Salvador Frankfurt Flight - April 4th

Today we finish in South America.  As our day was basically wake up, breakfast, pack, lunch, airport transfer, and flight, there is not much more to say.  So instead this blog will be the summary of our time in South America, and of course some comparisons of the countries.

First I’ll start with some stats.  We spent different amounts of time in each country, stayed in different numbers of locations, and travelled different distances, so this will affect some perceptions.  The list is:

Brazil – 41 days, 14 locations, 4335km

Argentina – 31 days, 10 locations, 6327km

Uruguay – 12 days, 5 locations, 1320km

Chile – 6 days, 3 locations, 844km

Paraguay – 2 days, 1 location, 100km

There was also 1 day spent travelling from Uruguay to Paraguay via Argentina which is not included in any of these countries individual counts, and 2 overnight bus journeys in each of Brazil and Argentina which are not counted in the counts of places we stayed in.

The first thing to mention is the total distance covered on the trip.  Between travelling from place to place, and day trips, we have covered almost 13,000km.  The straight line distance from Ushuaia to Salvador is about 5,333km, so we did about 2 ½ times the distance.  Had we travelled the full 13,000km from Ushuaia in a straight line, we would have ended up in Canada somewhere near Winnipeg.  However the straight line distance is enough in itself.  To put it in context it is almost the same distance as Dublin to Buffalo, NY, London to the Equator, or (this one amazed me the most) Warsaw to the Taj Mahal (and I will also add that doing this by bus would not have been as pleasant as Ushuaia to Salvador).

Anyway that is enough stats, time to get onto the overall impression of this part of South America.  Originally I had thought that it would be a close tie as to whether I would prefer Argentina or Brazil, but in the end it was no contest, Argentina was by far the better place to visit.  There are a number of reasons for this, and I’ll list them out in a few categories below, also mentioning which of the smaller countries scored particularly well or badly in these areas.

Accommodation

The accommodation in South America is actually fairly consistent across all the countries, but the value for money changes.  We stayed in hostels, bed and breakfasts, apartments and hotels, depending on what was available, so comparing the best and worst is a bit hard, but I can make a few like for like comparisons.  The easiest to compare are the two apartments we stayed in, in Rio and BA.  There is no comparison, the one in BA was far better.  It was bigger, especially the bathroom, the kitchen was better equipped, the TV and internet worked, and despite the locations being in similar neighbourhoods, it cost 30% less than the one in Rio.  The same ratio could be applied to the other forms of accommodation; generally Brazil was up to 1/3 dearer than Argentina for similar levels of quality.

In terms of quality the two things that stood out about the rooms we tended to get in South America were their size (usually a bit too small) and the bathrooms (usually not quite up to the standards we would expect in Europe, even allowing for the non-flushing of the toilet paper).  However the bathrooms were quite clean, even when they were shared (which was not the case the previous time I was in South America).

Outside of the big two countries, the actual best value for money hotel we stayed in was actually the one in Paraguay, which was the dearest hotel in Encarnation, but the cheapest we stayed in in South America.  It was a full 4 star hotel and really was very nice.  The worst value hotel was probably the one we stayed in in Colonia in Uruguay, there was nothing wrong, although the room was small, but it was a bit dear.  Generally in Uruguay the accommodation was not as good value for money as elsewhere. 

Meals

These should be broken down into breakfasts and other meals.  Almost all places we stayed in offered breakfasts as part of the price (as opposed to India where it was usually extra).  However the quality of breakfasts did differ significantly between places.  Argentina was the worst by far, mostly because local custom is that they only have a croissant for breakfast.  So in some places that was all we got, and in others maybe a little fruit or cake.  The breakfasts got better in Uruguay, but not by too much, and but Chile and Brazil had much better breakfasts, Chile’s being more bread, dairy and cake based, and Brazils having more fruit.  The most random aspect to breakfasts were cereals (cornflakes), you never knew whether a place would have them or not, it was interesting to try to guess.

The poor breakfasts in Argentina were more than made up by the good food the rest of the day.  Generally meals in Argentina were good, and although sometimes expensive, they were still on average cheaper and better quality than Brazil. The steaks in Argentina need no praise, they are reknowned for how good they are, but other things in Argentina are superb as well.  The pizzas, pastas and ice creams are every bit as good as in Italy; and the chocolate is as good as Switzerland.  They have made the most of their mixed heritage to give us great food.  Everything else, bread, salads, wine and beer was very good as well, even McDonalds was pretty good.

This is not to say that the meals in Brazil were bad, actually they were usually quite good as well, they were just noticeably dearer.  Brazil did try to go for quantity to make up for quality in a few cases, but it doesn’t really work for us as in the hot climate we really don’t want to overeat. 

The poorest quality meals we ate were in Uruguay, they just were not that great.  Nothing outstanding, and two or three were particularly poor. Due to a lack of choice in Paraguay we ate in the same two restaurant a couple of times, and in fairness they were good meals, especially given how cheap they were.  From a food point of view Chile was similar to Argentina, and indeed two of the best meals we did have in the whole trip were in Chile.

Drink

I mentioned it above, the wine and beer in Argentina was pretty good, and it was the same in Chile.  Beer is similar throughout South America, thanks to the surprising amount of Germans who emigrated there.  However the wine from Uruguay was nowhere near as good as the other two, and not surprisingly we didn’t try it in Paraguay or Brazil.  Argentina was the only place to have a real pub culture where we could just hang out and have a drink.  Otherwise we tended only to drink when eating.  Some of this is for safety reasons, in Brazil it didn’t feel safe to be staying out too late after dark (of course when we were in the south of Argentina it never did get dark).

