Maracana - FlamenGhost Town

Saturday was Lilly's birthday and we mainly took a break from tourist activities. In the (late) morning we went to the Red Bull Air Race on Flamengo Beach, complete with giant screens and loudspeaker commentary in Portuguese and English. This is supposed to be a grand prix for planes and Rio was the fourth race of the season, I think. They set up giant inflatable cones to act as gates, out in the harbour, and planes have to fly a course through them in the fastest possible time. It's a time trial rather than a race, with penalties for clipping gates, flying too high or at the wrong angle - Saturday was qualifying, Sunday was going to determine final positions, with a bonus championship point for the fastest circuit on Saturday so that anyone who's sure of qualifying from their first run can really go for it on their second. Or as the commentator put it, "He can really go bananas - it doesn't matter if he hits a gate". I just love the idea that any aeroplane flying at up to 350kph can hit anything without it mattering. (Of course, the gates are so silky soft that when one was clipped, we didn't even notice as it deflated very slowly.) I was a bit sceptical that this would hold our interest, but they rattled through nicely; and it turns out that if you hold it on a beach in Rio, with Sugar Loaf mountain in the background and lots of enterprising chaps selling drinks and prawns-on-sticks, it's good fun. As it turned out, rain on Sunday meant that the action we saw counted as final positions.

We planned to visit the Carmen Miranda museum but, typical of our luck here*, it was closed for maintenance. We found the biggest mall in Rio to make up for it, saw the new Woody Allen film Whatever Works (asking Larry David to act does not work), and after discovering that our intended restaurant had closed down, we had a nice Thai meal.

* I was *not* secretly pleased; it was Lilly's birthday, after all.

On Sunday, in between bouts of torrential rain, we went to the Hippie Market in Ipanema (not very exciting) and then on to the Maracana for what should have been the footballing highlight of our tour: Flamengo v Sao Paulo, the first game of the Brazilian league season*, in this huge, famous bowl of a stadium.

* Coincidentally on the day the Premier League season finished - we saw enough of the last games over lunch to know how that was going to turn out.

The Maracana is pretty cool, if a little rough around the edges, but the big letdown was that nobody thought this was an important game, despite being between 'the biggest team in Rio' and 'the best team in Brazil'. There seem to be dozens of competitions here - you can see live football on television pretty much every night - including the Brazilian Cup, state championships, and significantly the Copa Libertadores. Both teams had played midweek and had already arranged their quarter-final fixtures for the following Wednesday (with a speed that would be impossible in Europe). Both decided to prioritise the CL and, apparently, 'agreed' on Saturday that they would field weakened sides. The fans knew, and couldn't be bothered turning up. I haven't seen attendance figures, but there couldn't be more than 15 thousand people in a stadium that holds 90.* There were few apparent restrictions on where you could sit - some people had whole sections to themselves. In one saving grace, we were sat close to the largest, noisiest posse of home fans, so the atmosphere was decent, although the vast swathes of empty seats opposite us was rather distracting. And the game wasn't bad, apart from some shocking finishing - a lot of enthusiastic but unstructered attacking led to a 1-1 with plenty of chances towards the end. The only players of note were Manchester United reject Kleberson, and the veteran Dejan Petkovic, who was one of the stars of my Plymouth Argyle team in Championship Manager many, many years ago. So probably of interest only to me.

* Oh, the other excuse I was given for the attendance was that it was Mother's Day here! Honestly, we've seen more people in Flamengo shirts around town this week than there were in the stadium.

Nice to see that some football songs are common across S America, even with a different language - our favourite is a distinctive "Allee-allee-allee-ey" (repeat 3 times). The fourth line is slightly different in Portuguese than Spanish, but close enough.

Monday was our last day in Rio, and we've done pretty much everything we wanted to do - so not that many options left because pretty much every museum, etc in Brazil is closed on Mondays. I did manage to stir myself to go for a run along Copacabana beach. One of the nice features here is the pavements, believe it or not - they're mostly composed of small black and white tiles in patterns, and each street has its own pattern. Copacabana, for example, has a distinctive wave pattern that you see on some souvenirs.

At lunch we realised we still hadn't been to a rodizio - basically an all-you-can-eat with a salad table*, and waiters bring round a variety of grilled meats on skewers and carve them onto your plate. You get a little card with a green side for 'more meat!' and a red side for 'I will just eat the meat I have on my plate but I may well want more meat soon'. We went to a place called Carretao - pretty good.

* Lilly had all-you-can-palmito.

When the rain returned, we spent the early evening watching Shutter Island and disagreeing on whether the ending lets down an enjoyable film (hint: it does), and dinner at Braseiro da Gavea for one last chance to be baffled at the size of portions (my grilled sandwich and chips both featured in the same section of the menu, but the chips were enough for 2 or 3 people). We'll never understand.

Next: an overnight bus to Sao Paulo, where music from the driver's cabin and snoring will keep us awake, a flight to Lima and then another to Cusco. Just the 19 hours total. Hopefully Machu Picchu will be well worth it...

Lilly's Highlights & Recommendations # 25 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

(Now with added photos!)

We spent 8 days and 9 nights in Rio in total so plenty of material for a Top 5 and some added extras...
1. Inside Rio City Tour - an excellent half day tour. Stops at: Cristo  Redentor (unfortunately under scaffolding, but you do get a sense of the scale and some great views), Maracana football stadium (but only
the Hall of Fame where you can stand in famous players' footsteps. This is fun (there is one female player with tiny feet!) but we would have been disappointed not to see inside the stadium if we hadn't been going back), the Sambadrome (nothing much to this outside Carnaval apart from the bank of seats where the main Carnaval parade takes place but you can try on a Carnaval costume which is fun and heavy!), Cathedral of San Sebastian (a bit of a modernist monster from the outside but absolutely stunning inside - one of the surprises of the trip), Sugar Loaf Mountain for sunset (scary cable car ride, amazing, amazing views). I would definitely recommend this tour which saves a lot of faffing around trying to get to the individual sites yourself.

2. Favela Tour - the raison d'être of this 3 hour tour seems to be to prove that the favelas aren't as lawless as they are normally depicted and that 90% of the people who live there are law obiding citizens not gun toting criminals. And it suceeds. At no point did we feel unsafe or witness any guns or crime and the scruffy houses, masses of telegraph wires and street stalls reminded us of Vietnam more than anything. However, there are two sides to any story and in this way the tour disappoints. They are clearly keeping you away from the
poorest areas, which I suspect are really shocking and of course the reason you feel safe is because 'security' is being provided by the drug lords and their lackeys who want to keep the police off their patch. I suspect our 'security' is someone else's nightmare. Having said all of that it is worth doing - the Marcelo Armstrong tour we did donates a large proportion of the cost to a community school - and it is the only way you will understand the massive contrast between rich and poor in Rio (often only separated by the thickness of a wall) but I did feel that we were only getting one side of the story.

3. Street party in Lapa - what a way to see in my 30th birthday! The streets of Lapa turn into one big party on Friday nights. The main square is filled with food and drink stalls and there are so many people trying to fit in too few bars that the streets are full with people having their own party. We started the evening with the strange experience of drinking Capirinhas while standing on a petrol station forecourt and finished it in a bar with live samba music! The whole night felt really Brazilian and wild - they really know how to throw a
party! We had also met a couple of really nice Canadian girls (shout out to Melissa and Becky) at our hostel who entered into the birthday drinking with spirit! A great night; I completely forgot to be depressed about being 30!

