My South America tour has finally come to an end, its been hard to say goodbye to people I’ve been with every day for 51 days! There has been tears!
For our last day we had a nice lunch and then headed for the Botanical Gardens.
For our last dinner we went to Fogo de Chão, a very posh all you can eat steakhouse. The food was really nice!
Today we started off with a Favela Experience. Favela is another word for slum and over 6 million people in Rio are living in a Favela!
There are some really dangerous ones that not even the police interfere with, but some like the one we went to are going through Pacification. This is when the government gives money, water, and resources to improve the Favela. Clearly, there are pros and cons to this as it changes the way they used to work, but it has been a success for this one. Over 42,000 people live in the one we visited. Newbury is about 44k, so it seemed a bit mental to me.
G-Adventures supports different projects around the world, and we visited a drum school and beer start-ups (Vidigal), which were part of the Favela Inc projects in this Favela. We also visited their orchard, which was part of the clean-up project. I took photos of the view from there.
With the kids from the drum school, I was one of the ones to play! Not well mind!
After the Favela we started our city tour with Vlad, we hired a van to drive us to the 3 main sites we wanted to see!
Christ the Redeemer
We started off with the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, which is a lot smaller than I thought. As with the whole trip, we were really lucky on the weather and the number of people here. I’m told in high season you can not move at this spot!
We stopped to take a photo of another Favela, I mentioned 6m people living in them. There are about 450 in Rio! Vlad has recommended we watch the film City of God to understand them better. The biggest one in Rio has about 200k people. A symbol of a Favela is Kites, those are the ones you avoid. There was a police presence on the entry to the one we visited.
Escadaria Selarón Staircase
A chilean-born artist, Jorge Selarón decided to cover the steps next to his house with colourful mosaics. He asked people to bring them from all around the world. There was a big problem with drug users in this area, and he tried to help them. however, the people he tired to help were then the ones who killed him in the end!
In the photo below you can see the strange Cathedral of St. Sebastian of Rio de Janeiro, its the pyramid one, which was created but the designer of the city Brasília, which is the capital of Brazil, I had never even heard of it before this trip, I’d always assumed it was Rio!
Sugarloaf Mountain
This is two mountains connected by cable cars. We went up here for sunset, views again were amazing.
We then ended the day by going to see Barbie at the cinema!! Really enjoyed it!!
After the boat from Ilha Grande and then a 3ish hour bus ride, we arrived in Rio de Janeiro. It is super humid here! 80%
We went for lunch and walk along the beach.
Do you remember the photo with Michael Jackson holding the baby over the balcony? That was at The Copacabana Palace, was not aware it was in Brazil, do remember that photo though!
Today, we went to Lopes Mendes Beach, it is rated one or the best beaches in the world. It is protected, so no buildings or boats are allowed near the beach. We had to get a speedboat to the opposite side of the island and hike across. The boat ride was about 30 minutes, and the hike was about the same. I’m so glad I wore my trainers as it was muddy and steep in places. Carlston didn’t and had to do it barefoot.
As we got the first boat out, there was only 5 people ahead of us so we had an empty beach to start the morning!
I dug myself a hole to sit in, within the shade of course, and read my book. I was joined by random dogs.. they seem to love me! And monkeys!!
We went back to the Mexican place for dinner, but it took hours!! Still great food though!
Today, we left Paraty to head for Ilha Grande, which we could only get to by boat. The boat was a speedboat, and we had to pile our bags up down the middle of the boat! Vladd was a pro at this!
For lunch, we went to the beach front and shared a traditional fish stew called Moqueca.
Vlad then took us on a small walk to see the black beach (due to the colour of the sand) and also the old prison. Paraty was know to buy African slaves from the French and that is why there is a large population of African Brazilians here on the island.
For dinner, we found this amazing little Mexican place, where they make everything from scratch. Had a burrito, and it was so good!
Paraty was a lovely little preserved Portuguese colonial town by the sea. The name “Paraty” originates from the local Guaianá Indians’ indigenous Tupi language, named for an abundant local fish native to the region, which we saw on our boat trip.
Today was Lucy’s birthday, we went out on a Caipirinha boat! It was alot of fun, good music, strong drinks and it didn’t rain!
Josie braided my hair, loved it!
I had a visitor in my room.. a little gecko!
Today was a super long travel day, including a flight to Sào Paulo.
As mentioned yesterday, there is another G-Adventure group doing the same route. One of the guys from that group, Brad, had a turn on the plane! At first we thought he was having a heart attack as he was convulsing and the air hostess was given him oxygen, turns out he took 5 Imodium tablets at once and then when he hit altitude he had a bad reaction. He was checked by a doctor when we landed, and he was fine.
We shared a big bus with that group to drive the 5 hours to Paraty. By the time we arrived we walked into the centre to have dinner. It was a great meal of Thai and Brazilian fusion!
Today, we went back over the border to Argentina to visit that side of the falls. We saw a monkey and some interesting birds! Views weren’t as good as the Brazilian side, but the boat trip made up for that.
The whole walkway on this side was a metal walkway that you see through! Made me a little nervous at first, but you start getting used to it.
We then went on a speedboat that went under the falls. My videos are me screaming and laughing the whole time lol
We got a couple of photos and video from the boat!
In the evening we went to a Brazilian house party for dinner and drinks!
There has been another G-Adventure group that are doing the same route as us, but they are a classic tour, so there no age limit, and they go in nicer hotels and no overnight buses like us. They came to the party as well.
The food was really good and the Caipirinha drink was sooo strong! We had a couple of Brazilian dancers and did a big conga line, followed by the hoki coki lol and then a disco! Best bus ride back as everyone was merry and Lucy got on the microphone, we all sung zombie at the top of our voices! Lo
Day 42 was a travel day, followed by a night bus! We arrived about 9ish to the Argentina side and then crossed over into Brazil.
We went start to the Brazilian side of Iguassu Falls, while Vlad took our bags to the hotel. Even though only 25% of the falls are on the Brazilian side it looks onto the amazing views form the Argentinan side.
Paraguay 🇵🇾
When we got back we got in a taxi to go over to Paraguay but missed the sign on the bridge so this is the one we got lol no passport needed!
We had two nights in at a farm in Uruguay. It was better than we thought it would be, especially after the luxury hotel we had in Montevideo. Was multi share but managed to sleep alright, which definitely helped the stay.
At the farm, they had sheep and two 8 day old baby lambs, a cow and baby cow, chickens, and 5 horses.
We got to milk the cow and feed the milk to the baby cow!
We had a bonfire both nights, was pretty cold here in the evening.
We made empanadas, which mine tasted good but looked awful lol
Lastly Sabrina, one of the shadow Ceos did a tarot reading
The first card was about my trip, middle ones are about going back to work and the third about finding love.
Big Ginger Adventures Blog 