Uruguay "el paisito"

From Sao Paulo we took a flight to Montevideo, Uruguay. When we planned our itinerary we included the stop in Uruguay thinking that our friends Joaquin and Leticia, who are from Montevideo would be there, but they recently moved to Santiago de Chile and we couldn't meet them there. However, Leticia's parents, Gonzalo and Graciela, met us at the airport. They took care of us so nicely that we felt like being at our parents home. Thank you!

After Gonzalo and Graciela picked us up from the airport, they invited us to have lunch and we tried the famous "chivito", which is a sandwich with meat, bacon, lettuce, egg and many other ingredients.

Chivito

After finishing the huge sandwich, they drove us to Montevideo's center. We first took the coastal road which runs next to the "Rio de la Plata" river.

We saw all the main monuments from the car and Gonzalo explained us the history about the city and the main buildings. It was great that we did the tour by car with them, because the following day we walked through the center and we already knew a little bit of the history.. Thank you for the tour!

At night we had a delicious urugayan "asado" cooked by Gonzalo. We learnt that the uruguayan BBQ is different from the Argentinian in the fact that it is cooked with wood instead of coal.

Our walking tour on the following day included the plaza independencia, teatro Solis, plaza matriz and the market next to the harbor. On the way back home we missed our bus because they told us to wait in the wrong bus stop.

From Montevideo we took a bus to Punta del Este, which is the vacational area two hours from Montevideo. It is full of apartments in front of the beach but, as we went in low season, all the apartments were empty and most of the restaurants were closed. But it was perfect for us, very quite place to rest from our trip.

In Punta del Este we stayed at Leticia's family apartment and we loved it! Thank you!

We also went to the supermarket and we bought Spanish ham and cheese for dinner. It was like being at home again!

Having dinner with spanish ham

In Punta del Este we rent a car to visit the area. We drove all the coastal road and we visited the fishermen town of Jose Ignacio, we tried to see the sunset in Punta Ballena but it was rainy and we also saw the project "Casa Pueblo", which is the house of the Uruguayan artist Carlos Páez Vilaró, which is now a museum and art gallery.

We also tried to go to eat waffles with "dulce de leche" in the cow farm Lapataia. We were late and they were closed so we couldn't try them. Next time!

Casa Pueblo

The next day we went to Cabo Polonio, which is a remote town that you can only access by a 4WD vehicle or walking through the dunes. The area has no electricity and neither running water and it has very few houses all of them built by local people. It is a very peculiar place and perfect to be away from the crowds of the city.

To get to Cabo Polonio we had to cross a small lagoon on top of a platform with the car.

We said good bye to Punta del Este and we took a bus to Colonia del Sacramento, where we took the "buquebus" which is a big slow boat that crosses in 3 hours from Uruguay to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In the boat

And finally, after the whole day travelling, we arrived to Buenos Aires! where my birthday present was waiting for me!!! 4 days in a nice hotel!

NEXT STOP: Buenos Aires!

Caipirinhas&Friends in Rio and Sao Paulo

After being in the jungle for a while, we were ready to get rid of our camouflage outfits and go to the city! Caymans and monkeys were exchanged for suntanned people in tiny bikinis! Welcome to Rio de Janeiro!

In Rio we stayed at our friend's apartment. Thanks Ricardo! His apartment was located in Arpoador, a very nice and convenient area, between Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. It is nice to live in front of the beach!

The first night we went to have dinner with another friend from Sao Paulo, Marco. We went to a nice restaurant, Zaza bistro. Our table was in the first floor and we had to take our shoes off. After that we went to drink caipirinhas in a bar in front of the beach. We tried caipirinhas with kiwi and caju fruit, delicious!

We also had dinner with Ricardo and his friend in a nice area full of young people. The bars were very full and also there were people drinking outside!

In Rio we did all the touristic things you have to do in your first visit to the city. We went up to the Corcovado hill by a zip train. On top of the hill we enjoyed the nice views of the city and we also saw the huge statue of the "Cristo Redentor". We tried to take a picture in front of the Christ insistently but it was really difficult to avoid all the tourists making weird poses in front of you...

Where's Laura?

After the Corcovado hill, we went to the other highlight of the city, the "Paõ de Açucar". We took the teleferic to the top of the hill and there we waited for the sunset.

Views from the first hill

Weird monkey

Views from top of the Paõ de Açucar

The views from Paõ de Açucar, with the orange light of the sunset, were spectacular! Rio has an excellent location and the landscape is absolutely gorgeous!

The only tour we took in Rio was the favela tour. With a small group of people and our guide we went to one of the favelas that surround the city, the famous Rocinha. For our security, our guide told us that we were being watched the whole time and they didn't like being photographed. So we couldn't take pictures inside the favelas. We only could take pictures from the balcony of one house we could get in. The view from there was astonishing. The location of the favela is very privileged because of the views but the density of inhabitants living there is overwhelming. Officially there were living 65.000 people but in reality there were 200.000!

