Brazil

To catch my flight to Brazil, I had to get up at 3.30am - I was not impressed and nor was the guy on duty at reception as he was having a nice snooze before I disturbed him!! I made it to the airport, check-in, boarded the plane and off we went. All was pretty uneventful. I arrived at Rio De Janeiro where I was to be collected by my friend Keila who I had met in Santiago when I first came to South America. I waited and waited for her, not quite sure where she was. After an hour I figured something wasn´t quite right so I went to the information desk to ask where the phones were so I could call her. The lady very kindly lent me her mobile instead. It turned out the Keila was not in fact not going to be collecting me but instead was at her beach house in a tiny place called Jacone. She decided to go the night before. So she told me how to get there and off I went. First I had to catch a bus from the airport to Niteroi bus station (about an hour away). It turns out that buses in Brazil are not made for backpackers!! They have turnstiles you have to go though to get on the bus and me and all my baggage did not fit through. The poor bus driver had to help me lift it all over the barrier!! So I made it to the bus station and then wandered around trying to find the bus to Jacone. I could not see it and tried to ask at the information desk for help. They did not speak English. But luckily for me a Brazilian lady heard me asking for help and came over to offer her services as she spoke English - yeah!! So with her assistance I found the right bus and off I was on the second part of the journey. After another hour I eventually arrived in this tiny place and by then it had decided to start raining. I have no wet water gear so me and everything I owned just got wet!! My next mission was to find Keila´s house. She had forgotten to give me her house number so I tried calling her. The number she gave me did not work. Eventually an old lady felt sorry for me and let me use her phone (she dialled the number as she figured out what was wrong!). I managed to get hold of Keila, she then came to pick me up and we went back to her house. That night we all just chilled out and drank beer. We couldn´t go anywhere as it was raining a lot! The next day we again stayed in the house because of the rain. In the afternoon we then drove back to Rio as everyone had to go to work the next day (except for me of course!!).

The next couple of days I tried to tour Rio but it just rained and rained and rained. Eventually I got bored of this, so I caught a bus to a town in the hills called Petropolis. It was where the Portuguese royal family used to go on holiday - so there you go!! It was a very pretty place so I stayed for a couple of days and saw the sights - which were all indoors unlike Rio. I then returned to Rio and caught a plane to Sao Paulo where I was met by a friend of my Mum´s - Anneke Chatwin. I stayed with her for a week and pretty much took it easy. It was still raining quite a bit so we couldn´t do too much. But there was a swimming pool so I took advantage of that and I walked Anneke´s dog Mia a lot as she was soooo cute. I also met up with my friend Lucianna who I had lived with in Manly. I wasn´t too keen to do much in Sao Paulo as everyone I met kept telling me really nasty horror stories of what had happened to them. Pretty much everyone had been robbed or assaulted in some way. Therefore I felt the best thing was to stay in the safety of Anneke´s flat and surrounding area as it was all fenced off and no one nasty could get in. I had a really great, relaxing time and Anneke was a fabulous hostess.

I then returned to Rio where I decided that I would stay in a hostel in Ipanema as it was near the beach and it wasn´t hard to get around. My friend Keila lived in Niteroi and it always took me an hour to get into Rio! I met some lovely people in my dorm - Claire and Jules from South Africa, Hannah and Christine from Australia and Rachel from the UK. On my first day I went up to see the huge Christ on the hill with Claire and Jules, but unfortunately the weather was terrible and we were all of 2 meters from him and could not see him at all because of the clouds - my photos are great!!!! On the way down we saw some tiny monkeys so we fed them bananas. That evening we all went to the Artisan market in Copacabana and we all ended up buying Havaianas!! The next day the weather had cleared up a bit so I went to the beach. In the evening we went to Sugar Loaf Mountain to watch the sunset over Rio. We were really lucky with the weather as the clouds and rain managed to stay away :-) It was absolutely beautiful up there.

