Rio de Janeiro (pt 2)

So here we are in the barrio of Botafoga in Rio de Janeiro. Our hostel is just over the road from the beach, which is always nice, though when we last left you it was pouring of rain.

The rain hadnt ceased yesterday morning, so we got the metro over to the old historical centre of town, walked around in the rain and had a look in the National History Museum, which was pretty good, but suffered because it was being renovated and half the exhibits were closed.

Following this, more walking around, a trip to Bob´s Burgers and finally the Metro back to Botafoga. Too late to pick up our laundry (its still in the hands of the laundrette woman), we found a cinema and went to see FANTASTIC MR FOX (which was awesome) and followed it up by going to a late-closing book store and some late night milkshake at Bob´s Milkshakes.

This morning, Steve prodded me to wake up and declared that it wasn´t raining. At this point I didn´t care and went back to sleep, giving Steve time to eat his breakfast, have a chat with some Jehovah´s Witnesses and block up the toilet. He woke me again by throwing his unbelievably smelly towel onto my bed, forcing me to get up.

And so, in the sun for once, we walked over to our local beach, for the first time able to see the statue of Christ on the mountain behind us, then 15 minutes down the road until we reached the base of the Sugarloaf. Took the cable car up the big granite peak sticking out of the see, wandered around, saw lots of birds lizards and monkeys, and of course the brilliant panoramic views of Rio, including Copacabana...which is where we´re headed now.

Rio de Janeiro

Rio is one of the quintessential images of South America; the Sugarloaf, the statue of Christ looking over it all, the jungle crashing down into the sea, miles of the most famous white sandy beaches in the world, the beautiful people, the sound of Samba...

When we arrived, however, all of this was covered in rain and fog. And continues to be.

Dang.

Directions

so we asked for some directions to the hostel we're staying at in Rio. Here's what we got back:

From the tube station it takes buses 126/127/131/132/485/179/and it lowers to member state botafogo pria shopping, walks uma squares and average copacabana sense, crosses the street São Clemente, always straight, 40mts walks until arriving at uma street without exit (cut street) doubles to its right and would find hostel member state the 5 house of the left side. House 9

think we'll take a taxi

Brasil - Paraguay - Brasil

Staying in Foz do Iguacu, the town on the Brasillian side of the falls, we hopped over the border once again (we dont cross borders, we hop over them) into Paraguay to spend a day in Ciudad del Este. Sordid, intimidating, tacky and commercial...this is how the Rough Guide book describes Ciudad del Este, the supermarket of South America due to its duty free status. Pretty much anything you can think of is on sale here, at low low prices!

and yes it was a bit of a dump
but we had fun at least finding strange foreign energy drinks (like Pokari Sweat all the way from the far east!)

also of note was the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, at one time the largest in the world (now second). So we had a walk around that, but unfortunately were not allowed inside the huge engine room for reasons unknown (no hablo espanol!)

Back into Brasil for our 4th border crossing in almost as many days, a big pizza covered in brasillian sausage and spicy sauce whilst we talked with the owner.

The fat cockney bastard still snored that night.

The next day a visit to the Parque das Aves, a bird zoo with huge walk-in aviaries, was really cool. Parrots, toucans, ostriches, humming birds, rheas (looked like a dinosaur and have been known to kill humans!!), as well as anacondas, turtles, caiman and other such awesomites.

We chillaxed at our hostel for the afternoon, talking to our brasillian mate about buying an Apple Macbook in Ciudad del Este. Then it was to the off. As we grabbed our bags, the fat cockney shouted:
"On the move? You suckers! You don't know whats good for ya!"

Well, sorry. But some of us have to be out of this continent in a week.

And this twat had only been seen in that chair or snoring in MY bed for the past 4 days.

I have a feeling also that his short chubby legs wouldnt be able to handle the worlds 3rd largest metropolis...SAO PAULO....

Back where we started

It´s midnight on a Sunday, thirst strikes, what ya gonna do? Head to the nearby Mcdonalds of course. After finding the main restaurant was closed, we did what any self respecting drinker of drinks would do and got in line (amongst the cars...a lot of cars) at the drive thru.

There was a snag, however. The damnable Portuguese spoken by the drive thru attendant was (to us) unintelligble. As was our attempts at spanish to him (duh) and it was all just a big mess. Here´s a transcript:

Me: Ola, 2 coca colas.
McDonalds guy: [something in Portuguese]
Me: Como?
McDonals guy: [something in Portuguese]
Me: Sim
(when in doubt I always agree to whatever Im being asked)
McDonalds guy: [something in Portuguese}
Me: Sim
mcdonalds guy: [repeats first statement]
Me: uuuuh...perdon, no voces portugues
mcdonalds guy stares blanky
as do I
mcdonalds guy: something in portuguese
mcdonalds guy gets up and leaves for 2 minutes
there are cars waiting behind us in the queue
mcdonalds guy returns
mcdonalds guy: something in portuguese
me: sim, 2 coca colas
mcdonalds guy: 8 reais por favor
me: sim, todo.
pause
me: Cuanto es?
mcdonalds guy: 8 reais por favor.

despicable
we´re back where we started over 4 and a half months ago
all for 2 cokes

Iguazu Falls

From Asuncion we got the most sweltering little bus for the sweatiest 6 hours of my life to Encarnacion, close to the border with Argentina. A few days spent here was pleasant, though still very hot, and the coolest thing we saw were the huge ruins of the Jesuit mission of Trinidad. Hopping over the border to Argentina, we arrived that evening at Puerto Iguazu, home to the mighty Iguazu Falls!




