The remainder of our stay in Salvador mainly consisted of various periods of trying and failing to stay awake until catching our flight to Rio de Janeiro later that morning.
Rio was our third, and best carnaval experience. This may have been aided by the fact that we were able to hang out with some friends who could take us around to the good places. Not to mention that they had also arranged accommodation for our three nights in town, a fact we were now extremely grateful for.
After crashing out for a couple of hours, we headed out to a bloco, Rio-style. As in Salvador, it was a big truck with speakers and a live band, but this one was open to whoever wanted to go, and had a much better vibe.
The next day, we attempted to visit the 30-metre tall statue of Jesus, but getting tickets for the train to the top of the hill that day turned out to be impossible, so we headed to the 'Sugarloaf', a big chunk of rock sticking out of the coastline with a great view of the city.
After seeing some of the famous Samba Parade on TV, we decided to see if we could get in the next night to see it live. Eventually we found somewhere which had some available. Tickets go for up to AU $700 each, or much more than that if you get a private box, but we snagged some in the public section for a fraction of that.
The Samba Parade is actually a competition between 12 different samba schools. Over two nights each school dances their way down a 1.5km strip, lined by grandstands. Each school takes up to an hour and a half each, and has thousands of people, so each night starts at about 9pm and finishes at around 6am. Most people pay to join in, and mostly wear large, colourful costumes, shuffling down the strip, and paying a few hundred dollars each to buy their costumes. The various blocks of costumed performers are punctuated by huge floats with more skilled performers. And the whole time, the unique song for each school is being sung on a loop by the tireless musicians, and occasionally by the crowd.
We ended up bailing during the second-last school, at around 3am, and made it home by about 4. All in all, a fun night out.
Over the next couple of days we saw bit more of Rio, and finally made it to see Jesus (which is a pretty impressive statue). On the 25th, we finally got in a swim at Copacobana, said goodbye to our friends, and headed to the airport. Our destination:
Word 3: Las cataratas
Definition: The waterfalls
The Iguasu Falls are located at the corner of three countries: Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. The former two have the views of the falls, no doubt much to the chagrin of Paraguay. It worked out well for us, since for some reason Australians require a visa to get into Paraguay, and we didn't have one.
The first day, we visited the Brazilian side. For the most part, this turned out to be less impressive than we had expected, but it was still pretty. Snr. Cohen decided to take a hellicopter ride at the end of the day, and enjoyed himself thoroughly - his fist one ever, apparently. At the end of the day, we skipped over the border into Argentina, and just like that our time in Brazil was over. It was a little bit odd to be back in a Spanish-speaking country again, and we are still working on excorcising the smattering of Portuguese we picked up From our vocabulary.
The Argentinian side of the Falls turned out to be much more impressive. First we visited the Gargatua del Diablo (Throat of the Devil), which has a huge amount of water flowing over it. Next was the Circuito Superior (Upper Circuit), which goes over the top of the smaller, but longer string of falls, then the Circuito Inferior (Lower Circuit), which provided views from the bottom of the falls.
At the river, we hopped on a speedboat, which took us for a short tour of the falls, and then right under on of the biggest - twice! It was a blast! Hopefully the video will make it onto YouTube for general consumpion at some point.
That night we hopped on an overnight bus to Buenos Aires. We caught a tango show last night, which was fun. Andrew headed off to back to the States tonight, and tomorrow Los Dos Davides are back on their own, flying down to Patagonia, in the southernmost part of the continent. It is going to be a bit chilly, we fear...
Well, now it is time for dinner, so for now, hasta luego!
Los Davides (plus one)
2 comments:
hey! you missed the ipanema beach and the black beans in KFC. :P
Whoops... So I did. And they were the best part of the trip too :)
Actually there are lots of things I had to leave out, or I would never have finished writing these things...they are pretty long already.
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