May 2009

In ten hours we'll be flying to Bogota, Columbia from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil yet we've been to a couple places since Saquarema. The blogging mood hasn't hit so we've been lazy about writing. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a lot to tell. We'll give you a quick rundown with the promise that we'll send a more detailed post shortly with pictures attached.

From Saquarema, as we quickly mentioned, we went to another beach town called Arraial do Cabo (pronounced something like "a-hi-ow dew ca-bo".... not sure where the "l" sound disappears!). It was a quiet town with lovely beaches and fewer mosquitoes.

From there we planned to head further north along the coast, but the bus system (made up of multiple private companies) somehow didn't go where we wanted to go from that point. In fact, we would have to go back south to Rio in order to go back north!? Are we the only ones confused by this? That obviously caused us to change our plans and we did head back to Rio, but we immediately caught a bus going inland (North-West). We went to the simple town of Teresopolis with the intention of doing a bit of trekking. Let's just say plans fell through, but we thoroughly enjoyed the city nonetheless.

From there we took a city bus, a long-distance bus, and another city bus to get to the beautiful and wonderful town of Tiradentes ("Teeth Puller"). This was a beautiful colonial town set in the mountains and it was absolutely gorgeous.

After three nights there, we took the city bus to Sao Joao del Rei (pronounced - in French - something like "son jon del hey") where we had to wait six hours for our bus to Ouro Preto. That gave us time to find out just how beautiful the old part of SJDR was (another beautiful colonial city). Our six hour wait turned into another 11 hour wait (yes, it was hell) in the VERY cold bus station. Finally, when the bus came at 4am, it smelled like... ummm... a busload of women's used menstrual pads (gag). K was able to fall asleep for the four hour ride and block out the smell during that time. Jorge wasn't so lucky.

We arrived at Ouro Preto at 6am to a gorgeous, sunny day and went about seeing the town right away. This was one of the most beautiful places we've seen. It's been declared a Unesco World Heritage Site and it is just crazy beautiful. It's a colonial mining town and Ouro Preto actually means "Black Gold". The steep cobblestone streets that go into the hills are all lined with brightly coloured buildings.

We spent only two nights there although it would have been three nights had the bus come on time. On our third day there, we took a seven hour night bus (the only option) to Rio where we've spent the past four nights. We've been enjoying the company of hostel pets (Jorge is starting to call K "Ace Ventura") and relaxing in the hostel. Today we finally made it to see Christ the Redeemer and the view of the city from up there was absolutely incredible. We left the cameras at the hostel to be safe and only managed to come away with some lovely mental pictures.

We've been enjoying the hot day AND nights in Rio - being inland meant we had to endure cold nights. Yes, cold! The cold sucks We've also really enjoyed "sucos" - the fresh fruit and ice/water blended drinks. The passion fruit one is especially delicious despite the nasty canker it has given K.

Hopefully we'll have a completely uneventful trip all the way from our hostel here in Rio to our hostel in Bogota. We fly to Lima, Peru and connect to a flight there to Bogota. Wish us luck.