Monday 30 May 2011

La Salar de Uyuni

After a game of aeroplane ping-pong, during which I flew over the city twice, I finally touched down in La Paz. I had been warned about the possible altitude sickness, as La Paz stands at 3,640m above sea level, however, the only problem I encountered was a small marmite explosion when I opened my bottle. All this meant was that I enjoyed a lot of marmite with some Bolivians, who seemed very impressed! 

The following evening I headed South. My plan was to meet up with Xavier in Tupiza and do a tour of the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats). I had to wait in Tupiza for a few days before our group arrived and we could head off. I enjoyed relaxing by the pool and even did some horse-riding, during which I almost managed to get myself run over by a train; horses really aren't my thing... On Wednesday morning, my friends arrived. We were a group of 15 people, split into three jeeps. The delay had certainly whet my appetite and I was very excited. Our first day was devoted to the mountainous surroundings of Tupiza, including some spectacular views and windy passes. 

Day two was long, starting at 4:30 with a drive through a ghost town at sunrise and some beautiful, coloured lagoons, stretching across the vast, high, Bolivian plains. The highlight for me was the hot springs at lunchtime: a pool of boiling water next to an iced-over lake, a wonderfully relaxing setting. Both evenings, electricity was rationed and the starry sky was phenomenal. I was glad to have purchased a hat and gloves as the evenings were freezing. Even a football match at 4900m failed to keep us warm, although it did leave us completely breathless, as we were dazzled and destroyed by a group of Bolivian children. 

On day three, our jeep failed to start and while we were waiting I managed to break a window of the hostel. However, the previous day, a girl had lost her shoe in a lake and my Dutch buddy, Hylke, almost managed to drown in a geyser, so my accident went almost unnoticed. We spent the evening in a hostel made entirely out of salt; it was awesome.

We were up early again for the final day, the salt flat day. We had to cross some water to get to the salt flats and watched the sunrise reflecting from the water. The lack of perspective on the vast salt flat makes photos really exciting and we managed to take several. 

At the end of the tour we were dropped in the town of Uyuni; it had been an epic four days. Now I am heading to Potosi, the highest city on the world...

Saturday 21 May 2011

Iguazu Falls

It has certainly been a bizarre week. It felt extremely wierd to be at home, especially for such a short period of time. But my brief stay was both enjoyable and productive, even though the focal point of the weekend turned out to be disappointing. The final was very impressive and the atmosphere was electric; despite Man City's best efforts, we certainly won the volume contest. Alas, if only the story on the pitch had been the same... We didn't turn up to be honest, which was a shame because we had been playing so well before the game. I had made the classic football fan mistake of believing that we were going to win and thus, I was even more devastated when the game ended in defeat. Nevertheless, I remained in good spirits as best I could and Saturday evening was a success, both in terms of the number of Stoke shirts on show in the house and Blue's fabulous Eurovision effort, bagging us a wonderful 100 points. Needless to say, I lost my voice.

And so, I headed back off to Brazil. After two days travelling, I arrived in the town of Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil. From there I crossed the border into Argentina to the town of Puerto Iguazu an eventually to my hostel. The hostel was as good as a hotel and I spent the day just sunbathing by the pool with some young, Canadian engineers. I had my food cooked for me again by an Israeli; they seem to love cooking, as if to prove that they can do it. Whereas I am more than happy to let people cook for me! 

The next morning I was up at 7, ready to see the falls before the crowds got too large. They say that the negative ions generated by the sheer volume of pounding water create a feeling of happiness as you approach the falls. Indeed, I was really excited, really pumped for it. We went to the big one first: Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat). Nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced there. The river is really calm, but you can hear the roaring of water in the distance, gradually increasing with every step. And then the world just falls away. The water plummets down into an abyss; you can't see the bottom due to the mist, the noise is deafening, such that I could barely hear myself think and the spray literally drenches you. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen; I just couldn't believe how incredible it was. Describing it is impossible; pictures and videos don't even come close to explaining the feeling; it has to be seen, experienced, lived. I give it my highest recommendation, it was legendary.

The rest of the day was spent walking around the park. There are plenty more falls to see and we made sure we saw every single one, including a boat trip over to the central San Martin island, which offered a fantastic panoramic view of the falls. Even now, almost 48 hours later, I am still feeling amazed by it. I could have stood on that viewing platform overlooking the Devil's Throat for a week. Unbelievable experience.

I am now commencing the third leg of my South America tour, with two months devoted to Bolivia and Peru. Bring it on! 

