Curitiba, City of Churches

So we’re now in Curitiba with only one more day before we head to Rio to join our tour.  We’re staying in a budget hotel which is pretty utilitarian but we can’t complain because it’s so cheap, and it has access to a tv station with shows in English. We haven’t really spent too much time in the city here since it’s like the Adelaide of Brazil in terms of nightlife, but we’re hoping to rectify this by going to a band called Zombie Walk in the municipal cemetery tonight. The city makes up for it’s sleepiness with its location within some pretty stunning jungles and mountains. Yesterday we took a spectacular four hour train ride from the city to the colonial town of Morrettes, which led us through tunnels, alongside lakes and mountains and over dizzying gorges full of dense jungle canopies. The crappy blurred photos below really don’t do this train ride justice.

We arrived in Morrettes at about 12:00 in the afternoon, and wandered around the historic district which is where the locals uphold the tradition of peddling crap to tourists. The buildings were distinctly colonial South American with tiled roofs and occasional bright colours weathered away by the tropical  climate.

 

Consequently it started to get wet so we decided to have lunch at a restaurant overlooking the river. I ordered this traditional beef stew with orange and banana in it (i think, unless I misread the menu) and Amelia had a vegetarian pasta which was incredibly salty and only came in portions for two people. While we were waiting for our meals to arrive it started raining, and then absolutely pouring, subsequently followed by really close flashes of lightning. Next thing the lights flickered out our restaurant as well as all the surrounding buildings. At one stage we saw a bright flash followed by a zapping noise really close to Amelia, which was then proceeded by the loudest thunderclap I have ever heard. We think that the metal awning support may have had something to do with it. Needless to say Amelia decided to move seats.

After lunch the rain cleared up and we had a last quick look around town before heading to the bus station to catch the 3:50 back to Curitiba. We assumed the bus ride wasn’t going to be as spectacular as the train, and while it wasn’t, it came pretty close. The road back to Curitiba was paved and fairly narrow, and took us through small towns and past camping grounds (which we would have liked to have stayed at if we had more time here), and wound backwards and forwards up this incredibly sloped hill, such that you could see tree canopies directly out the window as we drove past, with an ankle-high guard rail (read line of stones) preventing an uncontrolled descent to the bases of the aforementioned trees. Fortunately the bus took it slow. Slow enough to cause a lineup of 5-10 cars behind us. It also managed to hold up traffic coming the other way; since the corners were so tight oncoming traffic had to reverse out before we could go around. It was pretty funny, however the drivers of the cars seemed good natured about it.

 

Today we’ve just been lying around the Hotel room, catching up with our precious internet (which we have to pay for here, the bastards so we’re getting the most out of our 24 hours), and tomorrow we jump on the bus to Rio to join up with our tour and hopefully catch the tail end of Carnivale. We’ll keep you posted.

-Sam-

Sausage Sizzle at the Beach

 

Feeling inclined towards a bit of a bush walk today Sam and I donned some seriously dorky hats and shoes and headed off up an extremely narrow grassy track to the top of one of the picturesque hills. Our hosts had informed us that this track led to a rocky outcrop where you could take excellent photos, and if you continued down the other side you would come to a quiet beach where you could swim without the huge crowds at the other beaches. So off we headed, Sam treading boldly up front and me following tentatively behind wondering if Brazil had poisonous snakes like Australia as we were blundering through knee high grasses that would have made your average Aussie bush trekker nervous were they in Australia. Here we took stacks of photos.

   

Sexy poses on top of the hill

Pictures from on top of the hill

We then continued down to the beach. On arrival we discovered that the beach wasn’t as secluded as our host had made it sound. We had stumbled upon a nudist beach. Frequented mostly by groups of men. Where the only people choosing to go the full monty were (much to Sam’s disappointment and Amelia’s amusement) all men over the age of 50. Some of these men were burnt all over and I mean all over as Sam described it as “Sausage sizzle at the beach” Apart from the constant old naked guys in the peripheries the beach was beautiful and we went swimming (in bathers).

(Sorry! Didn’t want to take any pictures of sizzled sausage on the beach so these will have to do instead)

A serious case of crabs on the beach

A hot dyke on the beach

(Sam thinks it Mafic????)

We finished our walk off with Capareinas (or what ever they are called, lime sugar ice and Bacardi) on the lake side.

