Full of trepidation we dropped into Paraguay´s capital city, Asuncion, and wish we´d arranged to stay longer! Although it cost us a staggering 290,000 Guranis (eek) for the night at a mid range hotel (okay, it´s only about $40NZ) the place seemed very civilised and refreshing after the last 2 months in the poverty and thin air of the altiplano. The place had many obvious German influences - surprise-surprise. It supposedly also has alot of Mennonites. Some sort of cave formation we think!
Next day, arriving in Rio de Janeiro airport we were gutted to be met by thick cloud and drizzle...the first rain we´d seen since leaving NZ ....and it continued for the next 3 days or so. We waited patiently, riding the ricketty trams in Santa Teressa through crumbling mansions and overgrown gardens, and had a quick look at Ronnies old place. Rather nice, and more than ample reward for a darring train robber.
Eventually the hot sun burnt through the cloud and we could see what we´d come for. Rio de Janeiro is a fantastic city with amazing scenery and relaxed locals - but what a terrible language to get your head around - Portuguese is very hard to learn with strange vowels and different enough from Spanish to leave us totally adrift. Attempts to arrange a guided rock climb for the day, or to find out about hang gliding came to nought....we struggled to even buy a bun in a bakery the ´correct way´.
All the sites, Christ the Redeeemer, the Sugar Loaf and the beaches are amazing and exceeded expectations - and the width of those thong bikinis has to be seen to be believed! We also dined in the cafe where Jobim wrote ´The Girl from Ipanma´ and swam and surfed in the cool waters. (The ´girl´still lives in Rio and has 4 children!)
An unexpected highlight was in escaping the glitz & glamour and visiting a ´Favela´or slum. Stuated almost adjacent to Copacabana Beach it houses 300,000 and is entirely lawless - a total police no-go area. The guide and 4 of us walked past guys touting machine guns and rifles and spent 4 hours amongst wonderfully friendly people who are ruled only by drug-lords and the gun. (One ´big´lady woudln´t stop kissing me and I daren´t fight her off for fear of upsetting someone.) All quite a deep experience to say the least! 2 days later we read the world headline that 60,000 unsolved murders remain in Rio over the last 10 years. What a place - and what problems under the surface for a country that now has the 8th largest economy in the world!
After a week in Rio we bused east along the stunning coast where we swam and sailed and then spent the night in Sao Paulo. This city is a monster - 19 million people and, to be frank, I would rather have put my head in a lions mouth than lug our packs through hot streets and the underground to our hostel near the centre....but it had to be done to make a bus connection. Sarah was a such a star slogging through the busy hot streets! It ended up being a remarkably slick, clean and sophisticated place that was of course to be expected of the largest financial centre in the S hemishere. But it was great to finally fight our way out onto the 15hr bus trip to Foz de Iguazu on the Argentinian border.
At Iguazu we have just spent 3 days looking around what are said to be the most spectacular waterfalls on earth...and the biggest hydro dam down river, so are feeling a bit loose-jawed after all the bombardment of superlatives and ready to move on. It´ll be good to leave Brazil with our aweful language problems and high prices, but we have enjoyed it hugely...and met the most pleasant, polite and honest people so far. Not quite what we expected....and we´d love to explore it more.
Uruguay tomorrow - on the early flight to Montevideo....we are running short on time and having to pick up the pace to get to the other places on our list!
