Viva Brazil

Before we left BA we made a stop at a local bar to watch the opening game of the 2014 World Cup between Brazil & Croatia.  The crowd was unified in supporting their neighbour, and the atmosphere was electric.  There were streamers coming down from the ceiling after each Brazilian goal!  Crazy!  We got a bit caught up in all the celebrations and woke up the next morning with sizeably sore heads! (but nothing Macca's for breakfast wouldn't fix).

It was time to say goodbye to Buenos Aires.  Our flight to Rio was full of Argentinian fanatics, which made for some rowdy entertainment.  Pillows were flying across the aisles, and windows shaking from all the banging and chanting.  The flight attendants quickly learnt that keeping any kind of order was no easy task and simply gave up.

Rio has made a lasting impression on both of us.  Contrary to what we expected, it has felt safe, not unreasonably expensive and food at least as good as what we experienced in BA.  The weather, the people, the beaches and festive atmosphere really add to the great holiday experience.

The only time weather hasn't been kind to us was the morning we set off to visit the Christ the Redeemer.

Christ the Redeemer in a steamer 

Notice the wonderful panoramic view of Copacabana over GS's R shoulder 

(you can see how excited she is...)

It did clear up for a split second and we managed to get the postcard picture:

Not all was lost for the sightseeing, as we got lucky with a better day for the Sugarloaf mountain.  

The famous Copacabana beach strip 

Getting around has been pretty easy.  Metro during the day and taxis by night.  Similarly to other places in South America, the traffic is mayhem and the road rules optional.  Some taxi drivers slow down a little for red lights, others don't.  Some watch the football on their dashboard TVs, others make you feel like you're in a car chase.  

The main attraction of this trip hasn't disappointed so far.  We've been to 2 matches so far, both at Maracana stadium in Rio and both were spectacular.  The Argentinian and the Chilean fans had the weight of numbers in their respective matches and made a hell of a noise.  

For all the passion and excitement, the crowds were actually very orderly.  The masses of riot police and armed forces on foot and horseback with air support probably had something to do with it. (Anyone who saw the media centre getting stormed by Chilean fans - this was on the other side of the stadium to us and we didn't know about it until we got home and saw it on the news.)

Heading off to Sao Paulo tonight on an overnight bus for our final match between England and Uruguay before starting our journey home on Friday.

Salut!

The lights of Lima & the highlights of Buenos Aires

Sitting in cafe La Rambla in the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires on our first day of bad weather for the whole trip. The dream run had to end sometime. Even yesterday when we took a (long) day trip to  the Iguazu Falls, it rained here in BA but we had a perfect day for checking out the falls on the border of Argentina & Brazil.
Anyway, not a total disaster as we are well into our second round of drinks and are full of Lomitos (the local variety of steak sandwich, and they are awesome!) and the opening ceremony for the world cup is on the TV.
The plan after this is to head to a local bar and watch the opening match before we head to Rio and get amongst it tomorrow.

Since out last blog we have been a bit on the d-low. We rested up after the trek for a couple of quiet days in Lima, which is nice enough but we felt like we had enough time there. Checked out the Larco museum (apparently one of the best in South America for ancient history) and the fountain/light show park in the city-proper. Gosia recorded about 2 hours worth of footage of the light show, but mercifully she accidentally deleted it before anyone (including me) had to suffer through it.

We tried to get out of the tourist trap after the fountain show, so we headed to a diner-type thing that seemed to be full of locals - good sign.

What was a bad sign that we didn't see until too late is that this seemed to be the place where the more financially-astutue Peruvian tries to get the whole weeks' worth of food in for $5. Gosia's rice with chicken would have weighed about 3kg:

The bit missing on the left is as much as we could eat (together)

It's lucky that we didn't jump to the conclusion we didn't like Buenos Aires based on our less-than-ideal experience one day here last week. This time the place is AWESOME. We are staying in an apartment in a very much French-inspired district (Gosia says it is Paris try-hard - looks like Paris but without the delicious patisseries, style and sexy French language) called Recoleta that is right in the middle of town. 

BA is a city that is great to just hang-out in.  

We have been for a few runs around the parklands, ate our meals late every day & night and slept in. As best as we can tell the clock is shifted back 2-3 hours compared with home.  

Every Sunday in the bohemian San Telmo district there is a massive closed-street market and so we where lucky enough to make it there (after Rafa won his 9th Rolland Garros title of course).

The market stretched out forever - we walked around all afternoon and didn't see it all. Music, dancing and street food everywhere. 

In the same district a few days later we went on a food walking tour which was punctuated by great dishes and two very annoying Americans. Jorge (the local guide) took us to some of the oldest eating houses in BA and ordered us a great sample of the local tucker - potato tortilla, empanadas, chorizo, steaks, rolled stuffed beef and Russian Salad (???).