Hooray for Brazil’s cheap cocktails

-Amelia-

Montevideo to Brazil

When we last left you Amelia gave a recap of Buenos Aires from Montevideo, and now that we’re in Florianopolis, it’s only appropriate that I give an account of our time in Montevideo (and maybe of Florianopolis as well, if you’re lucky).

We left Buenos Aires via Buquebus, which is the ferry which crosses between Buenos Aires and Colonia in Uruguay. The boat ride was more than comfortable, sporting two bars, an arcade, a cafeteria and a duty free store as well as live entertainment in the form of an opera singer (which all the older ladies went weak at the knees for). This was followed by a 2.5 hour bus ride from Colonia to Montevideo, and a 30 minute bus ride with all our luggage on the public transport to our hostel, which was at one stage completely packed with people, making escape impossible. Uruguay seemed to be a pretty nice country (apparently one of the wealthiest in South America???), and it was popular with Argentinians on summer vacation. We spent a couple of days exploring Montevideo from our base in Plaza de Independencia (there seems to be one of these in every South American city!) which is right in the centre of the old city centre. photos follow…

 

Plaza de Independencia

                

We weren’t sure if it was inflation or if it was just the way the Uruguayan dollar was, but everything appeared expensive in Uruguay. This ice cream had better be eternal happiness flavour to justify this price. (of course the exchange rate of approx. 1 $AU to 16 $UR meant this definitely wasn’t an issue for us)

         

This is the beach at Pocitos, Montevideo, which is apparently full of theives according to the locals. Amelia and I think they do bikes better in South America.

 

 

 

 

 

We didn’t know what this building was but it was really cool.

 

 

 

 

After our two nights in Montevideo, we jumped on the bus at about 4:00 in the afternoon last Friday. Destination: Florianopolis, BR!. The 20 hour bus ride was surprisingly comfortable and the border crossing uneventful. This brings our tally up to three border crossings, one by plane, one by boat and one by bus. It was surprising just how much the landscape seemed to change between Uruguay and Brazil. Uruguay featured landscapes analogous to Australia (ie plenty of plains, lots of which were dry) whereas when we woke up on the bus to Brazil, we were shocked to see these jungle covered hills everywhere. Once in the city we once again made the brilliant decision to  take our luggage on the public busses to our hostel, which was made all the more difficult by these stupid little turnstiles they have ON THE BUS! (We had to pay the ticket guy and then try to haul ourselves and our backpacks through these turnstiles to get to our seats (of which there were none (because they were all taken (of course)))).

Amelia and I both swear this tree is a Eucalypt!

Some extremely flattering photos of us on the bus to Brazil.

Our hostels (we spent our first night in a separate hostel to our current one because we were ready for a private room) are located in Barra da Lagoa, which we think means lake neighborhood(?). It’s about 15 minutes to the beach by foot and here are some nice walks around the area. The beaches are pretty stunning here, featuring backdrops of ridiculously sloped tree covered hills, and the water is really warm, which made our first dip in Atlantic waters a pleasant experience. It is also packed with brown Latin American bodies, most of which are wearing g-string bikinis, and many of which shouldn’t be allowed to! You can also buy pretty much anything on the beach here, including sarongs, hammocks, mystery-meat and cocktails (below is me with a caprihinhnyhnhna (I have no idea how to spell it but it is delicious)).

The beach at Barra Da Lagoa on a Monday morning is still pretty lively

 

The area where the lake meeets the sea is full of fishing boats and pousadas (guest houses)

This is the only girl wearing a t=shirt on the entire beach.

 

Hiking through the jungle on my sexy chicken legs.

For those of you that are interested, yes that IS a granite outcrop next to the boring beach!

Apart from the beach, Amelia and I have gone for walks around the lakes and beaches and through the town. Today we were sick of cooking for ourselves so we went out to the town for dinner. They have this brilliant concept here called pay by weight. basically you serve yourself and bring your serving up to a set of scales to work out how much you have to pay. We went to a pay by weight ice cream store and got 2/3rds of a kilo of ice cream between us of about 15 different varieties for 14 reals! that’s like 8 or 9 AU$. We’ve also noticed there is a huge population of what appear to be ownerless dogs roaming the streets and beaches here. They all appear pretty healthy, so they must get fed, and people play with them on the beach. What with Amelia’s (probably justified) rabies paranoia we steer well clear of them, (which didn’t stop a labrador-cross approaching us on the beach and trying to steal our sunscreen!).

