Carnaval

I was warned that carnaval in Salvador would be a crazy event. It is officially the biggest party in the world having recently taken over Rio´s carnaval. Over 2 million people come from all over the world to dance in the streets of Salvador for 6 consecutive days. At first I thought that I could do it standing on my head, but I learned my lesson.

The reason I decided to come to Salvador instead of Rio is that carnaval in Rio is more of a show where you watch the parade while standing on the side of the road; whereas the on in Salvador lets you take part in the parade, making you a part of the carnaval and not just a spectator.

There are t-shirts for sale that act as a ticket into the different blocos parading around the city. A bloco is a cordoned-off area in the street where people dance to the music being blasted out by the trio electricos that follow them. The trios are massive busses fitted with enormous sound systems carrying two bands that play music for the entire circuit. Those who want to take part in the blocos have to be able to afford it, however, as the t-shirts do not come cheap.

Those who can not afford it end up in the streets and become "popcorn". Depending on the parade circuit you are watching, this can range from a very amazing experience, to something almost regretable. There are three main circuits around the city: one in Barra which goes along the beach into Oninda; one in Campo Grande right in the centre of the city; and one in Pelourihno, the old city. I went to them all on different days and I can easily say that my favorite was Barra. This is mostly because it was the biggest, safest, and least crowded - thanks to the beach - one.

On the first night a big group of 11 of us decided to go to Barra because we were told that it was the best one. It took three taxis to get us there, so inevitably, we were seperated before actually getting there. After the many efforts to keep the group together to leave Pelourinho, it seems that we might as well not have bothered. I ended up with an English and a Swiss guy. It was nice to be in a smaller group because we could roam around free without having to wait for a million people to do nothing of any importance.

This was the nice when I decided to tru the "50 cent test" I had devised to see how good the pick pockets were. I placed 50 cents in my pocket to see if I could feel it being taken from me, and credit to whoever took it, because I felt absolutely nothing. I think they really deserved that money for being so good at what they do.

On the next day I met my friends in the afternoon where we all discussed the night before. We all agreed that it was great, but nothing as wild as we had expected. The conclusion to this dilema was that it was the first night, and it would get wilder once people had warmed up to the idea of carnval.

the great time we all had in Barra on the first night made us all want to go there again for the second night. This time we had made more friends, so we were a group of about 18. We had found out where the buses were leaving from now, so that was agreed to be the best mode of transportation for such a large group.

After walking around for a while, we stumbled on to a hall with many food and drinks stlls that had a perfect view of the parade, but was far enough away that all of us could sit down and enjoy eachothers company for a while. This hill would become the meeting point for the group until the end of carnaval. When we finally got bored of the hill, we went out on the street again to follow one of the blocos. I got lost with another Swiss guy in the masses and got seperated from the group. It all worked out, though, because we ended up meeting some really nice Brazilians who were quite alot of fun.

Day three was time to try something different. Barra was excellent, but there was so much more to see that it would have been a shame not to do it all and since Pelourinho was litterally on our doorstep, it was the obvious choice.

The parades pass through Pelourinho are durring the day, but at night there are many stages set up with bands playing all different types of music. We found one stage for samba, one for reggae and one with some dance music. All of them were really, so we stayed a long time watching each one. On the way home we got side-tracked by a beer stand. How dare they be so tempting! By this point there were opnly three of us left standing and for some reason the converstation turned into a heated political debate. Probably the last thing I would have expected to happen at carnaval.

Night four was the leat enjoyable of them all. I had bought myself a t-shirt to get into a bloco for three night. On this night I would have to go to Campo Grande on my own - not realising how different this circuit is to the other two I had experience up to that point.