So awesome they form the border of two nations, we spent a day exploring the falls from Argentina, which included getting a boat underneath one of the falls, being bitten by mosquitos, seeing a hell of a lot of butterflies and lizards, and generally having a jolly good time. The next day we hopped over the border into Brasil, the final country of our 5 month stroll around South America, and enjoyed the panoramic view of the falls from the other side of the river, as well as the biggest buffet ever.

Awesomeo.

A slight change of subject, I present to you the joy of travelling:

Returning to the dorm last night, tired and and weary, I go to get in my bed, only to discover upon closer inspection (it was dark) that there was a man in it. Not just any man, a fat sweaty cockney twat of a man, litres of sweat streaming down his sticky flab and onto my sheets and pillow. What the hell he was doing in there I have no idea. The bed was free upon our arrival, I´d put the sheets on there, my stuff was on top of it and in the locker underneath...but oh no he´d moved all that! I stood in silence for a few minutes getting progessively angrier and nearly woke him up and shouted at him but my tiredness/cowardice got the better of me and I went and got some clean sheets and found another bed some place.

BUT DIDNT SLEEP BECAUSE THIS FAT SWEATY DICK WAS SNORING.

(apologies for old photos Im a cheater)

Good morning Paraguay!

Q: How do you lose your body weight in sweat by just standing still?
A: PARAGUAY!

We crossed from Argentina into Paraguay at around 8:00am Sunday, and guess what? Paraguay is the hottest country ever. It was hot at 8:00am and continued to get hot and never really relented. Sure, other places have been hot (y´know, like the DESERT), but Paraguay is like sitting in an oven in the middle of the desert. Very hot indeed.

So after our night bus from Salta (not exactly a cold place itself) to the border town of Clorinda, we got a taxi to the frontier, spoke with some border officials on the Argentine side who made us play my charango otherwise they said we couldn´t cross. Passport duties had to be taken care of on the other side of the international bridge, so we duly walked across.

Upon reaching passport control at the other side, the Argentine immigration officer took a flick through our passports and declared there was a problem. Apparently we were missing an Argentine entry stamp somewhere and were illegally in the country. Now, this wasn´t the case, and we slowly went through every single stamp in our passport with him over and over ("entrada Argentina...salida Argentina...entrada Chile...salida Chile..." and still he found fault. Couldn´t work out whether the problem was that one of Steve´s Argentine entry stamps was not in order, or if in going to Ushuaia we had entered and left Argentina several times in one day, coupled with the fact that a week later we went to Uruguay for only one day, thus confusing the immigration officer. Whatever the case, he wasn´t having any of it and just kept shaking his head. Eventually, he typed some stuff into his computer (I´m supposing they actually have a database of all this to keep tabs on folk), and came back with some fresh exit stamps for our passports.

Yeah, take that.

So we bargained with a taxi driver and managed to half the price of a taxi from the border 40km to Asuncion, crossing the Rio Paraguay on the way. Sweating a lot.

Asuncion is a very strange city indeed. Very small, it doesn´t feel like the capital of a nation. As we arrived to one of the main plazas in the centre of town, everything was completely deserted. Exploring later yielded few people as well. But the small and compact centre is pretty nice, with mostly victorian buildings and a small presidential palace, a small national monument (the Panteon de los Heroes), and small plazas (Plaza Uruguaya, Plaza de los Heroes and Plaza del Comidas).

So far, people have been very friendly here. Tourism really hasn´t taken off in Paraguay at all, our hotel (no hostels or backpacker accommodation) is empty, and people are eager to talk to you. So it´s nice.

And, seeing as Paraguay is a kind of forgotten corner of South America, here´s some things I learned:

Upon independence from Buenos Aires and Spain, one of Paraguay´s first dictators was a paranoid man named Dr Francia. Fearing assasination, he declared that all buildings must be under a certain height so that his guards could spot would-be assassins. This means other than a few modern sky scrapers, all the older buildings in Asuncion are remarkably low.

In the 1860s, the dictator Francisco Lopez, believing himself to be the Napoleon of South America, felt threatened and declared war on Brasil. Now this is a silly move considering Paraguay´s tiny size compared to Brasil, but what happened next was even worse. Argentina wouldn´t let Paraguay move its troops through the Misiones province to get to Brasil, so Lopez declared war on them as well. And, Uruguay, apparently wanting to get in on the laugh allied Brasil and Argentina as well. So take a look at a map if you´re not familiar, and try working out the sense of Paraguay fighting with Brasil, Argentina and Uruguay.

Almost half the population was killed in this war (the war of the triple alliance), and that figure includes children as young as 12, who were enlisted when reserves ran low.

Construction of the presidential palace was even finished by child labourers, because there were simply no adults.

In the 1930s Paraguay also warred with Bolivia over the inhospitable wilderness of The Chaco, which divides the two countries.

has a fairly fascinating history, does paraguay.

and it´s also very hot. about 45 degrees.