 

That pretty much covers everything up until now. Tomorrow we plan to walk up one of these ridiculous hills, but it  might fall through since it’s been pretty wet today. we’ll be taking a bus up to Cuitiba n two days and spending Carnivale there (assuming they have one).

Bye for now.

-Sam-

Adios Buenos Aires and Hola Montevideo

Only five days into our adventure and already we have severely neglected our blog. So to get it all up to date.

Buenos Aires

This was my first time in an international city and as we took the shuttle bus from the airport, tired and jetlagged, we were greeted by a sprawling tangle of slums made up of decrepit old  multistory buildings to which all sorts of crazy additions and supporting structures. The streets were full of motor cyclists without helmets and crazy old trucks held together by duct tape and chicken wire. My first thoughts were I hope we are staying somewhere a bit nicer that this. Finally we made it though a bus interchange where nobody seemed to know what was going on and arrived at our chosen hostel. Here we were irritatingly told to relax guys!!! by our host. Completely out of money we quickly had to get our heads around the teller machines and just hope that we had picked a good one. Following  check in, in an attempt to beat the fatigue and jetlag that threatened to overwhelm us and send us into an ill-timed sleep we hit the streets. This was a bewildering and strange experience as the streets were deserted. Seems everything closes at one on Saturdays and nobody goes into the city centre. We wandered around and got our bearings until we had to go to sleep finally we emerged for dinner around midnight. This is when we discovered what the city is really about. Finally the streets were busy and alive. All the restaurants were open, still serving and still packed .

   

La Casa Rosada

    

The streets of Buenos Aires complete with beautiful architecture

In the days that followed we managed to pack in all the main touristy things that we wanted. The San Telmo Markets that stretched for kilometers through the old cobblestone streets.  And were packed with tourists and locals alike and were a real test of will power for us prohibited as we were by our budget and the little room in our luggage. Recoleta, the wealthy area where the streets weren’t covered in litter and piss. This area was all leafy and green and home to the biggest fig tree I have ever seen. Here we wandered around and took in the sights wandered through the amazing cemetery( a city of mausoleums).

Recoletta cemetery

Palermo which was chock full of quaint pubs and bars, cafes, indie stores and big brand specialty fashion stores that made Amelia’s provincial little mind boggle.

Finally on our last day in Buenos Aires we visited La Bocca. Here the houses are all painted in vibrant colours. Whilst it was interesting it was the most touristy place I have ever been in my life and we were accosted by street venders and people with leaflets for the local restaurants. As soon as they would find out that we are Australians they would go oh Australia Kangaroo, ACDC. That was the extent of their knowledge of Australia.

Above, the street of eternal harassment and below, Diego Maradonna wanted a photo with us and we thought we’d oblige since we had nothing else to do.

I am way too tired to continue now.

Adios,

-Amelia-

Hola Todos!

Welcome to the inaugural post of the Sameliad, chronicling the amazing adventures of Sam and Amelia through time and space. We are currently on our way to Buenos Aires in a Boeing 7-something-7,. we are 10.668km above the earth and have travelled 7043km from Sydney -  that’s greater than the radius of the earth! (i think). We have seen the south island of New Zealand and will fly over the Andes in a couple of hours. Our current ground velocity is 1076 km/h. that’s 17.933 km/min! that’s 298.888 m/sec!!! given my svelt weight of 63 kg (cough) at this speed i would have a momentum of approx. 18830 Ns. If I collided with a 1.5 tonne car at rest such that it stopped me in my tracks I would send that car off at a speed of 45.19 km/hour! But we haven’t seen any 5th element style skycars around yet so this shouldn’t be a significant issue. See, we’re learning something already!

We spent last night at my brilliant cousin Emily’s ex-apartment in Sydney last night. She hooked us up with all this excellent gourmet food to gorge ourselves on, which is excellent because food is something we won’t be seeing much of for a while. Jordan also came up from Canberra to see us off and we got to meet Jordan’s lovely girlfriend who is lovely.

Anyway, I don’t want to cause the plane to crash from electrical interference so I’ll wrap it up for now.

-Sam-