Campo Grande is right in the centre of the city, which means that there is not much space for the "popcorn". Imagine having to fit several thousand people people in an area the width of a side walk. This is a pick-pocket´s wet dream. Also, with this many people trying to steal things from your pockets and alcohol flowing like a river, a fight starts about every 5 minutes. To try and protect the people there to have a good time, the government have brought in the MILITARY POLICE, no less. Basilcally there are soldiers dressed in desert storm gear roaming the streets blatantly abusing their power and intimidating people. Once girl was having fun waving her beer around and some spilled on the policeman that happened to be walking past. There was no way she could have known he was there, because he was behind her, but he still grabbed the beer out of her hand, emptied it on her, and finished by slapping her around the face a couple times.

As much of a deterent to any kind of real crime that is to me, it did not seem to bother the hundreds of pick-pockets after whatever I had in my pockets. It was crazy the number of times I felt foreign hands going in my pockets. I had been warned only to take money and to put it in my socks and I am glad to have heeded that advice.

It took two hours of walking through that party from hell before I finally made it to my bloco where I would be safe from grabby hands for the following 4 hours.

The bands playing in my bloco were not very fun. They kept playing the same songs over and over again. The American guys I met in teh bloco and I managed to count one song being played 13 times. It was probably more, but we were not always paying attention.

After the bloco I went back and played cards with Sagy and other people from my hostel. It was nice to have my first rest since the whole thing began. Going to bed at 5am made this my earliest night of the whole carnaval, by far.

My second night of bloco I would not have to do on my own, which was nice because the bloco was again in Campo Grande. Two Canadian friends came with me to keep me company. After a few drinks someone decided to have a competition to see how many people we could kiss in the bloco. All I will say is that the girl won by so much that even she lost count.

On the final day, I was supposed to go once again to a bloco in Campo Grande, but I thought it would be much nicer to spend it with my friends, so I gave my shirt away to someone in the street. I´m sure it made his day and possibly even his whole carnaval.

We started the night by making Caiprinhas in the hostel. The cachaça was gone before we knew it, and off we went to Barra and the hill. Fat Boy Slim was playing on one of the tios, so everyone wanted to wait until he passed to jump in front of the bloco and enjoy the show as popcorn.

The group somehow managed to to disperse even though we pretty much stayed in the same place. By the time Fat Boy Slim arrived, I was with only three other people. We followed the trio for a while, but there were far too many people to have fun there, so we waited for it to pass. Behind the bloco, there were more of our friends waiting for us. One of them, a Puerto Rican, had heard of the competition we were having the night before and he wanted us to have one of our own.

We ended up stayin out past the end of the parade (again drinking at one fo those stalls on the side of the road - damn them!). By the time we got back to our hostel it was about 10 am and breakfast had already started, so we had something to eat before crashing.

Overall, carnaval was excellent, but there were a few things I really did not like about it. Obviously, the pick-pockets and fights were unpleasant, but the music left alot to be desired as well, which I found most surprising. They kept playing the same exact songs over and over again (if I hear CA-CHA-ÇA one more time, I´ll have to kill someone). Finally, I did not like the way there were very few toillets, forcing people to relieve themselves in the street. The smell was pretty bad by the end. This could have been worse, though, becuase it rained every day very hard for about half an hour at a time, so this washed most of it away. I can not begin to imagine how bad it gets on a year when there is no rain at all.

My favorite thing by far was the number of people selling food and drink on the side of the road. It was impossible to miss them, there were so many, which cut down on not only waiting times, but also time spent searching for food or drink. The good was also really nice. I am usually pretty skeptical about buying meat from someone in the street, but here it was really good. Also, the grilled cheese on a stick. MMM... grilled cheese on a stick! I had so many of them, I´m surprised they did not make me sick.

I am now in Manaus on the other side of the country, right in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. On Monday, I shall go on a 5 day trek in the jungle with a guide. This should be amazing. Then on saturday, I shall be taking a boat along the Amazon into Colombia.

Salvador de Bahia

I think the guy who told me that the bus ride would be 26 hours to get to Salvador must have been smoking a bit too much crack, because it really took over 30 hours. Again, they insisted on showing movies dubbed and subtitled in Portuguese, and ignored my requests to change at least one of the two to a language I can understand.