On the subject of pubs, I should mention that the best Irish pub we were in was the one in Ushuaia (despite its green beer), while the worst one was in Montevideo, where we were the only people in there at 7pm.  However it was still better than Encarnation, where the Irish pub was closed.

Cost

South America was nowhere near as cheap as I thought it would be.  In the four years since I had been to Argentina and Chile before they had gone up in price by a bit.  They and Uruguay were about 20% dearer than I expected.  So was Paraguay, but we expected it to be cheaper in the first place, and it was.  Brazil though was the killer in terms of price, noticeably dearer than the other locations, not really a value for money destination anymore.

On a related subject, that of the economy in general, it should be noted that all the economies we visited seemed quite healthy, and with the exception of Brazil there were few signs of actual poverty.  Most people wouldn’t have the same standard of living as in Europe, but the shops were pretty well stocked, there seemed to be plenty of people working, locals were all able to eat in the expensive restaurants (sometimes more so than the tourists).  If designations like first and third world still existed it is obvious that Chile, Argentina and Uruguay would count as first world now, and the rich half of Brazil would also.

Towns

We stayed in towns and villages of all sizes, from Sao Paulo, one of the biggest cities in the world, to Cabo Polonio and Ilha do Mel, with only a few hundred residents.  It does make it hard to do like for like comparisons, but it is safe to say that on average the smaller towns were nicer places to hang out than the larger ones no matter where you were.   But these towns were usually tourist towns, and therefore set up for tourists to relax in.  The most local experience we had would have been in the tiny village of Perito Moreno where most people only stayed overnight for the bus, but we stayed two nights.  This was fun because I think we did get a more real picture of rural Argentinian life than anywhere else.

But as for the tourist towns, I have to say I enjoyed El Calafate as a place to hang out.  It certainly was better than Barriloche, which was quite overdeveloped.  Ushuaia was also pretty nice, but it was expensive.  In Brazil Ouro Preto was by far the prettiest and nicest of the tourist towns, although Petropolis was also quite OK.  Perhaps the best comparison of how Argentina beats Brazil is in the two towns around the Iguacu Falls.  Puerto Iguazu was a nice place to stay, Foz de Iguacu was a bit of a kip.

As for the cities, then there is no contest, BA wins by a long way.  Cordoba, Rosario and Mendoza weren’t bad in Argentina, but there wasn’t too much to them.    BA had so much going on that you stay for a month and still not see everything.  In contrast the big cities in Brazil didn’t encourage staying around.  Rio, which does have the most to offer tourists, is not very inviting.  Sao Paulo was surprisingly nice, but we still saw most of the interesting bits in two days.  Belo Horizonte had nothing to offer tourists; Salvador had a nice centre but was even less inviting than Rio.  Curitiba was probably my favourite Brazilian city, but even it only had a day’s worth of interesting sights.

Beaches

We only really went to beaches in Uruguay and Brazil, although we did see the artificial one in Paraguay as well.  Here there is no comparison, the beaches in Brazil were far better.  This is only partially because of the weather (Uruguay was hot enough, but the problem was the wind) but mostly because of the location.  A large part of Brazil’s coast is backed by green mountains, giving great views from the beach, and even those that are not mountain backed, generally have white sand, clear water, and palm trees.  Brazil’s beach towns may also have appealed because they generally were the nicest places in Brazil, with even the largest, Ubatuba, having a certain charm.  Paraty and Trancoso were really nice places to hang out (although expensive even for Brazil) and the two islands, Ilha Grande and Ilha do Mel, were fantastic.

Having said that the best beach of all was in Cabo Polonio but a lot of this was because of the way in which you get there, no boats here, instead big 4x4 trucks take you over the dunes.  And although it is on the mainland, it feels more isolated than the islands due to its lack of electricity.  And although it was a bit windy, we were still able to get a lot of sunbathing done.

Beauty Spots

I think this is a personal preference, but I much preferred the natural beauty of Argentina over Brazil. It does have nice beaches, and the mountains are a surprise, but in the end I thought it was a lot of the same.  Argentina has everything, ice, beaches, lakes, mountains, plains, jungle, you name it and it seems to be there somewhere.

Of course the best single beauty spot, Iguacu Falls, was shared between Argentina and Brazil, but the even here the Argentinian side is better.  The other great spot, Perito Moreno Glacier, isn’t that far behind.  And then three of the next four, Tierra Del Fuego, Lago Roca and Circuito Chico were all in Argentina.  The other, Torres del Paine in Chile, was pretty beautiful as well, and in general the beauty that Argentina has is shared by its long neighbour.

Historical Sites

This side of South America doesn’t have that many pre-European sites, so we didn’t really get a great deal of ancient history like you might in the Andes.  There was one exception, the hand paitings at Cuevas de los Manos, which was nice but not that extensive.  We did get a lot of colonial history, and there is no question, my favourite was Colonia in Uruguay.  As one of the few places where Portuguese and Spanish colonists both built, it had a nice mix of architectural styles.  And it had a nice setting and a nice set-up for tourists.  But Ouro Preto and the Jesuit missions were not too bad either.  The most disappointing historic site had to be the centre of Cordoba, other historic centres, notably Salvadors, extended over many blocks, but really it was a single block in Cordoba with a few churches and a school.  Not really that great a UNESCO world heritage site.

One statistic not mentioned above are the numbers of UNESCO world heritage sites we visited, so here they are.  As some of these are historic, and some are natural beauty spots, I’ll split the totals as well.

Argentina – 5 (2 Natural, 3 Historic) out of 10.

Brazil – 6 (3 Natural, 3 Historic) out of 18.

Chile – 1 (Natural) out of 5.