4. Selaron Staircase - a public staircase flanked on either side by residential buildings leading up from Lapa to Santa Teresa barrios. The thing that sets it apart though is that it is completely covered in a mosaic of tiles. It is the work of Chilean artist Selaron who has painted some of the tiles or had them donated. It is bright and
beautiful. One of my favourite things to see in Rio.

5. Santa Teresa - this is a largely residential barrio that sits on top of a hill above the Lapa and Centro barrios. You can reach it via a tram which has been running across the Lapa Viaduct for over 100 years. Not a very efficient way to travel but worth it for the authentic 'old Rio' feel and to see the kids hang off the outside of
the tram! (The tram isn't far from the municipal theatre in Centro which has been *beautifully* restored and is in a gorgeous Parisian style.) The barrio itself is bohemian, artsy and scruffy but is the prettiest barrio in Rio (it feels a bit like you have gone on a day trip to a small local town) and is worth a couple of hours wandering
around.

There are some other things which I feel like I should mention:

Red Bull Air Race - a fun couple of hungover hours spent at this on my birthday morning; sat on Flamengo beach watching light aircraft pilots do time trails through various gates, while eating prawns on sticks and drinking beer (me, not the pilots!)

Botanical Gardens - not an especially beautiful botanical garden; a bit short on flowers. But it is a lovely peaceful park amid the madness of Rio and does have some lovely orchids and cacti.

Beaches - you might be surprised that I haven't mentioned Rio's beaches. That is simply because they aren't the best we have seen in Brazil. I can only really describe them as urban beaches. The two most famous beaches (Ipanema and Copacabana) are separated from a 4-lane road by a matter of a few metres, and therefore don't have the charm even of other city beaches we have seen such as Bondi in Sydney which
still retains a suburban seaside town feel. Still, they do give the city a real buzz and in some ways feel like the true heart of the city.

Shopping - I feel as if the shopping in Rio isn't very good, but I still managed to buy a lot of stuff! I think the thing about it is that it doesn't have many recognisible international chains or many independent boutiques, but what it does have is a lot of chain stores which I have only seen in Brazil which sell really nice stuff. I
particularly liked Oh Boy! and Dress. Havaianas are a bargain too of course as they are Brazilian made.

Maracana (Flamengo 1 - 1 Sao Paolo) - surprisingly the least atmospheric of the S American football stadiums we have been to despite it being Brazil's national stadium. This was probably due to the small attendance (apparently the result of a number of key players being rested in advance of the semi final of their Champions League equivalent) although in a 90,000 seater it must be hard to fill it very often. Still, the Flamengo fans were noisy enough to give us a picture of what it must be like when it is full. Wow!

Food - nothing particularly special to report on the Rio food scene. A lot of grilled meat and Italian influenced food as usual, but with more Oriental options which is good. My best meal in Rio was a palmito pizza (at Boteco Belmonte) which seemed to have no tomato and a ton of cheese and was delicious! Caipirinhas continue to play a big part in the Brazil experience. I wasn't aware that they came in any fruit
other than lime, but they do -lots! It has been fun trying out the different flavours (and cheating by substituting the cachaca for vodka or sake). My current favourite is passionfruit with vodka!

Buzios - we did a day trip to the 'Saint-Tropez' of Brazil (discovered by Bridgette Bardot in the 1950s - Bardot shops, restaurants and street names abound). For less than £40 each and including a 2 hour boat trip (with free (weak) Caipirinhas and opportunites to jump off into the beautifully warm sea), a buffet lunch and a couple of hours to wander around the swanky shops it was a really good value, fun day out. The beaches and town don't quite match Paraty though.

We also saw a few films while we were in Rio (we like the cinema,ok?).
Here are some quick reviews:
Iron Man 2 - lots of fun. In a similar vein to the first one. Robert Downey-Junior is ace and the Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell baddies are great. Shame the female parts are useless.
Whatever Works - a very lightweight Woody Allen comedy. You also have to like Larry David (and a distinctive Allen script) which isn't easy but I'll forgive him anything because of Seinfeld. Enjoyable but very
much an acquired taste.
Shutter Island - I thought this was absolutely brilliant. Clever and thrilling. Brilliantly filmed with an award winning (in my opinion only it would seem) turn from Leo DiCaprio. Very much recommended.

Finally, although it doesn't really have a place in the Rio top 5 as it was our previous destination I didn't do a blog on Paraty and just wanted to use this opportunity to sing its praises. The beautifully preserved colonial town is, well, beautiful. A mixture of whitewash and splashes of colour and all set on a river and the sea. We spent one day doing a private boat tour (private by default - no one else in our nice hostel signed up) of the local beaches and it was amazingly beautiful. All for less than £10 each. Paraty is a real Brazilian highlight.

Next stop (breathe deep!) Cusco in Peru!

The grill from Ipanema

On Wednesday we hit the Centro region of Rio, which is much more salubrious than the centre of Sao Paulo. We walked through a bit of Flamengo Park - a long, thin stretch of greenery along the harbour - past the war memorial, then failed to get into the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) because we hadn't realised it didn't open till noon. So we had a wander round the heart of Rio in baking sun, looking at various cathedrals, the library, the Museo das Belas Artes (modelled on the Louvre, sans pyramid) and the rather grand theatre. Tucked away around here is the Traversa Comercio, a nice set of back streets full of restaurants which was quickly filling up with local workers having lunch. One of the main streets runs for a few hundred metres with nothing but banks, and it swarms with people at lunchtime. We popped back to MAM and again failed to get in, as we hadn't noticed a very small and understated piece of paper saying that it was closed for a month in preparation for something or other. Bah. (Bizarrely, both times we came here we saw different people going past on segways. I'm not sure how that leads into anything...)

Next we headed for Santa Teresa, an old region of Rio perched on a hillside. You can take a tram up here, as people have done for over 100 years over the Lapa viaduct (a former aqueduct). In fact we waited what felt like 100 years for a tram, which eventually filled up and set off very slowly with people hanging off the sides. Should have stuck to the bus. Anyway, Santa Teresa is a real ramble, with some pretty if tired houses, and a few shops and bars but nothing exceptional. We walked back to the viaduct (overtaking a tram, which had got stuck behind another tram that was performing maintenance on the overhead cables - honestly, stick to the buses up here!), calling in at the Chácara do Céu Museum - this is basically someone's house and art collection, not really worth going out of your way for, although on the way out you can walk through and climb up a weird skeletal house that looks like one of MC Escher's staircase pictures - fortunately going up the stairs really does lead you up to some decent views.

Finally, back near the viaduct, we eventually managed to find the Selarón Staircase. Finding anything is a bit of a mission, unless you're in a flat part of Rio, because of the topography - you really need a 3D map to get a sense of which bits are on hillsides. Worth the effort though. This is a set of stone steps linking Lapa and Santa Teresa, and the Chilean artist Jorge Selarón has covered every one of the risers in tiles, some from around the world and some he has painted. Having finished the steps, he's liberally tiled the pavements and walls at the bottom too. Really worth a visit, and I'd recommend walking up it rather than down (I wouldn't worry about missing out on the tram!).