The following day we decided to try again to see the Christ on the hill. This time we were much luckier. The weather stayed good and we got some great photos of the Christ and of Rio. At around 6pm Claire decided that she wanted to go swimming so we all went along. I have to say it was absolutely freezing. It doesn´t help that the sun was setting and therefore you couldn´t warm up when you came out of the water!! But it did wake you up!!

Nearly everyone left the next day apart from me and Rachel. I decided to stay in Rio for the rest of my time in Brazil. There are a few reasons for this. First I am slightly fed up of buses and things always going wrong and I really don´t have the energy to travel around. Second, the stories I have heard of what has happened to people while they have been in Brazil is unbelievable. Every day when we would return to the hostel we would hear of another person who had been mugged or had something stolen. I have to say this is the only country that I felt very unsafe in. And I don´t know any Portuguese and I would much rather improve my Spanish!! So because of all this I have decided to leave Brazil early and fly to Spain and spend more time there.

So in my last days in Rio I was just sorting things out for my departure. I met up with my friend Keila again and collected the bags I had left at her house. The amount of luggage I have now is unbelievable - I think the people at check-in are going to have a heart attack when they see what I have!! So I have just been pottering around, going to the beach, drinking Caipirinhas and avoiding being mugged!!

I can´t believe I am now leaving South America, I have been here since July and I have had a wonderful time. I have met some fantastic people and had some great experiences and some bad ones, but that is all part of travelling :-) So now it is onto Spain....

Chile - again!

I went to Santa Cruz airport to catch my flight to Santiago. I went to the check-in desk and thought I would pass by with no problems - not quite!! I handed the guy my paper ticket and he nearly had a heart attack!! He had never seen anything so big in his life and the date on the ticket was different to the date that day (I had changed the flights). He took this straight to his manager and they spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out what to do. After a while I enquired what the problem was and they said that they were trying to figure out if they needed to charge me a fee for changing the date of my ticket. I told him this was not necessary as I was allowed to change my flights as much as I liked and did not have to pay a fee - he did not believe me!! But surprise surprise after a few phone calls it turned out I was right! So to compensate me standing at check-in for what felt like ages they upgraded me!!!!! Now this sounds a lot nicer than it actually is. The plane I was flying in is a small plane and business class in fact has the same seats as economy but has an extra 2 inches leg room instead. But hey, who am I to complain - so now I have flown business class - although it really isn´t that impressive!!

We had a stop off on the way to Santiago, which was also in Chile. Because it we were now in a new country we were all required to get off here and go through immigration. But before we were allowed to get off the flight they had to sterilise the aircraft - all very technical stuff!! A guy boarded the plane with..... bug spray!!! He then walked through the aircraft spraying it randomly - sometimes at people!! After we had completed this process we were finally allowed off the aircraft, went through immigration and then we were all back on the plane again and off we went to Santiago. I got to Santiago fine, and went to my hostel via about 5 other hostels in the city as I was on a bus which drops people off along the way so I got a good tour of the city!

I had a nice time in Santiago - for a start the weather was amazing - it certainly beats it when I was there 3 months earlier and it just rained and rained and rained. I also felt a lot safer than when I first was here. After travelling around all the other South American countries, Santiago comes across as a piece of cake, so I spent the few days I was here just chilling out!! Although for a country that has a better reputation than the other countries, they do keep their shampoo and chocolate locked away!! It is really strange. You wander around the supermarket and the only things that you have to buy separately because they are locked in cupboards is the shampoo and chocolate (not the alcohol which is by far more expensive!). So I think these must be very important goods to the Chilean people and they clearly get shoplifted a lot - very strange indeed!!

While I was in Chile I did a day trip to Valparaiso which is on the coast. It was a lovely place, but practically deserted. I discovered later that it was in fact a holiday (these South Americans seem to have holidays all the time!!). I wandered around and then went back to Santiago.

It was then time for me to leave Chile for good and catch my flight to Brazil...