Paraguay – 1 (Historic) the only one in the country.

Uruguay – 1 (Historic) the only one in the country.

Bus Journeys

The final category here is how we got around.  The buses and roads differed in quality, but in general they were better in Argentina than Brazil.  The real difference was in the overnight journeys, I had no problems sleeping on the buses in Argentina, but in Brazil it was a challenge (which I failed at).  Having said that one of the worst journeys was in Argentina, from Ushuaia to the Chilean border.  But normally the Argentinian buses were comfortable, had entertainment, food, and stopped a lot less.  And the roads were far better once we got out of Patagonia.  So there is no real contest.  Brazil did have decent bus stations, and the best one of all was surprisingly the biggest one, Sao Paulo.  Still because it is a way of transport for all, not just the poorest, in general buses are not a bad way to travel around South America.  They beat the trains.  Although we were only on a couple, this is mostly because there is no way you would travel on them because they are slow and not very comfortable.

Overall then it is easy to see that Argentina wins for me.  I much preferred it.  And despite this being my second trip, there is so much to see that if I went back for another month I could travel around and not visit anywhere I’ve already been.  Brazil is also like that, in fact there is at least 2 months of travel more could be done without getting near repeating, but it is a lot less likely to be revisited by me.  Having said that I still feel the country I need to visit again is Chile, I’ve been there twice, and I still don’t feel I have done it justice.  Uruguay on the other hand has been mostly done, and Paraguay didn’t really have much more to offer either.

Salvador - April 3rd

The warnings you get about Salvador are so bad that you would be afraid to go into the centre of the city to see the sights.  But the old city is a UNESCO world heritage site so we aren’t going to miss this.  But we need a guide to prevent us from wandering into the dangerous areas.  Yesterday we met Carlos, the guy who does the airport run for the hostel, and he also does city tours, so we booked both, the tour for today and the airport run for tomorrow.  So at 09:00 we get into his jeep (the company is called Jeep Tours) and we head off.

Our first stop is the Forte de Santo Antonio de Barra, which is just around the corner from our hostel.  This is an old Portuguese fort which is also the site of the oldest lighthouse in South America.  It is also a unique place in Brazil, in that as it is west facing over a large bay, it is the only place in Brazil where the sun sets over the sea.  We don’t wait around that long, next we head up to the old town and go to another old fort, this one now called Forte de Capoeira, where we see some Capoeira schools.  This is the martial art disguised as a dance that was developed by the slaves in captivity, and which is now one of the symbols of Salvador.  Of course at 10:00 in the morning there was nobody practicing it.

After this we head into the Pelourinho, the centre of the old city, which is the UNESCO world heritage site.  It is a maze of small cobbled streets, with lots of churches (there are 365 in Salvador, it feels like we saw about half of them) and brightly coloured houses.  We wander around, but you do need a guide because a few of the side streets look less than welcoming.  The highlight of the centre is the church of Sao Francisco.  This church is the most ornately decorated church in Brazil, and this is an understatement.  There can’t be many churches in the world with more gold than here.  It makes the ones in Ouro Preto look poor.  And they let you take photos to prove it.  The tiling around the courtyard was actually impressive in its own right, but you almost forget about it once you see the gold.

You almost need a drink to get over the church, so our guide buys us a shot of cachaca, the local spirit used in caipirinhas. The city of Salvador is built on a high cliff overlooking the sea, so to get down to the port area we get a public elevator down which is pretty cool.  Then we look around the market and see a capoeira show.  After seeing the centre of the city we go off to the North end of the city, to see the church of Bonfim.  This is a famous church in Brazil, associated with many miracles, and where people tie brightly coloured ribbons on the surrounding fence.  It is a sight.  We finish the tour with a trip to a headland to give us a good view back across the city, and then lunch in a local restaurant.  It is probably the best value meal we have had in Brazil, which shows the value of coming with a local.  The tour itself was also really good value, at only 55 Reals (£20) each.  I was concerned that the locals might take advantage of the danger in the city by upping the prices for tours, but this was really reasonable.

The tour finished at 3pm, but we spend the rest of the evening hanging out locally.  Apparently Tuesday is the most dangerous night in Salvador.  This is the level of advice you get.  Carlos is leading a pub crawl in the evening, but we decline and watch TV and get ready to head back to Europe tomorrow.

Salvador - April 2nd

After another bad night’s sleep on a bus, we begin our approach into Salvador at about 06:00.  Like any big city it takes an hour to get into the centre, so we arrive at the bus station at about 07:00.  You get so many warnings about Salvador that it is fair to say we were a bit nervous about getting from the bus station to our hostel, but actually it was fairly easy to get a taxi and find it. 

One of our best decisions of the trip was not to cancel our room for the night we travelled on the bus when we discovered that we could only get an overnight bus.  This is because when we arrive at the hostel we are able to get a breakfast, and then go straight to the room where we catch up on the lost sleep from the night before.  It was worth the extra R$90 (about £33) to keep the room, rather than have to hang around until the 14:00 check-in time.

After that we just headed out locally for a bite to eat.  Although the hostel, like so many others, is behind massive walls, and the area doesn’t look great, it does feel a bit safer than the one in Belo, mostly because there are a few shops and a restaurant on the street.  We go to the restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner, and then we walk a few blocks to a nearby large shopping centre.  But to be honest we know already what shops are going to be in there, all the shopping centres are the same.  I think when you have been in a country long enough to recognise all the shops it is time to move on, so I think we are rightly reaching the end of our trip.  We leave the shopping centre before it gets dark, because although the road seemed OK in the day, we still don’t want to risk it in the dark.