Had a nice dinner at the bar where the song The Girl from Ipanema was allegedly written - and they are keen to let you know this, with reproductions of the original hand-written lyrics painted on the wall - where we solved the problem of having to order meals for two by getting grilled chicken with palmitos. I ate the lion's share (in the modern usage) of the chicken*; Lilly ate the lion's share (in the original usage**) of the palmitos! We then popped into an Irish bar*** to drink Brazilian beer and watch South American football, with a good assortment of locals turning out to support Rio's Flamengo against Corinthians in the Copa Libertadores****, where a few Brazilian stars were milking their former fame. We saw the unusual sight of Roberto Carlos hitting the target from a free kick, Ronaldo scoring with a thumping header despite - or perhaps because - his feet didn't have to leave the ground, and Adriano doing... well, nothing. Great game, really end-to-end. We felt obliged to support Flamengo and were disappointed to see them 2-1 down, then a bit surprised to see Corinthians' keeper go up for a corner and then the local fans cebrate defeat, at which point we realised that this was the second leg, unmentioned by any on-screen caption - Flamengo went through on away goals despite losing on the night.

* Sadly, grilled chicken is not as good in Brazil as in Argentina. Does anyone know where I should look in Rio FerdiNandos?

** Think about it - if you're 'sharing' with a lion, how much are you going to get? Even if I liked palmitos, 'sharing' them with Lilly would probably end up the same way - her current favourite food.

*** Called The Irish Bar. We walked past the previous night when it was very sleepy and 4 of its 6 customers were playing chess. They like their Irish bars around here - Shenanigans, in the same square, had live music and a good atmosphere.

**** South America's version of the Champions League.

On Thursday we went on a favela tour. I might leave this to Lilly to describe in more detail, since she found it interesting whereas I'm a hard-nosed economist with no interest in people... In brief, favelas are areas of poor housing that spring up in the gaps and on the edges of Brazilian cities. There are many of them in Rio, unusually close to the centre and generally perched on hillsides (so some of them have great views). The first one we went to had 85,000 inhabitants! They can be pretty dangerous places, largely because of drug dealers fighting with each other or the police; on the other hand, the drug dealers keep a lid on other crime as much as possible. I guess the main thing I took from this is that the favelas aren't nearly as bad as you might imagine - all of them have electrivity and water (most of the time, at least), they have shops and banks, they take Mastercard, there used to be a McDonald's for a while and local chain Bob's Burgers is still there, most people have jobs... We've seen worse poverty and living conditions in south-east Asia and I bet you'd see far worse in Africa - I guess the point here is the contrast with the rest of Rio, but there's nothing particularly shocking or unique here. So in effect we just got to walk round round a fairly shabby and poor town, which isn't my idea of an interesting afternoon. The tour does feel perfectly safe, though, as you'd hope.

Dinner was a nice Chinese - one of the few cuisines where we're happy to share the same dish - looking out on Copacabana by the touristy night market.

On Friday we took a day trip to Búzios, north up the coast, a small fishing village until 1965 when Bridget Bardot holidayed here, and now a fairly swanky destination with beaches, island and boutiquey shops. We set off early on a misty morning (out of Rio along the 14km long bridge to Niteroi on the other side of the bay - we couldn't see the far end of the bridge for mist), but the sun was blazing by the time we arrived. After a wander around town we went out on a cruise around the bay, pausing periodically to leap off the side for a swim. Very nice, and a good break from the city.
We made it back in plenty of time to hit the busy streets of Lapa, which heave with people on a Friday evening. A chap from our hostel took us up there - for some reason the best place to meet his friends was a petrol station, so we spent a little while outside there having a drink before heading in for a bit of live Brazilian music. There are lots of bars, and street stalls sell food and drink, while music blasts out of every venue. It has the kind of energy I associate with Brazil. Good fun.

I want a Rio and I want one now

The great thing about Rio that immediately stands out is its landscape - a huge bay and wonderful mountains make it probably the most picturesque city we've seen. The rate at which the city has grown, with organic growth hindered by the mountains dotted throughout the city, brings its own problems, but the views are fantastic from vantage points and there are great backdrops wherever you are at ground level. So I'll jump ahead and start with the views.

On Tuesday, our second full day, we took a minibus tour around to see some of the main sights (I'll namecheck it as I couldn't find a single mention using google - an Inside Rio tour). Decent value by the time you work out how much you would have paid to go up mountains, etc, and makes life a lot easier than trying to work out which city buses to take - and all the stops on the tour were worthwhile. We had a small group, just a Japanese couple, a Croat and a Frenchman. Strangely the Croatian and French guys took photos of everything, far more photos than the Japanese which goes against all stereotypes and indeed our experience; but the Japanese couple struck yoga poses in their photos, which was fun to watch.

The highlight was probably Christo Redentor, 'Christ the Redeemer', the iconic statue high above Rio. The view are fabulous, and I highly recommend doing this on your first clear day in Rio as you get a great overview - literally - of the city. Unfortunately Christ is having his 10-yearly maintenance, covered in scaffolding (in the shape of a cross, which amused me given the statue's arms-extended pose). Normally you can see him clearly from a lot of Rio; at the moment it depends on the angle and light as to whether he looks like a man or a box. Up close you can't see too much - the scaffolding over his face has been covered by a painting of his face, as with the current style for scaffolding on famous buildings, but you can't see this from a distance and up close the angle doesn't really work - we were amused to see a guy's legs dangling between the actual chin and the picture of the face. Anyway, you come up here for the views and Christ ain't in them anyway, he's behind you when you're taking your photos. We've had great weather in Rio so far, scorching most days, and it was a fabulously clear day so perfect for this.

On our way up, and down, we saw some evidence of the recent mudslides that killed so many people here, but mostly it's been cleared up now - you wouldn't know, if you hadn't seen the news. Access to Christ was temporarily cut off as a result - really glad it got fixed in time for us to go up there.

The other great view of the day is from the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain, sticking out into the bay and reached via two cable cars. We came here for sunset, and again it's great - not as high as Christ, but a superb view back over Rio, and very nice as the sun sets.

In between we took in a display of famous footprints at the Maracana (the huge national football stadium - we plan to be back here for a match on Sunday); and then the heart of Brazil's Carnaval, Sambadrome - we hadn't realised that the key bit of Carneval is a slow parade, past what looks like a road with many blocks of seating along one side, by each of Rio's samba schools in turn. The rest of the year, it's just slightly sad-looking concrete blocks of seats. But at the end is a little building which inducts favela kids into samba, and for a small fee to this good cause you can try on some of last year's outfits, as Lilly did - photos to follow.

One more stop on the tour was the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Sebastian, one of Oscar Niemeyer's famous works (see Sao Paulo blog). This should be a disaster, a modernist building in unorthodox shape like an overturned octagonal plantpot with a cavernous interior. But inside it's actually brilliant, four huge modern stained glass windows converging to make a small glass cross in the ceiling.

