My first stop in Brazil was in Foz do Iguacu, where most people go see the other side of the Iguazu Falls that I mentioned in my last post. Unfortunately timings meant that I had to skip the Brazilian side, so my only experience with Foz was in the bus station. It wasn't the most pleasant experience either; angry-looking armed police men with sniffer dogs came round the station and arrested two separate people, I couldn't get any money out meaning I had no Brazilian currency and my bus was delayed an hour. Nevertheless, eventually my bus turned up and off I went to Florianopolis. Floripa, as the locals call it, is a lovely place- however my time there also had a stressful start as I still couldn't get any money out of the ATMs and I knew my hostel was ages away, leaving me a bit worried about how I was going to get there. In the end I plucked up the courage to ask three friendly-looking fellow travellers if they happened to be heading the same way. Luckily they were and offered to lend me money for my share of the taxi! Travel karma is a very real thing I think. Once I arrived at my hostel in Barra da Lagoa, a good 40 minutes away (Floripa is huge), I started to relax. Barra is a chilled beach town with a good mix of tourists and locals, and my first hostel there (Barra Beach Club) basically overlooks its own private beach. The only problem is that Barra doesn't have any cash machines either and the closest place, Lagoa, can be reached by a bus, which sits in traffic for an hour, or by a 30 minute speedboat. At this point my lack of money was becoming a big problem so I opted for the boat; I think this is definitely the better option as you get to see kids playing in the river, other people waving at you from their own private boats and as you head across the sea you're surrounded by people kite-surfing as well as various other water sports that I don't know the name of. Anyway, I finally managed to get money out at a proper bank and could finally stop worrying. I stayed in Barra for about a week, not doing too much to be honest, just enjoying the sun and the caipirinhas. If you're not familiar with them, they're Brazil's favourite cocktail made from an alarming amount of sugar, limes and a liquor called Cachaca. They're delicious but deadly, especially when the street vendors sell pints of them for the equivalent of £1.50. One day I also joined a guy from my hostel in a hike across to another beach, Praia Mole, which he described as a nice walk away. Instead it was like trekking through the jungle- the beauty of Brazil is in the fact that every city seems like it's just been plonked down between masses of dense jungle and forest. This sometimes makes it hard to get around but it's certainly a lot more visually pleasing to drive through than the dull stretches of land that Argentina has. We also headed to a daytime pool party at a club called P12. I'm not really up on my DJs but Robin Schulz played a set and I'm pretty sure he's fairly famous (do I sound cool yet?) and we had such a good day dancing and drinking in the sun, watching wealthy Brazilians flaunting their plastic-surgery-enhanced bodies. When I say flaunt I really mean it- the girls all wear thong bikinis and the men all wear, for lack of a better term, 'budgie smugglers'. I almost feel like a prude wearing my high waisted bikini!
The rest of our nights in Floripa were pretty fun too. Every night you can go down to the beach to watch teams from all over Brazil playing football, which ordinarily I wouldn't really choose to watch but seeing them play in the sand was pretty impressive! Otherwise there are always local musicians and bands playing music in the streets which was pretty cool too. Later on in the evening we often headed over to the private beach to chill on the rocks with a bottle of rum, where there also tended to be musicians sat around entertaining the crowds. However on one such night I got a bit carried away watching the waves coming in and out, so much so that unfortunately one of my sandals got washed out to sea. Luckily Havaiana flip flops are really cheap in Brazil- problem solved!
After Floripa I decided to head on to São Paulo with a few others that I'd met at various points on the trip- two of the guys I actually met for the first time in Quito, Ecuador so they probably win as my longest running friends I keep bumping into on the way! I had my worries about São Paulo as a lot of people say it's really dodgy but yet again word of mouth was proven wrong. We stayed in a hostel in the Vila Madalena part of town which is the more bohemian young area, so I suppose it probably did feel safer than other parts of the city would have.
São Paulo also doesn't have as many well known attractions as other big cities and is more known for the nightlife; however one day a few of us went for a wander to the grafitti alleys near the hostel which were pretty cool to see.