In the evening we watch TV with some of the other guests.  It is strange but there are very few people venturing out after dark.  Everyone seems wary here, which does make you wonder why any of us are here at all.  There is little point in travelling to a place if you can’t enjoy it.  Tomorrow we will get a tour of the city and we will see.

Porto Seguro Salvador Bus - April 1st

Our last day in Trancoso begins in a similar way to the others, with a trip to the beach, sitting under umbrellas, and the odd swim.  Although we are leaving today, as with our last bus journey we are travelling overnight, so we have a half day here.  And the hotel owner has been kind enough to allow us use the shower after we have checked out, so we can go to the beach.

Once we come back and shower, we pay a visit to our favourite per kilo restaurant next door, so we can eat a large meal prior to our long journey, and then we depart.  Our hostess organised a taxi to take us to the bus station in Porto Seguro, the nearest big town, which is about 30km and a ferry ride away.  The journey is interesting because the taxi driver has a different interpretation of the lines in the middle of the road when it comes to overtaking (my heart was in my mouth on a few blind turns).  When we get to the ferry he dumps us out and puts us in a local bus van to take us the rest of the way.  It didn’t delay us, but it was annoying because he got paid the full amount for a taxi journey (our revenge is that we have ratted him out to the hotel owner so he won’t get any more runs in future).

Porto Seguro is point where the Portuguese first landed in Brazil, but we don’t  have time to look around.  We just collect our ticket and wait for the bus, watching some Brazilian dating program in the waiting area.  The bus leaves fairly punctually and for the first time we get films on a bus in Brazil (Hancock with Will Smith, and some weird art house American film with Colin Firth that I still don’t really know what point it was trying to make), and we don’t get any catering stops (or any food).

So once the two films are over all we can do is try to sleep so that we have our wits about us at Salvador bus station tomorrow morning.  But this is easier said than done, because the seats for some reason are quite slippery and I can’t lie on them without sliding off.

Trancoso - March 31st

We woke up this morning to quite heavy rain, so this disturbed our beach routine.  Instead we took the time to blog, read and go into town.  By the time we headed into the main part of the village it was actually quite hot, so once we got back to our hotel we headed off to the beach and back to our chairs from yesterday.  Despite the fact that it is a Saturday, it seems the weather put people off because the beach less crowded than yesterday, when it was already sparsely populated.

Again in the evening we go to a good restaurant a stone’s throw away from the hotel, where a local musician is performing, so we get a show with our meal.  The meal is the local Bahian speciality, moqueca, a type of fish stew, which is pretty good.  But it is the setting that makes the meals in Trancoso so good, with each restaurant situated under its own big tree around this peaceful square.  The only problem is that unlike our time in the mountains, the insects are back biting now we are at the beach again.

Trancoso - March 30th

Because we are in a beach resort you can imagine that today was mostly a case of beach, swim, eat, sleep.   Unlike other beaches in Brazil, we didn’t really have a hike to the beach, it was just a five minute walk from the square.  We got a couple of seats on the beach under an umbrella, although of course we had to buy a few drinks from the guys running the stand to get them, but they weren’t excessively priced.  The beach wasn’t that busy, but it didn’t stop an endless line of beach vendors from trying to sell us food and trinkets.  We didn’t want to purchase anything but they were very relaxed about it and didn’t mind no for an answer.

In the evening we managed to walk slightly further this time, and looked around the village at the various shops before settling on the second closest restaurant to our hotel.  As an a la carte menu place it was a lot dearer than the per kilo restaurants, but this place does seem to be somewhere that attracts a higher class of traveller than backpackers.

Trancoso - March 29th

This day started out quite early, because not only did they replace the driver halfway in our journey at about 01:30, they also decided to clean the bus while we were still sleeping on it.  Or trying to sleep.  To be honest with the turns and comings and goings, I wasn’t getting that much sleep anyway.  The journey continued to be twisty all the way to Euanopolis which was our departure point from the overnight bus.  Here we would catch the 12:00 bus to Trancoso, our final destination.

This almost didn’t happen because the bus decided to pull in for another clean 5 minutes away from Euanopolis bus station, and so instead of getting there at 11:30 we got there at 11:56, but we did make our connection.  This bus journey was over 2 ½ hours long, and might have been enjoyable if we weren’t so tired from the stress of the overnight bus journey.  They just aren’t as good as the ones in Argentina.

The bus dropped us off in the centre of Trancoso, but this was about 600m away from the main square where we were staying.  It was a long walk in the heat and with our tiredness, but the tiredness at least disappeared once we saw our hostel and its location.  The main square of Transcoso, called the quadranho, is a very large car free area around which are scattered hostels, restaurants and a number of expensive shops.  A white church is at one end, and behind it is a view overlooking the beach.  It is quite simply a lovely location, and even the horses eating the grass (and shitting everywhere) don’t detract from it, they add to its charm.

After dumping our bags, and having a cold drink, we head off to the beach to have a quick dip and sit on the sand.  But as we are now quite close to the equator, and quite eastward in Brazilian terms, it gets dark quite early so we have to get off the beach at about 17:00.  To be honest, lovely and all as this town is, I still wouldn’t fancy being on the beach after dark.  In the evening we eat at a per kilo restaurant right beside our hotel so it is only a very short walk back after we have stuffed ourselves, for an early night to recover from the bus journey.

Belo Horizonte Euanopolis Bus - March 28th

Today we leave Belo Horizonte and Minas Gerais for Bahia and the beach.  But as all the long distance buses going north in this part of the world are overnight buses, we have to fill a long gap between our checkout time of 10:00 and our bus departure at 20:00.  So what do you do with 10 hours in Belo Horizonte, the answer is quite simple, you get out of Belo Horizonte.  The UNESCO World Heritage site of Congonhas is 80km away, and the buses are frequent enough that a day trip is easily accomplished.