We're staying near Copacabana beach (slightly less cool than Ipanema, but accommodation is easier to find). It's quite high-rise around here - hard to tell whether it's sunny until you actually go outside, because not enough sunlight makes its way inside. The beaches look great, of course, long strips of golden sand separated from hotels and shops and residences only by a dual carriageway (which has funny tiny petrol stations in the central reservation) - it's normal to see people walking through the city in just their swimming cossies. The beaches are also well equipped with volleyball courts (though they seem to be more used for football-style volleyball than conventional rules - it is Brazil, after all) and dozens of little open air bars.

Other scenic features include a large lagoon (with a little island that appears to be taken up by a swanky health club), and spacious botanic gardens (no monkeys sighted even on Monkey River, disappointingly, but some fun cacti).

Lilly was pleased to find that Rio also does malls well, most of which include cinemas - we took the chance to catch the enjoyable Iron Man 2. We were pleased to find that most American films here are subtitled rather than dubbed, although there was a dodgy moment when characters spoke Russian and the English subtitles were missing, so we had the choice of hearing the Russian version or reading the Portuguese subtitles... Fortunately this didn't seem critical, and a couple of hours of air conditioning were very welcome after a long day walking too far in Rio. We're enjoying ourselves and will be here for a week before flying to Peru, so more to follow.

Paraty on the beach

Paraty is a small town on the coast a few hours south of Rio. It has two great attractions*. The first is its historic town, well-preserved from colonial times, all cobbled streets (huge, ankle-breaking cobbles) and colourful painted buildings. The second is its position on the coast, with a host of pretty islands and beaches on its doorstep.

* Lilly would argue three, but I can't guarantee that there will be kittens in your hostel here, so best not to use that on the publicity unless they make kittens compulsory.

On our first day here, we just had time to wander round the historic centre and take a few photos before the inevitable rain fell - our seventh consecutive wet day. Even in this English weather, it's an attractive place. Much like Bruges, almost every building is well kept up. In the face of this rain, we nearly gave up and went to Rio, but in the end we decided to make a stand: we're not leaving until we get some sunshine.

Friday was better - the odd glimpse of blue sky, the sun occasionally struggling to break out. We took the bus to Trinidade, a little village down the coast with some beautiful beaches, all of which have the Brazil-trademark little beach bars hoping to sell you lunch. Unfortunately, every single one follows the Brazilian tradition of wanting to serve you dishes for 2 people, which is not ideal when one of you wants to eat fresh seafood and the other expressly does not, so we retreated to the village for lunch - not such a bad thing as it then rained for an hour. Back to the beach, where we saw lots of kids arrive after school to play football and clamber round the headland with surfboards (an impressively aggressive tide was producing large waves and could occasionally soak the unwary person standing beyond the normal tideline, which may in turn lead to insect repellent being washed off their legs and them being bitten by sandflies or their local cousins and itching for several days).

A pleasant day out, and we also got to see some old-school currency - a 1-real note (this is now normally a coin, with the smallest note in common circulation being a 2). The bus driver gave it to me in my change and had the look of someone who has been trying to get rid of something for days. He was quite amused when I gave it back to him 5 hours later to pay for my return ticket. He then had to do a lot of persuading to get another woman to accept it as her change. I like to think it will come back to him again.

Saturday brought sunshine, at last! Our patience rewarded. Our hostel runs a daily boat tour - though I can't imagine it has been used this week - and as the only people signing up for it, we got a bargain private trip. It really is a lovely bay, framed by forested hills. We stopped on one island for a swim, then pulled up to another for wildlife spotting: eels and many dozens of fish in the water, golden monkeys and maybe capybaras on the shore. Our skipper threw bread to the fish, who went into a bit of a feeding frenzy. We noticed that if we threw from one side of the boat, the fish would immediately retreat before coming back for the bread, while on the other side they had no such fears. Soon we realised this was because we were casting shadows on the former side, and when our shadows moved they thought that some of the many circling birds were swooping. The monkeys were particularly cute, golden hair falling over their tiny faces and long, black-tipped tails, complete with a couple of youngsters - I would wager a small guess at golden-haired tamarinds, though I'll probably be embarassed when I google them. A really enjoyable day out, and near-perfect weather until the sun finally went in around 4pm. (Although we did find the answer to the question what's worse than a cafe that only serves dishes for 2: a cafe that only serves dishes for 2 <i>and they're all seafood dishes</i>.

More great weather on Sunday prompted us to get up early for a wander around the old town in proper sunlight before getting the bus to Rio. It's a great scenic coastal bus ride, bays and islands and deep blue water, and a nuclear power plant just for variety... But Paraty was great, definitely recommended for a quick stop or a few days.

Hostel Kitten 1 protects Hostel Kitten 2

Hostel Kitten 2

Hostel Kitten 1

Wild kittens from the jungle having breakfast in our hostel!

Paradise Paraty

Photos from a beautiful day sailing and snorkelling in Paraty.

If you can't sao anything nice, Sao Paulo

Lilly has done a pretty full write-up on Sao Paulo so consider this an addendum, or my side of the coin. We were going to skip the city entirely - people we know don't have too many good things to say about it - but since it was en route we decided to stop off briefly. And yes, there are a few fun things to do. But I wouldn't really recommend it for a longer stay - with the disclaimers that (a) we didn't see much of it, but (b) we did try to see the best bits, and (c) there are things to like and Lilly enjoyed it more than I did.

And frankly, a lot of SP looks poor and run-down - a victim of demolition and rebuilding, and the to-be-expected problems of a huge city in a country that isn't the richest. Centro, or downtown, which allegedly holds most of the few historic buildings not to have been pulled down, is a frankly depressing place (apart from the odd highlight like the Se cathedral and the Mercado Municipal - which is lovely inside, but feels like a different world, and is priced accordingly with some of the world's most pampered and expensive fruit). The streets are busy but nobody looks happy to be here. I really couldn't wait to get away.

Vila Madalena is a bit better, more affluent and low-rise, but mainly residential so not the most interesting (and a complete maze if you're coming from the metro - as a hint, the main concentration of activity seems to be at the west end of Rua Aspicuelta). Av Paulista is also more appealing, in a business-district-with-occasional-mall sense. But there's little or nothing here you couldn't get in any city of any size.

It's a shame because there are highlights - as Lilly noted, MASP in pacrticular was a really well-curated gallery, with nicely arranged and annotated exhibitions on the themes of portaits (yawn!) and
romanticism. But MASP is also a great example of being constrained by your surroundings - in this case, a building with no ground floor, but floors above and below accessed only by lift, and you could very easily go just down, or just up, and not realise there was another half.

Also, we do like to wander around on foot, and getting around is not so easy. A lot of the city is a maze - not many simple grid patterns here. And I don't think there are many neighbourhoods where you'd want to wander after dark: you want to know where you're going.
But a lot of the roads are very long, so it's difficult to work out a location from an address - the taxi drivers' solution to this seems to be to drive out of your way to the far end of a street and work their way down it, which (combined with one way systems) is particularly galling when you do know where you want to go but the taxi driver doesn't and takes you several kilometres out of your way to get there.

