the caimans, as they mainly come out at dusk, so we waded in keeping a look out for any protruding eyes.

Further upstream the water lilly like plants grew in numbers until they completely stretched across the breadth of the river. Marcelino wasn't deterred and launched the boat straight into them at speed, stopping the boat with a shudder. Suddenly a flash of reptile skin launched up, brushing the side of the boat and darted out of reach. I'm not sure who got the bigger fright, the two meter caiman or us at this meeting. I didn't think think that the caiman would lie on the lilies, so will keep more of an eye out now.

As the dragon flies started their rounds with the day ending, Marcelino baited the bamboo fishing rods' hooks with chocked pieces and tested the water for piranhas. 10 seconds later, the first catch. He pulled up the 20 cm mean eating machine and carefully took it off the hook. It waited with it's mouth open for anything to get hold of. Marcelino first put out his knife and you could hear the noise from it's furious razor sharp teeth chomping at the blade. Lilly stalks were made mince meat of. We'd use this piranah's flesh for further fishing, so one last show of the piranah's never stop attitude, was to cut it's head off and it continued biting away!

I had a go and caught my first pirana, and second, followed by Mands who looked like an old hand at this, probably from all her South African camping experience.

Marcelino replaced the hooks with a simple knot and tied up a chicken foot for Caiman fishing. Hmmm. We'd just had a caiman almost jump into the boat and now we were going to lure them in snapping again. The caimans would take turns swimming and then when close enough slowly open their mouth and bites down with a crack. The younger ones are more enthusiastic about this game, the older ones must have played this with The Pantanal Man over the years and wised up to it. I felt some mosquitos land on my leg and swotted them away furiously - Marcelino caught the commotion out the corner of his eye and jumped around in a panicked state thinking there was a caiman in the boat much to the laughter of the rest of us in the boat.

We started heading back and heard the calls of giant otters. This triggered Marcelino into his friendly come play otter responding calls to try and lure these shy creatures to the boat. Again, much commotion resulted from the otters screeching away in response. They did appear, but timidly would disappear whenever we were close. We followed them for a good half hour.

Back on terra firma for a sunsetting beer on the bridge before driving back to he ranch for dinner and chats to Mirjam and the crew.

The next morning was an earlier start and another good breakfast before meeting Alex at the stables for the start of our horse ride and my quest to see a giant ant-eater. Alex too had his knife and barefoot for the ride. We mounted and headed out catching up in his Pantanal adventures including the time he did have a caiman jump on board with him and 2 guests for a river cruise. These horses were great and obeyed like machines they had been trained so well.

The ride was cool with our earlier start and we walked through the still active cattle ranch sections. It wasn't long before we noticed the first cattle. It seemed that something had spooked them from the opposite side as they started running towards us from afar. We continued. So did they. We followed Alex to our left with the cattle still audible with their rumble. When next I looked around the cattle were right us and Mands seemly leading the herd like a cow girl. It turns out the cows are well trained and with the sight of people on horseback they figure that that's their queue to head off somewhere. Quite something when you don't know what they are up to.

We saw macaws, toucans, rheas and finally needing the end of a 2 hour ride, a giant ant eater, a meter and a half with it's bushy tail. When it got sight of us it didn't stay around, but great seeing it considering they are mostly nocturnal.

The rest of the day was spent lounging at the pool. I'd given Mirjam feedback on the ranch (the first weekend with full occupancy when a group from Germany arrived) and discussed what the good and could improve areas were. Just before leaving Mirjam offered for us to stay for 2 weeks to help as they further setup on the ranch and the Internet site. It would have been great, but with time being short we decided to continue as planned on our adventure.

Mirjam drove us to the fast taxi transfer arranged to get us to Bonito and told us of her battles to get Brazilian government and farmers working to protect the Pantanal. Majority of the land is now privately owned and and with high demand on cattle farming and the money involved, it's going to be quite a struggle. There are definitely success learnings from South Africa that could be applied. Mirjam and Marcelino are great people and run a fantastic ranch. I wrote a detailed ideas email for them during the transfer to Bonito and sent it through. They've got a good formula of personalised service, so eagerly await their developments.

Off now to the crystal clear waters for some snorkelling near Bonito.

Bolivia - Red Oriental train and boarder crossing to Brazil

We left the sweltering hot "bi-modal" bus/ train station on the 2 carriage Red Oriental train. It is a luxury train and faster than the more local train down to Quijarro, a short distance away from the border. It's majority travellers on the train with a few local holiday families.