So after leaving our bags in the left luggage in Belo Horizonte bus station, we get the 11:00 bus to Congonhas.  This is actually all the way back the way we came from Petropolis on Saturday, so there isn’t much new scenery to see.  The bus station in Congonhas is of course on the edge of town, so when we get there we get a taxi to the square with the Basilica do Bom Jesus de Matosinhos.  This is the actual UNESCO site, and when we get there we see three other tourists leaving, meaning we are the only ones there.  It is pretty bleak, but luckily for us it means that there isn’t much hassle from vendors, tour guides or anything.  In fact the cleaning staff and security guards outnumber the tourists 10 to 2.  The Basilica itself isn’t the main attraction (and it’s not that big, smaller than average for a church) but the 12 statues of various Old Testament prophets outside it are.  These were carved by the local genius Aleijadinho, and are said to be the greatest of his works.  I have to say they weren’t as impressive as I thought they would be.  There are also some chapels with the Stations of the Cross there which I thought were better.

Once we looked around for about 30 minutes that was it.  Because we were going on a long journey we ate a large dinner in a hotel across from the Basilica, where we were the only two customers, and then they got us a taxi back to the Congonhas bus station, and we headed back to Belo Horizonte.  We were back by 17:00 leaving us 3 hours to kill in the bus station, which we are not experts in.  Luckily it isn’t the worst bus station we have been to, so we were able to pass the time before getting on the bus.

The bus journey itself though was not great.  In order to get from Belo to the coast we have to head back over mountains, and rather than a highway, we were on a narrow twisty road.  The road was dangerous, we saw two recent crashes (recent enough that the police were still on the scene) before we decided to try to sleep.  But sleep was hard because the bus was always throwing you around the place, and because of the number of stops to let others on.

Belo Horizonte - March 27th

As there is nothing really to see in Belo Horizonte, it is simply not a tourist town, you may wonder why we are staying an extra day there.  The answer is simply called INHOTIM.  This is a place we heard about from a German couple we met in Paraty, and we have since looked up.  It is hard to describe, one third botanical gardens, one third art gallery and one third open air art installation.  It is located 50km outside Belo so we get a taxi to the bus station and get the one bus a day that goes there at 09:15.

The journey there isn’t great.  As with all the roads in Minas Gerais it is hilly, but also the added extra of speed bumps really makes for an unpleasant journey.  But once we get there all is forgotten (after a quick drink) as we begin to look around.  As with a lot of modern art some of it is pretty way out there, but some of it is pretty clever and some of it is quite fun.  For example one of the galleries has rooms with hammocks, balloons, or a bouncy floor, and the art is how we interact with them (lazing in a hammock is now art!).  Another was a large number of flower pots in the shapes of different letters and the art is how we arrange them.  So there is some fun.  The best part of all was the price; we got there on a day when they were giving free entry.

We spend the whole day there, wandering around the park, looking at the palm trees (apparently this is the largest collection of palm trees in the world), and eating the high priced snacks where they make up for the free entry.  We had thought that 5 ½ hours in the park might be too long, but there was so much to do that we could have used the whole time if only it hadn’t been so hot, which tired us out quite a bit.  So we were not in a good mood to have the journey back delayed half an hour by the rush hour traffic.

For dinner we wanted to go to one of the best restaurants in Belo.  We knew it was a bit outside the centre of town, so we had to get a taxi, but it wasn’t very comforting when the taxi driver didn’t know where it was.  But he had GPS so we thought it would be OK, except he didn’t know how to follow the instructions on how to exit a roundabout.  Eventually after explaining it to him we got there, but it was a bit worrying as we went down some wrong turns. The restaurant itself was supposed to be in one of the best neighbourhoods in Belo, but when we got to it there was an armed guard standing in the door.  His job was to escort diners to and from their cars.  The people of Belo need some lessons on what makes a good neighbourhood.  Not armed guards.  Anyway the meal was nice and then we got a taxi home.  We had decided to skip the Belo highlight, a church in this area designed by Oscar Niemeyer, because of the dodginess of the area.  But we still got a good look at this dodginess as a weirdo jumped out in front of our taxi on a dark road.  We were sure it was a robbery but our taxi driver just sped past him, later saying he was either a drug addict or a mental patient.  However it doesn’t do anything to change the view that Belo is not really a place for tourists.

Belo Horizonte - March 26th

As today is a Monday, all the museums are closed, so the ones we didn’t get to yesterday can’t be visited.  And because the rain is still around, we can’t even hang around Ouro Preto waiting for better photo shots, so we leave early and head to Belo Horizonte.  This time on the road back in the daylight we see one of the reasons our bus was going slow, there are a number of places where the recent rain has caused a lot of subsidence.  Some of the road is under repair, but the damage is quite extensive.

Once in Belo we go to our hostel and check in.  This is in a part of town called Santa Teresa, which is supposed to be a nice part of town, yet the hostel, and all its neighbours, are behind massive security fences topped with electric wires.   Yet we are assured by the owners it is a safe area.  It is not very confidence inspiring.  I think the Brazilians have a different view of what safe mean.  We ask about getting into the centre of town and they advise us to take the metro, but when we begin to walk to it the road looks so dodgy we turn back and instead take the bus, which isn’t much better, but otherwise we would be stuck in this neighbourhood.