You might enjoy yourself here with someone who knows the city, or even if you speak enough Portuguese to get recommendations. Otherwise, maybe worth a quick look in passing, but certainly not a destination. I'm going to be really interested to see how Rio compares. Everyone loves Rio. Sao Paulo is not so loveable. (PS if you should decide to visit a swanky, expensive restaurant here, don't expect it to take Mastercard, like most of the cheap restaurants do - be prepared to ferret around in the various pockets into which you have divided your cash reserves, and hope you don't have to resort to taking your shoes off to extract those last emergency reserves...)

Lilly's Highlights & Recommendations # 24 (Sao Paolo, Brazil)

We spent less than 48 hours in Sao Paulo which is not enough to
scratch the surface of this enormous city (population 19million!!) but
still enough time (with thankfully only one more rain storm!) for a
largely food related top 5!

1. Mercado Municipal - I have written about food market restaurants
before (in the Montevideo entry) but this one definitely deserves a
mention. Despite an insalubrious walk through the old city to get
there once inside the Mercado is a pristine spot. Food stalls, largely
fruit, meat and deli, on the ground floor and a selection of
restaurants on the upper level looking down over the food stalls. The
distinguishing feature of most of the restaurants is that they all
seem to focus on giant Mortadella sandwiches. I don't like Mortadella
so I had a salt beef sandwich and it was delicious and huge (I swear
the meat was 6 times thicker than the lovely French bread it came in).
I washed it down with a Brazilian canned soft drink which I love
called Guarana Antartica (handily available in a no sugar Zero
format). I definitely think there is a market for it in the UK. Yummy!
After lunch we had a wander around the stalls and I decided to try
Acai, which is a N. Brazilian fruit normally served crushed up with
ice. It is really delicious - the only thing I can compare it to is
mushed up sour cherries. An all round excellent lunch.

2. Figureira Rubaiyat - a restaurant in the posh Jardim Paulista area
as recommended by Bailo. By far the most expensive and swanky meal of
our trip so far but it is a really lovely place. It's main feature is
that you eat in a covered courtyard (there is an inside bar which does
nice cocktails while you wait for your table - about 40mins on a
Tuesday with no reservation) which is shaded by an enormous and
beautiful tree. It must be at least 300 years old and is quite a find
in the 'concrete jungle' of SP. Another thing I liked about the place
was despite a reasonably hefty cover charge there are a lot of nice
small touches: canapes while you wait for your table, a platter of
deli style mise en bouches, delicious cheese filled dough balls and
Cachaca to finish the meal off. On the food itself Paul had a very
good steak, I had seafood pasta which was a bit disappointing (too
salty) but overall a lovely (expensive!) experience! Full of
businessmen and Americans of course none of whom were paying for their
own meal I suspect!

We also had another nice, more low key meal in the Jardim Paulista
area (my favourite area in SP - lots of swanky bars, restaurants and
gorgeous houses belonging to wealthy Paulistas) at a place called
Lanchonete da Cidade which did great burgers and an amazing red fruits
Capirinha.

3. Museu Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP) - SP's main art museum on the famous
Avenida Paulista (a ridiculously long road which covers all the bases
from business district to culture to shopping etc.). The museum houses
S America's largest collection of Western Art and has a good selection
of the VIP artists (Degas, Manet, Monet, El Greco, Van Gogh to name a
few). I particularly liked a selection of portraits of the French
Nobility (18th C) by Nattier. There was also a very interesting Max
Ernst exhibition which was more comprehensive than I have ever seen
elsewhere. They have made an effort to theme the musuem and this works
well, but the building is another example of architectural concept
over common sense (see also 5 below and my previous entry on Curitba's
Oscar Niemeyer museum), still -recommended.

4. Vila Madalena - this area reminded me of Palermo in Buenos Aires.
It is predominantly a residential area but with a smattering of bars,
shops and restaurants. It doesn't have the quantity of Palermo
(particularly in terms of shops) but a lot of the bars appeared to
have the quality. Unfortunately because of our tight schedule in SP we
only had time to go there in the afternoon, which is obviously not the
best time to visit a bar area (particularly in S. America where no one
anywhere before 9pm) but I was still impressed by the area and wished
I'd had time to sample it on a weekend evening.

5. Park Ibirapuera - this is a large park not far from where we were
staying in Jardim Paulista. It is a nice park; predominantly greenery
and some bits of water. Perfect for picnicing, jogging, football etc
but nothing special for the horticulturalist. It does stand out
though as a result of the numerous cultural buildings within its
grounds. We only visited two (Museum of Modern Art (MAM) and Museum of
Contemporary Art (MAC)) but there are plenty of other cultural spots.
MAM and particularly MAC were a bit of a disappointment. The
exhibitions were pretty dull and once again the buildings defied
common sense and are not even that attractive with it. We spent about
20mins working out how to get inside MAC! Having said that it is still
worth a trip on the basis that parks almost always are and it is also
interesting to see just how hard SP is trying to incorporate culture
into the city landscape.

Overall I enjoyed SP a lot. The old city was a bit of a disappointment
(scruffy) and it is does feel rough round the edges (especially at
night when the only people on the street are the people who don't have
anywhere else to go) but it does have a lot to see and do and
certainly knows how to have fun.

You will be surprised to hear that I am on yet another bus. This time
on the way to colonial Paraty. I am expecting something very different
from SP in this tiny town with a population of 33,000.

The Curitiba for all Diseases

Curitiba is a city that is often treated as an interchange to pass through on a journey through Brazil, but it's well worth a couple of days in itself. In particular it has some lovely well-preserved buildings in its historic centre (dating from c1700). There are also some decent bars around here, including a better German bar/restaurant than we could find in the deluges of Blumenau (much to my surprise, Brahma brew a very drinkable dunkelbier - watch out for Blumenau's Eisenbahn brewery, by the way, whose 'dunkelbier' is actually a schwarzbier. I realise this warning may not help, or even make sense to, many people, but I consider it my duty to note it.)

A Brazilian friend described Curitiba as a rich city, and 'not like the rest of Brazil'. It certainly feels like a city in decent shape. The streets are wide and it boasts about its bus network. They have bendy buses with 2 bends - what would Boris make of them? - and you can interchange between bus lines in the many tube-shaped shelters around the city.

One option here is a tourist bus tour of the city, which comes tantalisingly close to giving you good views of the main sights (and you can jump on and off). Unfortunately there are only about 8 seats downstairs and upstairs has an open top and for us it is, as it has been for the last 4 days, raining pretty much non-stop. Ah well. On a rainy day, sitting on the bus for a 2.5 hour circuit of the city seems as good as any other way to pass the time. The bus passes through some nice parks and suburbs - you can spot the nice houses because they have electric fences and barbed wire.

We jumped off once, at the Museo Oscar Niemeyer, a crazy building that has recently had a new addition, 'the eye', which looks a bit like the Lord's media centre, added by ON, a famous architect. Fun design of the building itself, although the art spaces here are amazingly badly designed. Didn't enjoy all the art here but some bits were interesting, including Marcello Grassmann's crazy engravings and rubbings, and Carlos Alonso's van Goghs; and some models of ON's own most famous buildings.

Curitiba is also the starting point for possibly Brazil's most scenic train journey - not that it has much competition since there are only about 4 trains in the whole country. The train takes 3 hours to wend its way slowly through Atlantic rainforest (with guided commentary in Portuguese unless you splurge for the expensive top class - still, you can tell when to look left or right by watching the locals. Left side of the train is best, by the way), which for a while is pretty, with just enough colourful flowers to suggest that it's even better in summer. And for a while it's spectacular, as the train clings to a hillside, taking bridges over waterfalls. The sun rarely threatens to shine on us, and mist intermittently blocks some views, but either low cloud or localised mist gathering in patches below us makes for some breathtaking views at times.