The next great highlight of the trip was our day trip to Iguazu Falls. We almost missed out because the waterfalls were flooded (I know.... how does a waterfall get flooded???) which is apparently very rare (Jorge was a tour guide there - he told us about the floods but had never heard of anything like it before). There is normally 1.5 million litres per second of water going over the falls, but with the El Nino rainfall spike it reached 13 million litres per second. The extra water made it unsafe and some of the walkways where closed (see below as to why) and in fact the Argentinean side of the national park was only opened during the day yesterday while we were there (another win for us!). The water was murky-brown rather than clear as it normally is, but it was spectacular regardless. 

Gotta run now - need to find a place to watch this football!

We'll be in touch from Rio!

Ciao!

Slow and steady; hold your llamas

Translation:  'hold your horses' - a phrase we heard more than we care to remember over the last four days.

Apparently, our native Inca tour guide, Hilbert, heard the expression 'hold your horses' at some stage and thought it was out of context in the Andean mountains, so he substituted horses for llamas and consistently insisted they be held.

Hilbert's point was to pace us, particularly early on, knowing what was to come on day 2 of the trek.

The experience started a little shaky with our orientation the night before we set off. The meeting was very South American in nature: it started late, the requirement to check passport details seemed pointless as it apparently didn't matter if some numbers were wrong or missing; much time was spent answering questions people didn't ask and no time answering those that were asked. The guide couldn't get our names right, and forgot to organise to pick us up without little prodding.
Eventually though, it all came together and we were off.

Highlights:

• We had the time of our lives.  The group was great fun and a good cross section including other Aussies, Germans, Poms, a few Yanks and a Canadian.  We all got on really well.
• We got very lucky with the weather as apparently it tends to rain a lot (and unexpectedly) and we were told to always have our ponchos on hand, but we never used them.  Clear skies and sunshine all the way to Machu Picchu.  It got pretty cold at night, especially on the second night where we camped at 3600m altitude.
• The camp food! Every day, we were dished up several courses of wonderful peruvian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner (pity GS could't stomach it due to her gastro).  The chief even made a cake for us on the last night.  There were peaches, pastas, fried rice, a 100 different versions of potato, fish, chicken and beef stews, pancakes, omelettes etc etc.  Simply delish!

Lunch time, Day 3

• Watching the porters race down the mountains carrying 30kg on their backs (before regulation of the industry, they would carry as much as 50kg).

The whole group on the second morning at campsite

• The view from the top of the first high pass of the trip which was half way through day 2 (Dead Woman's Pass)

The low point of the saddle is Dead Woman's Pass - 4200m. This was a couple of hours before we got there. 

The view from the top (Gosia not quite there yet)

• the views in general, but especially in the jungles we walked through on day 3. Every half hour of hiking we thought "this is the best view yet" and it just got better and better. Especially after going over a couple of high mountain passes we felt the main difference between this and other great scenery (like in New Zealand or Europe) was that here you were really "in it", rather than looking at it.

 Starting the 1km (3hr) vertical descent from Dead Woman's Pass

 Sunrise on day 3 from the campsite

 The last Inca site before the main attraction of Machu Picchu

Lowlights:

• altitude making us both struggle and feel really crook as we got over Dead Woman's Pass. It was worse for GS because she had a crook stomach as well as having to climb about a million bloody stone steps (as Hilbert said frequently of his ancestors - "bloody Incas, bloody steps")

• bathroom facilities were bad. Real, real bad. Enough said. 

The 'main course' of Machu Picchu didn't disappoint. Having a professional archaeologist as a tour guide was awesome (Hilbert had actually made a very noteworthy discovery in 2012 in Machu Picchu city.)
He spent hours telling us about the Inca history, belief systems and traditions which all tied into why Machu Picchu is such a sacred place. He took great care to remind us that the Inca civilisation is not dead, given that the local people (including our porters) still spoke the same Quechua language as they did 600 years ago.

On the last day the wake-up call was at 3am (an hour earlier than the other days) and we ripped through the jungle to make it in time for sunrise at the Sun Gate (where you can see Machu Picchu city from afar).

Sun Dial  (within Machu Picchu)- each corner faces a major glacier mountain

We had to climb the Gringo Killer steps to get there - difficulty was as advertised - had to climb them on all fours!

Finished off with a beer or two or three or four... in Aguas Callientes and caught a train back to Cusco for a nice long hot shower :).

 Aguas Callientes

Well deserved and hard earned beers

Hopefully, the next couple of weeks are just as fun, if not a little bit easier on the body :)