The train has reclining seats, a lounge like area, in transit movies and dinner and breakfast included - similar to the magic bus, but on tracks.

It is still a basic service and far from any train you are familiar with. 1) the tracks are as bumpy as a cattle grid. Up, down, left and right you are thrown. Think of being in a popcorn machine! 2) track changes are a manual process. The train stops, someone jumps out, pulls (heaves) on a leaver, changes the accompanying sign and hops back on again 3) getting the train moving and up to speed is the most interesting ... You hear the revs going up, then the clutch goes in and the driver changes gear - it must have been a truck engine mounted on the chassis. Whenever the required revs were hit, again the long winded gear change. Someone described the train as a bus mounted on a train. I'd say this was a train mounted on a bus! 4) movie time. A movie had just started when someone got up and went forward to speak to the driver. His assistant then stopped the movie and replaced it with another from the passenger. The movie was one that had just been released on the main movie circuit a week earlier, so obviously pirated. It still started with the warning to beware of illegal copies. Another passenger request and we English subtitles appeared.

Dinner was served and we chased the bouncing food around our plate and then when caught, tried to get it into out mouth! I gave up with the game and tackled the chicken and rice with my hands.

Mands went to try and go to the toilet before bed and came back in a huff as a family had set up camp in the toilet with their son who wasn't feeling well, then father then mother pre bed toilet rituals. We eventually figured you could jump from one coach to the other to use theirs.

All said it was quite enjoyable. Sunrise woke me at 4:30 as there weren't and curtains. Lush green vegetation on grasslands and forests of palm trees. Now we're getting close to the Pantanal.

When the train arrived at the station the paid for carry our bags for 5 meters off the train porters brought out bags out and we shared a taxi with a Swiss couple to the border. It's only 2 km there, but taxi is your only option.

Now we were at the Bolivian side border queue. We chatted to 2 Scottish/English couples. Hot as a hell and 2 hours to wait for the queue to progress. We saw enterprising sales of fresh cut fruit,
Street cart slush puppies and fresh orange juice. When inside the office we passed through seamlessly. When we were in the office, I jokingly said that was the short queue and Brazil side had the big queue. I'd be more right than any of us would have liked...

Our group now of 8 travellers walked around the corner to join a queue 5 times longer than what we'd just been in - must have been 1000 people. Gumph.

Almost immediately someone approached The English guy and said to give him our passports and he'd get them processed directly for us - no costs involved. Warning bells rand for all of us. A few questions and challenges later we would give it a go as long as 2 of us could go with him. After passing a few grumpy Bolivians our passports were in and paperwork and stamps done. Afterwards someone explained that they fast track tourists into Brazil who have money to spend and they put red tape up for Bolivians wanting to cross the boarder, often for work.

We'd not changed our Bolivian Bolivianos currency for Brazilian Reals as we expected to get better rates on Brazil as we'd done on other crossings. That was not to be here. Brazil side has no cash machines or anyone looking to exchange money. All 8 of us were stuck without and Reals. A Brazilian offered to help and said he'd pay for us bus tickets and we could pay him at the station. With little options available, we gratefully accepted and headed off with one cautious eye open. Turned out he was a tour operator and would take the 1 hour 2 local bus transfer time to try and sell us his tour or get us to change any existing bookings. We had ours all sorted, but the others ended up going on his tours (later finding out they would be oversold what they expected). He bought us ice cold waters and soon we were at our bus station.

At Corumba he handed us off to his friend, an old man, who would take us to exchange money. He asked us to wait around the corner while he got the best possible rate and then called me around. I looked through the security gate of a house on the corner with a large money fixer guy with a calculator. He wanted to know how much money I wanted to exchange and them told me the figure. I didn't have time to calculate this myself so took my time to calculate everything and double check - he got the huff with this and said fine, deal off (and there was no one else around to exchange). The old man smoothed things over and the deal was done. Back at the buss station and where the Mand's tour company operated from, he had given Mands the hard sell, but she held onto hot original booking where others would have taken a bite from then serpent's apple.

We had an hour to kill before our bus transfer to Miranda. More card games and a bite to eat. Similar to Peruvian empanada's are Brazilian Saltados, pastry filled with meat. It was fantastic and at a small bus terminal!?! They had a bakery in the back and we shared a few when each fresh batch arrived. Each time I ordered and paid I thanked the store in my best newly learnt Espanyol. Each time after a correction, I'd remember I should be speaking Portuguese! This was going to take a few days to get right.

Hello Brazil!