The problem with train journeys like this is that they have to go somewhere - in this case Morretes, a cobbled-street village that is too run-down to be charming and clearly entirely dependent on selling underwhelming lunches and knick-knacks to tourists. Put it this way: you shouldn't worry that you won't have enough time here (and we came on a Sunday, when the stopover is an hour longer than any other day). Fortunately any disappointment was shaken off by the return journey - oh yeah, we realised, the views really were that good. So not an unmissable trip but a good one.

Next up for us is Sao Paulo, a huge city (biggest in the southern hemisphere) that we don't hear many fond words about, but fingers crossed. If nothing else, our bus ride to this 'concrete jungle' is a pleasant journey past green hills and blue lakes, with - predictably - the first sun we've seen in a week pouring through the window. We last saw it set beautifully over the lagoon on Santa Catarina, and it seemed to have decided to go out on that high note and not reappear for days. It would be nice if it sticks around a bit...

Lilly's Highlights & Recommendations # 23 (Various parts of Southern Brazil!)

I haven't done a Brazil blog yet, basically because we haven't stayed in one place long enough for a top 5 but here is a run down of my thoughts so far.

Iguacu Falls - nothing much to add to Paul's blog and the videos. These falls are absolutely amazing and are vying with Halong Bay for my vote for the new 7 wonders of the world (www.n7w.com). In my opinion the Argentinian side is better through - more up close so it is a slower reveal with more wow factor.

Parque des Aves (Bird Park opposite the Falls) - S America gets all the most colourful birds and most of them are here! Beautiful parrots and macaus and lots of different types of Toucans. There are a lot of standard type cages but there are also a couple of large aviarys where you can walk with the birds; the toucans in these were a bit too friendly for me though - especially with their scary big beaks! My highlight were the hummingbirds which really are amazing - perfectly proportioned with wings that move so fast that you can barely see them but which gives them a really elegant flying style. I also dared to touch a snake in their 'animals up close' area, but it was small, docile and firmly under the control of a keeper so I don't think my snake phobia (second now to my saltwater croc phobia - thanks Oz!) was cured!

Hostel Natura (a few kilometres outside Fos de Iguacu) - the best hostel of the trip so far. Beautiful lush garden with a pool, a couple of lakes and plenty of lounging space. I loved sitting in one of the hammocks in the garden sipping a delicious Caipirnha from the bar. Friendly staff as well but the crowning glory is the collection of pets including a dog that loves to chase after limes instead of balls and a lovely stripey cat that I wanted to adopt! It is in the middle of nowhere but it only takes about half an hour on the bus to get to the Falls and there is nothing to do in the town itself anyway (allegedly - I didn't move from my hammock long enough to find out!).

Floripa - Floripa is the nickname  for the main beach area on Santa Catarina island (main town Florianopolis, hence the name) and it has a lot of potential, but unfortunately not in the rain! We had one non rainy day here and we spent that on Mole beach, which is a classic holiday beach - sand, sea and beach bars! There are plenty of other beaches to explore but because of the rain we decided to visit the town of Florianopolis instead. It is a fairly affluent town with a smattering of historic buildings but we didn't see it at its best having foolishly chosen to visit not only in the rain but on a national holiday so pretty much everything was closed. Except for one of the main malls :-)

Rather than staying in the centre of Florianopolis we stayed in a suburb called Lagoa which is the bar capital of the area and is basically the place everyone goes in the evenings to party after a day on the beach. Great choice for our hostel location as it meant we could walk to dinner and drinks instead of having to taxi or bus everywhere. There is nothing to do (or even open) in the day if it's raining though. A good place to get a bit of the Brazilian beach party spirit when the sun shines.

Blumenau - this town is Brazil's 'little Germany' and is the unofficial capital of Brazil's substantial German immigration. We were very curious to see what Germazil would be like and it is pretty strange. A few authentic historic German-style buildings from the 19th C but a lot more modern buildings built in an olde German style in particular the Villa Germanica area which is where the annual Oktoberfest is held and definitely feels like Munich, Disney style. Still, despite the rain it was an enjoyable and unusual place to spend a day or so and we managed to educate ourselves about the variety of German style beers available in Brazil which are a definite improvement on the standard lagers: Skol (yuk!!) and Brahma (ok).

Curitiba - our first experience of a Brazilian city of any size. I am told that it is probably the poshest city in Brazil so I guess it is a good place to ease into the urban monsters of Sao Paolo and Rio! Despite yet more rain we managed to see a lot of the place in the 48hours we spent there, largely by hopping on a tourist bus which took us steadily (and more importantly in the dry) around the major sites of the town. We got the impression that there are some lovely big parks and the wire framed opera house looked good from the bus! But the only place that tempted us off the bus was the Oscar Niemeyer Museum which is primarily about the building (the work of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer of course). It is a quite spectacular example of architectural concept over, well, almost anything else (certainly practicaility and no doubt cost and programme). However, the 'eye' shaped building is pretty striking from the outside (photo to follow one day) and even in the rain it was worth an up close look. The inside is basically an art gallery and although it wasn't amazing there were some good exhibitions on notably by the engraver Marcello Grassman. Strange but intriguing brass rubbings that varied surprisingly little over a 50 year career. There was also some impressive misery art by a S American artist whose name I will need to look up!

We also spent a bit of time wandering around the historic centre, which has some impressive 19th C buildings and a couple of nice squares. There is still a fair amount of miserable modern stuff too though. The best modern innovation here is the bus stop tube. Photo to follow. There are also a couple of nice modern, shopping malls - Mueller and Estacion are recommended. 

Main food and drink mention goes to Schwarzwald - a great German bierhaus with good beers, cheap German food (I do actually love Sauerkraut!) and a very lively atmosphere.

Scenic train journey to Morretes - this is a day trip from Curitiba on one of Brazil's very few mainline trainlines. It is a popular day trip which takes you through the Brazilian rainforest to the colonial town of Morretes. The 3 hour train journey exceeded expectations. I don't know whether it was all the rain we've been having or whether it always  looks like this but the clouds were so low and some of the valleys so deep that you were given the impression of travelling through the clouds on the top of lush green mountains. The photos don't really do it justice but they do give a sense of the atmosphere.

The train arrives in Morretes at 11.15 and picks you up again at 4, which leaves enough time for a wander around the town, a leisurely lunch and a Caipirinha made with the Cachaca which is produced locally. The town was a slightly grubby predominately 19th C town set on a river. Enough to do and see to cover the 11.15am to 4pm timeslot but I suspect it wouldn't be so popular if it wasn't at the end of a stunning train journey. Medium picturesque! The Caipirinha was good though :-)

Currently on another bus on the way to Sao Paolo. The sun is shining which I hope is a good omen for our time in the urban jungle!