The centre of Belo isn’t that attractive.  There are some nice old buildings knocking about, but it is mostly high rise developments, and the buildings are too far apart to walk to.  One or two plazas look good, but that is about it.  Also it is extremely hilly (San Francisco style) and is therefore tiring to walk around, so all in all we don’t really spend too much time sightseeing.

Instead we go to the cinema.   The film is Safehouse starring Denzel Washington.  That is not really important, but what is interesting is a fact I picked up about the film.  Part of it is set in the shanty towns of Cape Town, but originally it was to be set in the Favelas of Rio.  However it was deemed to be too dangerous to film in Rio.  Rio needs to take a look at itself with the big sporting events coming up.  You know you have sunk to new lows when South Africa is safer.

Ouro Preto - March 25th

The reason we are in Ouro Preto is because it is the best preserved of the Old Portuguese colonial mining towns in the interior of Brazil.  In the 18^th century gold was found in the area, and using African slave labour, the Portuguese exploited it for all it is worth.  The result was that at one point Ouro Preto (the name means Black Gold) was the richest town in all of the Americas.  And this in turn lead to the construction of many fine churches and other buildings.  And eventually this led to it being the first UNESCO world heritage site in Brazil.

After breakfast we begin to walk around the town.  Being a Sunday there is one complication, not that the churches are in use as I had feared, but the museums all only open at midday.  So our early start has to content itself with external photos (they aren’t allowed inside most locations anyway).  Luckily it is sunny at this point, because as midday arrives it begins to rain quite heavily, so we end up having to shelter inside the various museums.  There are quite a few museums, one for religious artefacts, one about the Brazilian independence movement which also began in this town (and died a quick death first time around – one section of the museum in the former jail, showing the tombs of the dead rebels, is very like Kilmainham in Dublin) and one for a sculptor called Aleijadinho.  He was a crippled sculptor who created his own style of sculpting and used in in the creation of the many churches in Ouro Preto.  There are 17 of them, most on hills, but we only have time to visit 4 of them.  They are all very impressive on the inside, some would even say quite over the top in the ostentation of their décor.

On top of all this we did also go on a mine tour.  The best mines are outside the town, but as we didn’t have time to visit them, we went on the tour of a mine which was owned by a tribal chief from Africa, Chico-Rei, who managed to buy his freedom and then a mine, and then he used the proceeds of the mine to buy the freedom of all the slaves from his tribe.  Naturally he is a folk legend in these parts.  The mine itself wasn’t great, but it did give us a sense of the history of the place.

That was pretty much the day.  We got into the restaurant that was full the previous night for a very nice lunch, and in the evening went for snacks across the square from the hostel.  The rain never really let up all day, and this seemed to keep the town quiet in the evening.  So instead of hanging out we went back to our hostel and watched TV in the TV room.  It sounds boring but we were really exhausted because the town is incredibly hilly, and it is very tiring just walking around it.  Add to this the fact that you are walking on slippery cobble stones everywhere, and it is no surprise our legs were aching.

Ouro Preto - March 24th

We haven’t actually had a very long bus journey for a few weeks now, most of them have only been a couple of hours as we have worked our way through Sao Paulo and Rio De Janeiro states.  But today we are moving to a new state, Minas Gerais, so it involves a long bus journey of 6 hours.

First things first we have to get to the other end of town and the bus station, but this is easily accomplished because we asked the taxi that drove us home last night to meet us at our hotel this morning, and he complied.  After this the journey is not as straight forward.  Our bus is not originating from Petropolis and it is 15 minutes late getting to us.  Bigger problems start when we get underway.  Not too far from Petropolis there has been a large rock fall onto the motorway and it is closed (because of the previous night’s rain).  So we are diverted onto side roads.  This in itself delayed us somewhat, but the bigger delay came from the fact that our driver takes a wrong turn, and the roads are so narrow it is 15 minutes before he can turn back.  Overall the detour cost us an hour and a quarter.

So a 6 hour bus journey is now a 7 ½ hour one.  Other than that it is fine, the countryside is quite hilly but not that beautiful.  Probably the best part is our approach into Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s third largest city.  As we are coming down off a plateau into a valley we get a great view of the city.  But we are only staying in the city long enough to get on a bus to Ouro Preto, an old mining town when the Portuguese were still running things.  This is another 2 hours bus journey, across a very hilly road, so it isn’t fast.  Of course the fact that Brazilian buses seem to stop more often than Argentinian ones might also be a factor in the slowness of the journeys.

When we get there and check into our hostel, which is brilliantly located on the main square, it is almost 9pm, so all we have time to do is have a quick look around the town.  We try to visit a local favourite restaurant, but it has a queue to get into it, so we decide on another place and have something there instead.

Petropolis - March 23rd

Our full day in Petropolis starts with the completion of the sightseeing that we didn’t get to do the previous day.  Although it turns out there isn’t that much more.  Amazingly after the massive thunder, lightning and rain storm we had the previous evening the streets are not too wet, and so we are able to walk alongside the canals (built as storm drains) that run down the centre of all the main roads as we look at some of the more spectacular colonial style buildings in town.  But none of them are open to the public, including the current presidential summer residence.  Where the royals used to come here to escape Rio, the current presidents come here to escape Brasilia.  Because we aren’t going to visit there I can’t say who is getting the better deal.

One house that is now a museum is the house of Santos Dumont.  He is one of the great pioneers of aviation and the man who popularised the wearing of wristwatches.  Needless the say the Brazilians are quite proud of him and have a museum in his house.  The only problem is that as a practical man who was also not very tall, his house is tiny.  Still it is interesting and has some good exhibits from his life.  Although it has to be said that our hotel, named 14 Bis after his plane, has almost as many artefacts.