The next day Alexia & I also did the free walking tour around the downtown area. Unfortunately we both felt it was a bit too long and the history and architecture of São Paulo not quite gripping enough to impress us too much, but we did find out about the municipal market where we later went to eat enormous ham sandwiches. I also got given a free bag of mixed olives, peppers and garlic by one stall owner- I tried to pay him but he just pointed at my face and said 'linda' which means beautiful so I just went with it!
Something I did find odd about São Paulo was that it has the highest Japanese population outside of Japan, meaning there are Japanese restaurants everywhere. Unfortunately I don't eat fish so sushi is lost on me but everyone else seemed to enjoy their food! I won't lie, it wasn't my favourite city ever but nowhere near as bad as I'd heard from others. After a few nights there I headed to Paraty, meeting Jack at the bus station after his solo trip to Iguazu.
After Paraty came Ilha Grande, an island (would you believe it) about 40 minutes boat ride off the coast. The only way I can describe my first impression is that it felt like arriving at Jurassic World. The whole island is covered in dense jungle with just a few restaurants and buildings dotted along near the pier. There are mountains covered in mist in the distance and just walking 5 minutes to our hostel we spotted little monkeys running along the power cables above us. It turns out this is pretty common in Brazil as we saw them loads in Rio too; I think they're kind of the equivalent of squirrels in England.
Ilha Grande has loads of different beaches that you can either get taxi boats or trek to. On our first full day we just went for a short walk to find a nearby beach. Unfortunately the weather had also been a bit rubbish in IG for the last few days meaning that the whole walk I was convinced I was going to end up falling in the mud. We made it there eventually and found a sunbathing pig there so it was definitely worth the mud-filled walk.
We also went to a beach called Lopes Mendes. Again, this involved another terrifying walk- the trails are all pretty steep, slippery and impossible to navigate in flip flops. Jack got a lot of entertainment from watching me struggle down the pathways, holding on to vines and branches to steady myself, muttering swear words under my breath and hating him for making me go. Lucky for him the beach itself was really beautiful, probably the nicest beach I've ever been to!
Our nights in Ilha Grande were spent drinking cachaca and rum on the beach with others from our hostel- one of the good things about Brazil is that drinking on the streets is perfectly legal, meaning a night out can be extremely cheap! Although I did wake up one morning with half of one of my big toe nails hanging off and not much recollection of how it happened..
We left Ilha Grande after 5 nights, accompanied by Luke, an English guy we met in the hostel and another girl who we met on the boat back to shore who was also heading to Rio. We bought our bus tickets and waited for the bus- a few buses pulled up but the guy working there told us ours was the next one. 25 minutes later the same guy then put into google translate 'that was your bus, do you want a car there?', leaving us all a bit confused and annoyed. He walked off then two minutes later pulled up in a van, gesturing for us to get in the back. Still a bit confused we all piled in the back of his little van and off we went. I was the only one with a 'seat' (a spare tyre) which I was quite grateful for as the other three were clinging to the walls; drivers in South America are absolutely nuts and this guy was no exception. About 40 minutes later we finally arrived at our destination- a service station where the bus was waiting for us to catch up to them. I have to give them credit, although the mistake itself was annoying, at least they put in the effort to sort it out! Anyway, after another hour and a half spent snoozing we finally arrived in Rio and bought tickets to our final destination of the day, Buzios.
Buzios is a popular holiday destination a bit further north from Rio. It has 21 beaches and is apparently famous for being Brigitte Bardos' favourite place- they even have a street named after her.
This post is already incredibly long and to be honest this was another place where we just chilled out for a week, visiting different beaches every day or just enjoying the hostel pool with some homemade caipirinhas. We met some great people there- one hilarious Aussie guy called Andrew, and two lovely Argentinian girls who went spent most of our days with.
In the evenings I'd cook big family meals for the group and one night Luke even made the whole hostel an apple crumble! If you ever find yourself in Buzios I'd totally recommend Lagoa Beach hostel- really cool staff and a great atmosphere which feels a lot more like someone's home than just another hostel.
I think Rio deserves a post all of its own so I'm going to leave this one here- I'll do my best to have everything finished before I leave Brazil this Friday!
No comments:
Post a Comment