ATCITBR # 4

ATCITBR # 3

ATCITBR # 2

Above the clouds in the Brazilian Rainforest # 1

Don't Mention the Warsteiner (or: Blumen Germans)

Brazil is a former Portuguese colony, but it's a big country, and it's seen its share of immigrants from a lot of countries. In the particular bit of south-east Brazil we're travelling through, their heritage is German. Not exactly what you picture in Brazil.

We stopped off for a very wet 24 hours in Blumenau, a town based on an old German settlement and the epicentre of German-style beer brewing in Brazil. It is most famous for attracting thousands of people to its very own Oktoberfest every year, which takes place in its bizarre little 'German village', full of souvenir shops that optimistically stay open all year round.

On our way from the bus station at lunchtime, we discovered that Blumenau also has some of the worst traffic congestion we've ever seen. But the centre of town is quite nice, sitting on the bank of a river (which looked very muddy and high by the time we left) and really feels like it could be somewhere in Europe - quite a few buildings are in the olde white-paint-with-black-beams style, including the old and new town halls, which look attractive if a little false. The former, now a department store, is allegedly the second-most-photographed thing in Brazil (behind the statue of Christ in Rio), which I tend to doubt as this doesn't look like a major tourist destination for most of the year. Still, as I say, a pleasant little stopover to break up our journey.

(It also has a very modern-looking church with three bells in its tower, a rather dry beer museum with very friendly staff who really like their visitors' book signed, and apparently the world's only cat cemetary - with just 7 cats buried there - which we couldn't visit because its parent museum was closed.)

Almost all of the street names and many of the shop names are in German. Unfortunately nobody here seems to speak any German anymore. Too bad, as I speak a lot more German than I do Portuguese, and I'd been mentally polishing it. We had lunch in the German village and were greeted with a "Guten Tag". In my bext GCSE German - which has served me, if not well, at least enough to get me fed in Germany and Austria a few times - I asked for a table for two. I got a blank look and a 'no', which was a bit surprising since the 400-seater restaurant had 3 occupied tables. Once we each clambered over our respective language barriers it turned out that he spoke as much German as I do Portuguese, so we fell back on our usual sign language and tucked into the buffet.

But what about the beer, you ask? A few places in Argentina had Warsteiner on tap, and plenty more had it in bottles. That's a proper German beer. We tried a little Wunder Bier in the German village - I think it may be brewed there. It falls a long way short. If you have time, inclination and preferably a car you can tour a few breweries and check out their tasting rooms. I'm afraid we had none of those, but did get to try some Bierland pils in the unlikely surroundings of a shopping mall foodcourt while sheltering from the rain. And it wasn't bad. Give them another hundred years, maybe they'll get there.

Back on the bus as I write this - and out in the country, it looks more like South East Asia than Europe. Mud and palm trees, small fields with simple irrigation, a mixture of shacks and neat little houses. Still a lot for us to see in Brazil!

The Lagoon Show

First stop in Brazil after Iguacu is the island of Santa Catarina (also known as Floripa, and a major holiday destination for Brazilians). With about 40 beaches and 2 big lagoons, this looks like a great place to spend a week in summer, ideally hiring a car and driving round. We had a great first day here on Mole Beach, a lovely strip of sand with scenic rocks at both ends, some surf and a few beach bars.

Unfortunately it's not the greatest place to be on a wet autumn day like we had on our second day, and as is forecast for the next few, so we're moving on. I would definitely recommend it in better weather, though.

Just to rub in our bad timing, our second day was a national holiday - we headed into Florianopolis, the main city, and everything in the centre was closed. The rain had let up a bit, so we had a wander round to look at a few picturesque old buildings and found a view of the semi-iconic steel bridge that connects to the mainland (currently closed and covered head-to-toe in scaffolding - there is another bridge too, which is functional but dull, in case you were wondering) and, um, found a mall when it started raining again.

It's a fairly hilly place, especially round the coast, which makes walking less practical than a simple map might suggest, but getting around is straightforward by bus. We stayed in Centro do Lagoa, right by the big lagoon, which is mainly a tourist spot but quite fun, with enough bars, restaurants and shops to keep you going. A nice feature is that lampposts and telegraph poles are decorated with charming little mosaics.

Florianopolis itself sits on both sides of the bridge, so you can stand on the west side of the island (carefully, since the coast here is used for an eight-lane highway) and see both city and hills staring back at you from the mainland, like a giant mirror. Some people might even get confused as to whether they were on an island or the mainland...

Brazil is taking a little adjusting to after Argentina. Bearing in mind that Lilly was taught Spanish for a year when she was 12, and I never learned any, we'd done pretty well to get to a stage where we could communicate in restaurants. Of course, that goes out of the window when you get to Brazil, which unlike the rest of the continent speaks Portuguese. It's just similar enough to Spanish to lead you astray.

So in some ways the best kind of restaurant is one where you don't have to read a menu or order, and amongst the locals in Brazil the 'Por kilo' places seem very popular and good value. They just have a buffet, you grab what you like, and then they weigh your plate and charge you by weight. Simple. And just as well, since the one a la carte we've had was ridiculously huge - I think a lot of dishes here are really designed for 2 people (though the ones we had last night explicitly said for 1), which would be fine if Lilly fancied eating grilled chicken every day for the next 3 weeks... In that sense I suspect my ideal holiday partner is Jack Russell.*

* English cricketer who famously ate the same meal every day when on tour to countries whose cuisine he did not trust.

Another local peculiarity is billing - giving you a list of everything on the menu and ticking what you've had so you can pay a cashier on your way out. We've seen this in pubs and even when buying a single muffin from a food stall in a mall...

Finally, although I didn't think much of Argentinian beers (with the notable exception of a brilliant artesan beer called Patagonia that I found in Iguazu, served from a freezing cold bottle even though it wasn't a lager), and the main Brazilian beers seem even less likely to win awards (I was shocked to discover that the main beer seems to be Skol, possibly the worst beer ever brewed), they also have a lot of German-style beers. More on this next time, for reasons I will explain...

A big IF

Iguazu Falls in one word: wow.
Iguazu Falls in two words: just wow.

In today's exciting installment:
* The falls
* The towns
* Why you should pack your goggles
* Where to stay
* How not to book transport in S America

Iguazu Falls is technically a whole series of falls from a very wide stretch of river - to give you an idea how wide, a walkway across most of the river is labelled as 1.1 km long - which forms the border between Argentina and Brazil. Poor old Paraguay just missed out - there's a 3-way border where this river meets another just downstream, but it doesn't get a view of Iguazu.

Each side has a national park and both have done their best to give their many visitors a great view of the falls. If you only do one side, Argentina's your fella. If you do both, and you should*, ideally do Brazil first, I reckon - it gives more of a panoramamic overview, whereas Argentina gives you the up-close-and-personal view. Don't worry, though, you'll get wet on both sides.

* Border control is very simple here so you can easily do a day trip. A good place to be British, though - anyone from the US or various other places that charges Brazilians for visas has to pay a reciprocal visa fee, which is hefty.

We started in Argentina, and rolled up to the park nice and early. First stop: the top of the Devil's Throat, the highest and most powerful section of the falls. As mentioned, you have to walk over a lot of river to get here - the river looks really high and swollen, with no trace of riverbanks, and in places we see bits of old walkways that have been swept away.