Once we finish with Santos Dumont there is really only one sight to see, a large shrine to Our Lady of Fatima which overlooks the town and provides great views.  However the road up to it looks like it goes through a flavela, so we decide not to walk up.  I think it is for driving only.

Because we are finished early we go back to our hotel where we plan to lie by the swimming pool (something that we have never actually done on this trip, even though a few places we have stayed in have had them) but as we get there it starts to rain, so we take a siesta.  In the evening we go out for a meal, which is a very large and very good steak dinner, and then we take a taxi back to the hotel on account of me nearly breaking my toe on the way out of the hotel.  Again this night there is an unbelievable amount of rain.

Petropolis - March 22nd

Today we leave Teresopolis and go to Petropoils.  All these ‘opolis’ places can get a bit confusing, but they seem to be quite popular here.  I haven’t found Metropolis yet, but if we do then we will pay Superman a visit.  For the moment Petropolis is the closest we will get to it.

Because they are so close, and because we like hanging around our nice hotel in Teresopolis, we are only getting the midday bus, so we have a leisurely breakfast, pack, and walk down to the bus station.  The walk downhill from our hotel is almost as bad with the backpacks on as walking up was.  The bus journey had some really good views of the mountains, but it was so twisty and hilly that both of us were feeling a little queasy when we go to Petropolis.  The bus station for the town is about 10km from downtown (like Teresopolis this is a city built along a long valley so it is long but not very wide), so we then had to get a taxi to our hotel.  Despite it being only a 2 hour trip we were quite exhausted by the time we got there.  The new hotel was every bit as nice as the last one, maybe even nicer, but it is costing a bit more.

We decide to begin our exploration of Petropolis immediately, and we go to the old imperial palace where the Brazilian royal family used to spend summer.  Petropolis is much more of an old imperial city than Teresopolis, and better preserved.  Whether because they didn’t have much money (compared to European monarchies of the time) or whether they deliberately avoided being ostentatious the palace and its furnishings were not too grand, but the imperial crown with all its jewels was.  After visiting the palace, we visited the cathedral to see where the last king, queen and princess were buried.

Once the first part of our sightseeing was complete we walked along some of the shopping streets in the town.  Petropolis is a large enough town, and it has a lot of students and weekend visitors, but the shopping isn’t great.  Because we had a late breakfast, and no real lunch after the bus (due to queasiness) we choose to have an early dinner in an Italian restaurant, although amazingly at 6pm we weren’t the only diners, a record for South America.

Teresopolis - March 21st

The main reason why we are here in Teresopolis is to see the mountains, and the way to do this is to go into the Serra dos Orgaos National Park on the edge of the town.  The range is called the Organ Pipe Range because of the weird and wonderful shapes of the mountain peaks.  Most spectacular of all the is Dedo De Deus, or Finger of God, which is actually visible from all over the town.  But we want to see it up close, so we head off to the park, with a transfer organised by the hotel to the park entrance on the edge of town.

Once we get there we start walking through the various trails in the park.  There are quite a few, but really only 4 are doable within one day, the rest require camping in the park, so we set out to do the four.  They are harder than we thought they would be, the first was a fairly simple one through the forest, but the second, up to see the Finger of God, is much steeper than we expected.  However the sign at the start of the trail did say we would take an hour to do it, and we only took 40 minutes so maybe we were going a bit too fast.  The extra time gave us time at the top to wait out the clouds that were swirling around the mountains.  They never really cleared but we did manage to get some shots.

The interesting thing about being in the park is how few others there were, but we did get to talk to a guy from Rio, and a couple from France, so we didn’t feel totally alone on the trip.  The Rio guy accompanied us on the third trail, which was across platforms built up in the tree tops.  And we met the French couple at the top of the last trail which gave us a great view of the town.  The town is built along a valley but there are some flavelas up the sides of the valley, so it is an interesting view.  And we get to see the Brazilian teams training ground.

In the evening, after we were collected by our hotel and deposited back there, we decided we were too tired to go out in the evening, so we ordered pizza to the hotel and had a few beers.  And we watched a few US cop shows on our cable TV.

Teresopolis - March 20th

Given Rio has been a bit disappointing, and that we have overdosed slightly on beaches, we are leaving to go to the mountains.  Brazil isn’t that well known for its mountains, but there are loads of them, how else did they get all the Swiss and German immigrants to come in and give us the good beer and sausage that we have been having.  Anyway today we are going to Teresopolis, which gets its name from the Empress Teresa who used the mountains as a cool retreat from the hot summer weather in Rio.  In case anyone isn’t aware, Brazil does have an imperial past, but we will see more of that in a couple of days.  Not much of the remnants of the imperial past are left in Teresopolis.

But first to get there we had to get there.  This turned out to be fairly easy; we got a taxi rather than risk the bus again.  But it was a lot cheaper than we thought it was going to be, and although there were a few dodgy characters around the entrance to the bus station in Rio, once we were in it was quite secure, but nowhere near as nice as the ones in other cities.  Our bus is one of the frequent ones, so we weren’t waiting for too long.

The trip itself took a bit longer than scheduled, because of an accident and road works, but it gave us more time to enjoy some great views back over Guanabara Bay as we go up to 900m above Rio.  When we get off the bus we walk to our hotel, but we didn’t realise it was up a very steep hill, so it was a struggle with our backpacks on.  Still it was worth it, because the hotel and room are lovely, and the view is pretty good.

After settling in we go for a walk around the town.  There isn’t that much to see, a nice church, a few squares, and a museum showing an exhibition of the history of carnival in the town.   There is one other major sight, the place where the Brazilian football team train when they are in the country, but as they are not there at present, and as it is about 3km outside town, we don’t bother going.  In the evening we find a restaurant serving sauerkraut and pork, so we have another almost Polish dinner.