Wednesday 11 May 2011

A Spontaneous Journey

The football match was certainly an experience. The fans were on their feet, moving and singing all the time. Flamengo played appalingly, but they didn't seem to mind too much; they were more intent on making a lot of noise and trying to break the stadium. The standard of football was better than I had expected and I bought a cheap Ronaldinho shirt, which was cool.

The following morning, I went on a Favela tour. The Rocinha Favela is the largest in the world and is home to over 200,000 people. As all the Favelas are built on hills surrounding Rio, we took motorbike taxis up which were a lot of fun. On the way down, in the blistering heat, we saw some great grafitti art and some local drummers, as well as a few guys who were just casually sitting with a machine gun on their lap; you know, as you do. It reminded me of where Cristian lives in the Dominican Republic, just bigger, dirtier and obviously more dangerous. It really is a shame that these Favelas exist as they do. 99% of the Favela population are just trying to scrape a living and stay alive. Unfortunately, the other 1% are the drug gangs and so the police can't go in there to try ad sort it out.  

Friday and Saturday nights in Rio are awesome. The district of Lapa in the north of the city gets completely shut down as thousands of people fill the streets. There are stands selling food, vendors selling drinks and more clubs and bars than you can imagine all in one place. We spent about an hour wandering around before choosing a suitable location. I really enjoyed Rio, but for me Buenos Aires is unbeatable in terms of enjoyment..

On Saturday evening, I was still unsure as to where I should go next; Paraty or Florianopolis. In the end, I went to neither because I met an Argentinian photographer, Victor, who was driving to the town of Ouro Preto in the mining region, north of Rio, and looking for someone to accompany him. He managed to persuade me and so the next morning we set off on a 7 hour drive in his 1972 Peugeot 404. The car attacted a lot of attention as we wound our way through the hills, struggling up and speeding down. We stopped a couple of times so that Victor could take some photos of the views, enlisting the help of his model (a dummy), Clara. 

The city was beautiful. Every building was 18th century architecture and there were churches and statues dotted all over the place. As we drove up through tiny cobbled streets, the roads became narrower and narrower, until we burst onto the stunning Plaza de Tiradentes. Walking around the city the following day, I struggled up several, ridiculously steep hills and again found myself wondering why the Brazilians insisted on building their cities in such inconvenient places; first Rio and now this! I managed to see some architecture by Brazil's most famous sculptor, Aleijandinho, who lost the use of his hands at the age of 30, but continued to sculpt by attaching tools to his arms. And to think, I have trouble with sandcastles...

Thursday 5 May 2011

Brazil

My arrival in Brazil was greeted with rain; lots and lots of rain. I decided to take a taxi from the airport because it was dark and I would have got soaked. The streets of Sao Paulo were packed with cars and it seemed like the driver had a battle on his hands to get us through the onslaught. 

During my three days in Sao Paulo, I visited a museum with a very interesting social project called "The 6 Billion Others", saw a little of the Royal Wedding, which even the Brazilians seemed to be interested in and sipped Caipirinhas (Brazil's National Cocktail). My overriding feeling of Sao Paulo is that it is just too big. It doesn't have the character of other cities because it is a vast, swarming metropolis, home to more than 20 million people. Nevertheless, my experiences were most pleasant.

Rio is another story altogether. I have been staying a stone's throw away from Copacabana Beach and close to Ipanema. Unlike Sao Paulo, there is a tangible atmosphere here, which seems to be infectious. On Tuesday evening I found a bar playing live samba music. Now, trying to dance samba is very difficult and I'm sure I looked ridiculous, but I had a great time. You have to move so quickly and it's very tiring, but I was up to the challenge. Today was spent on the beach at Copacabana enjoying the sun and the sea; the waves were remarkable. If you didn't time your dives just right, you would get dragged along the sea bed by the current. I took a few blows to the head but it was brilliant.

It hasn't been all perfect though. Until today the weather had been quite cloudy and views from the mountains have not been very clear. I did manage to achieve the impossible of taking a picture of the statue of Jesus Cristo Corcovado without any other people in the photo. Unfortunately, Jesus is barely distinguishable, so I'm going to go back if I can one day. 

I have also found that I can read and understand quite a lot of Portuguese, but speaking is very hard. There are similarities with Spanish, but the accent is not one of them. Somebody told me that "Portuguese is like Spanish spoken by Sean Connery". I'm beginning to think that they had a point...

This evening, in preparation for the biggest match of my life next week, I will hopefully be going to a Brazilian Cup match in which Ronaldinho should be playing. I've heard that the atmosphere is crazy so I'm very excited for that.