Even before we got to the falls, we could see the swell of water vapour rise up in front of us. The Devil's Throat is just immense, a big, curly C-shape of an overhang with water hurtling over the edge down into a cauldron below, which you just cannot see - the falls are so powerful that they constantly throw up spray, and 20 metres or so below is as far as you can ever see. That water is so powerful that every minute or so it throws water up so high that it rains on us. Amazing scenes - by a huge distance the biggest waterfall we've ever seen. (The falls as a whole are a good deal bigger than Niagara - higher and more than twice as wide - though we haven't been there so I can't make a first-hand comparison.) There's a decent-sized viewing platform here with a wire floor, some of which passes directly over the drop-off so you can see some of the relatively tamer bits of fall beneath your feet. It really is enough to make you stop and stare for a good few minutes. Eventually we decided we should move on. We didn't really want to. Even on a slightly overcast and misty morning, they're a great sight.

Away from the Devil's Throat is a much longer stretch of falls, with a smaller 2-stage drop. So they're less powerful, but you can actually see them. There are two good walks, an upper circuit that gives you a great overview and a lower circuit that takes you a bit more up close and personal - you can get seriously wet at one of them. Really enjoyable, great views, and the sun quickly came out to make it a glorious day - I think the early morning was the last cloud we saw in our days here. And as a bonus, the park is full of wildlife - big raccoons, colourful birds and butterflies, and allegedly monkeys (I'm told that you most often see these on an ecological trail, which we skipped).

Normally there is a free boat service to an island at the base of the falls for more views. Unfortunately it's closed due to the high river level, but I don't think we missed too much, and the excess water means that the falls are probably at their best (there is one small waterfall that only flows after a lot of rain). The one thing that struck me about the river below the falls, once you get a short distance from them, is that it feels relatively calm - as if all that water has come thundering over, needs to fit into a much narrower river, but is a bit tired after its exertions so is happy to coast gently downstream for a while.

You can also take a commercial boat ride out on the river, up close to, and in a couple of cases just about under, the falls. This is great fun and highly recommended*, with the caveat that you will get thoroughly soaked - I had a poncho that partly spared me but did a great job of directing water down both the back and front of my neck. Under the falls you cannot see a thing, just feel the force of the water - as a contact lens wearer, even with sunglasses on, I couldn't see a thing for 30 seconds. So I would genuinely recommend slipping on some swimming goggles here and you'll probably get the best view in the house.

* We misread a sign and accidentally signed up for a combined boat-trip-and-jungle-tour-by-truck. The latter half is really not worth bothering with - we saw some trees (one of which, Lilly discovered, she had been eating and enjoying the previous day (palmitos)) and a brief glimpse of biggish spiders.

And just to prove how good the Devil's Throat was, we went all the way back to the top to see it in proper sunlight. Still great, and even wetter.

I should add that April seems a good time to visit - our weather was great but we're out of peak season so the parks aren't too crowded - occasionally you have to wait a couple of minutes to pose for a specific photo - and prices are lower.

Two days later we were in Brazil and went to the Brazilian park. Brazil has drawn the shorter straw, since it has one side of the Devil's Throat and a good from-distance panoramic view of the rest of the falls, but not so much close-up (don't worry, you can still get wet). As I understand it, if you take a boat from here you can only go up to the DT and not the other falls (I believe even tourist helicopters from the Brazil side are not allowed to overfly the Argie bits - very churlish if true). It tries a bit harder to make up for it with a variety of commercial add-ons - rafting, abseiling, canoeing - but the falls themselves can easily be covered in a couple of hours, whereas we spent about 7 in the Argie park. Here we found a good trail for great views of the whole falls, again with various wildlife, and as you get towards the DT there's a big walkway over the river below the falls, where you will get wet from the spray, and an observation tower. Both give good views in their way, though to be honest you never get as clear a view of the DT as I'd like. Still, there are plenty of aerial photos around. So I'd say the Brazilian side is definitely worthwhile but not strictly essential. My advice, on my previously-espoused Peter Jackson theory (see Angkor Wat entry), would be to do Brazil first so that it isn't an anti-climax. Lilly disagrees - she thinks that would diminish the wow factor of the Argie side. Your choice. But given the chance, do come. It's going to stay with us for while.

Other things are decidedly secondary, but I have time for a quick round-up. Next to the Brazilian park is a bird park, which was surprisingly good. It wisely sticks mainly to glamorously colourful birds, of which there are many in South America. There are lots of beautiful parrots, and a great range of toucans, some of which appear to have stuck-on plastic beaks - they look completely fake - and an affinity for Lilly's feet. They also have some token snakes, caimans and a couple of random monkeys. Recommended if you like this sort of thing.

The local town on the Argentinian side is Puerto Iguazu. It's supposed to have a bit a bit of small-town character; we didn't think so and we weren't too fond of our town-centre hostel. The best thing to do in town is to get out of it, and walk up Three Frontiers Road to a point where you can stand in Argentina and see both Paraguay and Brazil, which makes for a photo that is improved by a caption, since it's a pleasant view rather than a great one. All 3 countries have a similar marker.

On the Brazilian side is Foz do Iguacu, a big city by most standards (over a million people) with, by unanimous assent, zero tourist appeal, which was certainly my view of the 20 minutes I spent in it.

So where's the best place to stay? We hardly ever do recommendations on here, so believe me when I say that Hostel Natura is probably the best place we've stayed (and certainly the best value). Safely outside Foz, it feels like a little country farm, with a small pool and two big ponds for swimming, a bar, decent-to-good food, hammocks and loungers, a pool table* and table football, satellite TV and internet, and very friendly staff... oh, and cats and dogs, as you may have seen on the blog already. I had to stop Lilly from cat-napping the stripey cat. We would completely recommend staying here as your base for both sides, as you won't really miss anything in either town.** In fact, we arrived here intending to head straight for the falls and stay 1 night - when we arrived we immediately signed up for a second night and lazed around all afternoon; and spent most of our third day relaxing there too, waiting for an evening bus. Thanks to Rich & Suze for the recommendation.

* Bizarrely the balls are numbered but do not have spots and stripes - instead you are either low numbers or high numbers. The bartender taught me the subtly different local rules, but even under those it's a pain not being able to easily ID which balls are yours.

** Although I had to make one trip in to book our onward bus... Booking travel in S America is a bit of a pain as they seem to have a phobia of credit cards transactions over web or phone. Apparently when they get down to 7 available seats they won't take reservations over the phone. Of course, when they're running out of seats, that's exactly when you really want them to take your reservation... We should really have got the hint after booking our flights from BA to Iguazu with the local airline, Aerolineas, online at about 24 hours' notice. Rather than take payment, they e-mailed us their UK call centre number for us to arrange payment and delivery of tickets... And of course it had closed for the day. We ended up taking the underground out to the end of the line to pay at their offices, where they duly noted our payment in their hand-written ledgers. So I would highly recommend buying air tickets through the major international travel websites...

As I write this we're on a 14-hour bus journey to Florianopolis. You can get high-class coach travel here with (almost) fully reclining seats and (at least in Argentina) something akin to first-class air travel service. Sadly we didn't get round to trying this in Argentina, where it's properly cheap and allegedly more comfortable than this particular bus. An island of beautiful beaches awaits to make the journey worthwhile (hopefully)...