Natal to Salvador

FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRST OFF lets settle a few things, upon reviewing these blogs i have come to the conclusion that i am coming across a blooming cluts, and the worlds biggest one at that! so, granted im a bit ditsy lets balance the situation a bit cos the other two arent free from sillyness either. ORAN- so he got the trunks, we all heard last blog, the tiny Brazilian speedo type things, well me and Oran are at the beach in Rio, and its a pretty gloomy day, suns down behind the clouds pretty nippy, oran still feels its a good idea to go in the water without ANY chance of drying before we get on the bus, im now walking down Ipanema[s main road next to a soaking wet Oran in nothing but his tighty trunks... no sun..nothing. so after pointing out he looks pretty ridiculous soaking wet in trunks when theres no sun and how is he gonna dry-his solution...throw on a t-shirt---now do u remeber when u were like 3-4 yrs old uv been swimming in ur knickers cos ur 3 yrs old and it doesnt matter, and on ur journey back mum just throws on a tshirt cos ur 3 yrs old and it just doesnt matter how silly you look.....ORAN!! ZENNA-the boy needs to revise his high way code, dunno if he has just got sick of travelling but it seems he has forgotten who has right of way on the roads..NOT YOU ZENNA!!zig zaging, criss crossing in front of cars willy nilly

ok so evened that up a bit.we are in Salvador at the moment, we[ve spent the last two weeks travelling down from Natal, a city in the North where we took a flight to from Rio. Spent a couple of days there but the place was pretty bland, only thing to do was a buggy tour which we did on my birthday, cram four poeple in a dinky little sand buggy and drive at top speeds over sand dunes and then stop every now and then to see the views, was actually pretty fun took a whole day but well worth it. had a good bday, the other two chipped in and got me a some brazilian swimming trunks oran was talking about in the last post and some silk looking boxers...sometimes a man needs a bit of luxury in his life!!






so natal didnt last long we decided to jump on a bus to town called Joao pessoa which was more like the North we were expecting, nice looking beach, vibrant people really good street party and our first site of the colonial architecture that the north is sposed to be famous for, oh also met cracking English girl Bianca, so shout out to her.


Sand dunes of Natal


church in Joao Pessoa

sun set from the church-was an amazing view you cant capture it on camera!!



SUN SET FROM THE STREET!


loving off the sun sets!!

BUt we are travellers so didnt stay there long bused again to Olinda which is a world heritage site of natual beuty or something like that..anyway its a buff town, pictures should do it some justice. again they knew how to party there, went out on a sunday night, couple street partys then a club open til 6 int morning! torrrrrrrential rain storm leaking in to the club, sweaty people kinda reminiscent of the Britney Spears video!! hmmm kinda sounds like all we do is rave, but seriooooooously we are making the most of our time, taking it all in and that. Olinda was pretty small but a really nice change, found it really laid back the town was stunning, though we were only there for a couple of days it felt like a really well time break, i met a really great girl there too, so stayed a day or so longer than the others before meetin up in salvador where we have been since, planning to stay here for a good couiple of weeks, really get to know the town, learn some more portuguese-which is coming along prepretty well,some forro,samba (two biggest dances here) maybe some capoeira too, so think we will talk more on this town in the next blog. take careeeeee