Rio De Janeiro - March 19th

As we have done as much as we want to do in Rio, we have a fairly easy day today.  In fact all we do is go out for a walk around Ipanema.  We even got a lunch from the supermarket and ate it back in the apartment.  In the evening we went out for dinner, again to a local Ipanema restaurant, which was very good, but also quite expensive.

Because we didn’t do much today I can write a bit about Rio, which hasn’t been the great place I imagined it to be.  The main reason we didn’t go out much today is because it is an exhausting place.  Why is it exhausting, because at every stage of the day when you are out and about you really have to be on your guard.  It just feels dangerous, and it is, as our pickpocketing incident showed.  It is not a pleasant place, especially in the evening.  You can’t go into parks because there seems to be dodgy people hanging around them.  I know this happens in many cities, but it just feels worse here.

Why is it like this?  The only reasons I can see are because the poor people in the flavelas are even closer to the rich areas of town than they would be in other places.  They are built up in the hills behind Copacabana, Ipanema and all the other suburbs.  I’m sure when the city was expanding in the 30s they felt they were doing a great thing leaving the mountains undeveloped, but it just meant there was free space for the poor to move into in the 60s.  The other reason is because there are so many tourists here, they can feed on them.  In other parts of the country there aren’t enough tourists to have people focus on them.  And they do focus on them, the guy who did his pickpocketing routine has probably done it 100s of times on others.  He was hanging out at a place where everyone is a tourist.  It just makes the city unpleasant, it is beautiful in some places, but it is run down in others, and the people just don’t seem to be as happy living here as in other places.

And it is dear.  I won’t say it is as expensive as London, but it is not too far off.  We are eating dinners for over £50 because this is the price.  Coffee, coke and a cake can be over £10, and a beer can be over £3.  And our accommodation was expensive.  Yes we had an apartment in a good location (which required heavy duty security) but that was only because it was no dearer than the hostels.  But as a value for money proposition it was not as good as the one in Buenos Aires.  It was smaller, the cable TV didn’t offer any English channels, and the internet was missing for the whole weekend.

So what is my overall view on Rio.  I have to say I wouldn’t recommend it to people travelling independently.  Go on an organised trip.  And then you still have to worry when you go to the main sights.  If Ireland qualify for the World Cup in 2014 I don’t think I would recommend going to anyone, and as for the Olympics in 2016, forget it.  I’ve seen where some of the venues are, and they are not safe.  I’m sure there will be police all around the venues in 2016, but then the rest of the city will be even more vulnerable.  Just stay safe and watch it at home.

Rio De Janeiro - March 18th

Today is clearer so we can go up to see Jesus.  Based on yesterday’s example at the Sugar Loaf, and because this is after all a ‘Wonder of the World’, we decide to do this as the only sightseeing trip of the day.  We start by getting a bus to the base of the mountain, which is an adventure in itself.  The buses here are driven by madmen.  They absolutely fly around the place, especially corners, and they throw you about in the bus.  It is also a bit tricky crossing the roads sometimes, as if you see a bus and a car in the distance, it will generally turn out to be the bus that reaches you first, not the car as it would be in most other places.

When we arrive at the train station at the base of Corcovado Mountain there isn’t that big a crowd, but we still have to wait an hour.  Unlike yesterday’s cable car which had a frequency of about every 5 minutes, the cog train system used to reach the top of the mountain only runs every 20 minutes.  In fact there are some delays so we actually end up waiting an hour and 15 minutes.  The trip up is quite an adventure, pretty steep, and with a bit going backwards in the middle which is a bit unnerving.  The views are breath-taking though, and at one of the stops to let a train pass us on the way down we also get to see some monkeys.

Then we get to the top.  The statue is not as big as I had expected, I guess that is part of the whole built up image that it being a wonder of the world entails.  I think I was expecting something the size of the cross in Skopje.  Like our other wonder on this trip, the Taj Mahal, it is crowded, which makes getting good pictures difficult, as does the sun being right behind the statue.  But the crowding here is mostly from the small size of the viewing area at the top, rather than the number of people.  In fact given it is a wonder of the world, and we are here on a Sunday, the big surprise is that it isn’t more crowded.

I’ve always wondered if this should be included in the man-made wonders of the world, and I think that part of the problem is so many people cannot distinguish between the man-made item and the natural beauty of the whole city laid out before it.  The views really are spectacular, but I don't think it should be a wonder.  We try to get some photos of the city, and then take a break at the refreshment stand, and to also let the sun move a bit so we might get better photos.  We do get some better photos later on, but at the same time the clouds roll in and we also get to see how the clouds would have obscured our view had we gone up on either of the other two days.

When it comes time to head back down the mountain we again have to queue, although not quite as long as coming up.  Coincidentally we meet up with a girl from Colombia who was also at the Sugar Loaf in the queue behind us.  She went to the Samba clubs recommended in Lapa and wasn’t too happy with them.  So I think we are now OK with missing that part of Rio.  At the bottom we board the bus to come home and then we hit a little snag.  As I get on the bus last in the queue a man appears from nowhere, jumps on the bus past me and knocks me over.  Before I can get up he is gone again, and so is my wallet.  It only had about £30 (in US$ and Reals) in it, but it is quite annoying.

Once we get back to Ipanema we go to the Irish pub which we didn’t make it to the previous night for a drink.  It’s actually a nice place, but it stinks a bit after the day before.  The drinks are pricey even for Rio.  We end the day by going to a Thai restaurant just to get some different food for once (and also because the restaurant we wanted to go to wouldn’t take us without a reservation).