The entire area is full of houses built by themselves and painted with vivid colors. However, we saw a big structure in the middle of the favela that was a public housing project.The neighborhood looked like a colorful ant farm.

We felt very safe walking on the streets of the favela. I am sure that this is because we were in a tour and you probably get a different feeling walking alone in these streets. Our guide told us that the interior of the favelas is a safe place because, he literally said: "they don't shit where they eat".

We tried the Açai, which is a typical cold fruit pure with toppings! Weird taste but refreshing!

Days after we read in the news that the police captured in that favela the boss of drug gang. Scary...

After visiting Rocinha we went to another favela. This one was very different from the previous one. The particularity of that one was that was built like a maze. Its streets were very narrow with little sunlight and all the houses were very compacted. It was difficult to get oriented inside.

One of the things that was surprising to us the most in our visit to the favelas was how invisible is the line between the rich area and the favelas. They are next to each other. A big house can share easily the wall with a favela construction.

We also visited a project for kids to stay and play while they are not in school and their parents are working. Kids go to school half a day so they have lot of free time. With this project they are not in the street and they are playing football and learning for example, how to build things with recycled materials.

Cup made of recycled magazines

From Rio de Janeiro we planned to go to the Paraty beaches but the weather wasn't very good and we decided to go directly to Sao Paulo by bus.

Sao Paulo is very different from Rio, it hasn't the beaches and the green hills of Rio and it has more extension to grow. We also felt that in Sao Paulo people are more stressed, maybe because of the business environment.

In Sao Paulo we stayed in a very big hostel in the center, Sao Paulo hostel. If we had to come back again, we would stay in Vila Madalena which is a nice area full of young people and nice restaurants. But on the other hand, our hostel was very convenient for the subway and to get to the airport by bus.

In Sao Paulo we visited Avenida Paulista and the Modern Art Museum (MASP) by Lina Bo Bardi, one of the first modernist female architect. We also visited the theater.

MASP

In Sao Paulo we also met our friends for dinner. Antonio, Ricardo and Renata, it was so nice to see you again!

NEXT STOP: Uruguay!

Natal and Pantanal - buggy through the dunes and more wildlife

From Manaus we shared a cab with Maria and Ovidi to go to the airport. We were going to different destinations but our connecting flights were both to Brasilia. Their flight was departing one hour before ours so we decided to go together to the airport.

We picked them up at their hotel after waiting for them for half an hour. We were worried because we arrived to their hotel but they weren't in their room and they didnt't checked out so we didn't know where they were. After waiting with the cab for 30min they finally arrived with another cab. They went out and they found an accident in the way to the hotel.

We finally all got into the cab and as we knew about the accident we told the driver that the road to the airport was jammed. He literally ignored us and of course, we got stucked in a huge traffic jam.

We arrived veeeeery late at the airport, half an hour before Ovidi&Maria's flight departure. Luckyly they arrived to the check-in desk just in time, we said goodbye to them and they run to the gate.

After they left, the guy from the check-in desk told us that he changed our flight and now we were going with the same plane that our friends were taking. So after all, we all got in the same plane. When we were inside the plane and our friends saw us we couldn't stop laughing! Nobody could imagine that one hour ago, when we all were stuck in that traffic jam.

In Brasilia we said goodbye to our friends and we took a flight to our next destination: Natal. In Natal we stayed in a nice hostel, Albergue da Costa. We basically took it easy in Natal. We went to the beach, we ate delicious shrimp and we went to have dinner to a brazilian rodizio. Too much meat for us!

We also did a tour in a buggy, that is one of the things you have to do if you visit Natal, and we loved it!

Our buggy driver, Moal, picked us up at the hostel and we spent the whole day driving through the dunes and the beaches from the north of Natal. He drove like crazy and sometimes it was a little bit scary and difficult to hold ourselves to the buggy. But we survived! and it was worth it!

The sand dunes, the lagoons and the beaches were spectacular!

Crossing the water with the buggy on top of a wood plataform
(look at the horse!)

Refreshing "abacaxi"

Our buggy driver, Moal

After our relaxing days in Natal we took a flight to Campo Grande. In Campo Grande we booked a tour to Pantanal with Pantanal Discovery, which is a company recommended in the Lonely Planet. After the tour, we realized that we probably could booked the tour directly to the lodge and it would have been half the price we paid.

In Pantanal we stayed at Lontra Pantanal Hotel. It was a nice hotel with delicious food and better rooms than the one we stayed in the Amazon. This time we had air conditioning! We slept in a dorm with all our tour mates: Robin, Queli and Alicia.

In Pantanal we did a lot of activities! piranha fishing, boat trip, treks, safari,...

Pantanal is a floodplain with lots of different plants and animals. The biodiversity of this area is amazing! It is incredible how many different animals we saw! lots of weird birds, looots of caymans and "capibaras" which is the largest rodent in the world!

The typical Pantanal bird

They look like logs but they are caymans!

A family of capibaras

Panoramic view from the top of a tower

NEXT STOP: Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo!!