cool church and sky OLINDA


Streets of Olinda


this cathedral and square was amazing


ditto


willem and julianna - OLINDA


us again overlooking recife and olinda

Rio de Janeiro

After what was probably the LONGEST BUS JOURNEY IN THE WORLD! call it 29 hours just sitting on a bus, we made it to Rio. We had about 3 failed attempts to leave the bus station, and then eventualy found the taxi rank where we booked it from sum BUFFness, we didn´t care how much it cost. Welcome to Rio, get me! Stayed at a bad looking hostel for the first night, receptionist was a nob. So we packed up and did one the next morning in search of some other hostel that had good ratings on the net...Spent about 2 hours trying to find the place because it was hidden behind a derelict supermarket, but when we got in it looked cracking. Met some top people straight away, mad props to Eddi, Maiju, Elisa & Nana. They invited us out immediately, see what we´ve realised is that wherever we stay people love us. The night was like nothing we´ve been to before, heaving crowds on the street, cheap drink vendors, music, dancing, mainly guys with their tops off as opposed to girls though, pissed I know. We went into a typical brazillian club and observed the mating rituals of the young (and old for that matter!). Here´s how it works, girl stand alone, guy sees girl, guy likes girl, guy grabs girl and starts to dance, even if he is butters or 40 years older than her most of the time the girl will still dance, if she likes him they kiss and then part company and move on. Interesting, it will take some practise because it´s not just any dance, you can´t just grind her senseless like in Edwards, you need to shuffle, count the beat, swing your hips and move around, and yea it looks a lot better than a boy and girl just grinding down.

We´re leaving Rio today, so here´s a run down of the week. We beached it a hell of a lot, as you can imagine the girls wore very little, and the guys even less! No joke of a lie, the men wear skimpy batty riders, and yes I bought a pair BRRAPP BRAP! We saw the ugliest cathedral ever, we have no pictures, just imagine an upside down cone, looked heavy inside though. We saw that famous Christ statue, look at these pics, cracking views of Rio too.


Botafogo Beach (where we stayed) and the Sugar Loaf Mountain




Christ the Redeemer


Christ the Redeemer from another mountain


Hassan the Redeemer

We had some of the heaviest nights out yet here, Lapa is Rowwwdy, and we´re almost there with the samba moves. We started Capoeira which is some next style of fighting where you have to fight in time with the music, we´ll show you when we get back.

Some of the funny moments, Willem thought he´d try and light a gas oven yesterday after it had been pumping out gas for at least 5 minutes (though he blames the danish girls who he was helping for not telling him how long it had been on for), the resulting fireball was spectacular. He also thought it would be a good idea to cycle around Rio with flip flops on, it wasn´t, his feet got battered no end. Oh yeah, and after falling in love one night he forgot where on the beach he was meant to meet his belle the next day! Me and Zenna have a habit of waking the whole dormitory up, be it late at night, early in the morning we just dont give a shit, as our Norwegian friend put it "It would be nicer if you didn´t talk so much." Zenna has been perfecting his Fortress-building skills, everywhere we go, using the contents of his or Willem´s bags, Zenna will construct an impenetrable pile/wall of mess around his bed. This makes it hard and dangerous for the person in the top bunk to get in and get out of bed. As for me...Im writing the dam blog so my shit aint coming out for at least a week or so. We´re flying to Natal later. Keep the comments coming. Tchau

Brasil, Bonito and Pantanal

Hey hey

Sorry we havent been posting but weve just returned to civilisation from 5 days in the Brazillian Swampland rainforest, the Pantanal. After arriving in Campo Grande, the main city you go through to get to the pantanal, we were bombarded with people trying to sell us tours, each one of them saying they were better than the others. We went with this guy called Gil, really just because he seemed pretty cool and so we took a 5 hour bus into the pantanal where we were eventually hooked up with our native indian guide, Marcelo.


Marcelo our guide

Had a really good time in the Pantanal, spent our time looking at animals (hundreds of aligators, few monkeys, capobara, armadillo to name a few) fishing for piranas, horse riding which was pretty heavy, inner tubing down rivers surrounded by more aligators and piranas and just generally cotching. Although it was consistently rice and beans, we were fed well and drank lots of Caprhinias, Brazils national drink..


A tatoo made from the juice of a fruit, lasts for 5 days and an insect that looks suspiciously like a leaf

From Pantanal we took another 5 hour bus to where we are now, Bonito. The hostel here is really nice and the people are friendly. Yesterday we went on a day trip to the main river to do abit of snorkelling. One of the most amazing things ive ever done, next to horse riding. You swim alongside the fish and they´re not small ones either.


Before and After Snorkelling

Later today we´re going to Rio De Janeiro, its going to be like 30 hours on buses so at the momment were just relaxing before it.

Thanks for commenting everyone, keep checking and BE GOOD!