I arrived quite late in Salvador, and so I was thinking that maybe tourist information would be closed. That would have been a serious problem seeing as I did not have the good sense of booking a place before arriving. Thankfully, though, the desk was open, and the guy working there was infinitely more helpful than the one in Rio (mind you, that is not too difficult to do). He seemed to know the answer to all of my questions, and when I asked him where the bus stop was, he left his post to come show me himself.

The hostel I found - where they say they speak English, French and Italian - is right in the middle of the old city. The receptionist was a bit strange/rude and I am not fully convinced at this point that he can speak Portuguese let alone any of the ones listed above. Still, though, it was late, and they have cheap beds available.

As I was cooking myslef dinner a group walked in and as we started talking, I realised that the girl was from Belgium, so she speaks French, one of the guys was Swiss, so he speaks German. If an Argentinan had walked in at that point, I could have used all four of my languages in about 5 minutes.

The next day, I went walking around trying to explore the city, and randomly bumped into Sagy of all people. It was nice to see him again. We both booked a place here in the same hostel for Carnaval several months ago. This happening only several days before Carnaval, eveyone was starting to make their way here.

Just walking around the city, it is possible to see just how excited everyone is about carnaval. There are many rehearsals in the streets where the bands are practicing. The music is more or less only drums with not other instruments and they sometimes march down the street blocking the traffic. No one seems to care, though. The atmosphere durring the day is great.

At night everything changes. It is not safe to walk alone after dark. Many people had told me this, but stupidly, I decided to do it anyway. I left my friends at their hostel about 200 metres from where I was staying and walked home at about 4 am.

As I was walking up the hill in the pouring rain, I suddenly felt and arm going around my neck. At first I thought it was one of my friends playing a joke, but when I looked over and saw an unfamiliar face, I knew something was wrong. I was not sure what was happening, but my initial reaction was to try to break free from the head-lock I was in. I really thought I was going to be able to break free when, again out of nowhere, four or five more guys showed up. Some of them went straight for my pockets, while others tried to restrain me. At that point it occurred to me that they might be armed and that I might get seriously harmed if I kept struggling.

Once they had torn my pockets and stolen my wallet - containing just under 10 poundes and no bank cards - they ran away leaving me in the rain with nothing more than a few bruises. I suppose it is all part of the South American experience, so in a way I´m pretty happy that it happened, because they did not get much, and I was not seriously hurt.

Rio de Janeiro

24 hours on a bus from Foz do Iguaçu to Rio de Janeiro. Yet another long journey with absolutely nothing to do, and for the first time with no one to talk to. Back in Argentina when I travelled on my oen, I could at least try to talk to people next to me in Spanish, but now in Brazil, it is a whole new language.

The bus was also not quite as nice as the ones in Argentina. Sure, there was air conditioning (thank god), and the seat leaned back pretty far - making it easier to get some sleep - but the service was not as good. For one, there is no food served on buses in Brazil despite how much more they charge for the tickets, so how ever much you spend on your ticket, you also need to factor in the price of food. Secondly, when they show a movie, the show it dubbed in Portuguese (fair enough, I am in Brazil), but they also add Portuguese subtitles. Even when I asked for at least subtitles to be changed to a language I can understand, they did nothing to help me out. It is quite strange that this happens because all the Brazilians I have met so far are very friendly.

The one thing that did impress me about the bus service was the punctuality. I was told the ride would last 24 hours and it really did; 24 hours and zero minutes.

Stepping off the bus and into the oven that is Rio de Janeiro, I picked up my bag and asked where the tourist information des was. After asking several different people and being sent to all corners of the massive bus station, someone finally showed me where it was.

The guy behind the desk could speak English - one step up from alot of South American countries - but this was the only good thing the tourist information of Rio de Janeiro could offer me. I had made reservations at a hostel in Copacobana, but made the silly mistake of not writing down the address. Seeing as it is an HI histel (a big worldwide chain of hostels) I did not think it would be a problem. Apparently, I was wrong. The tourist information only knew of one hostel in the whole city - which they tried desperately to get me to go to - and had no idea of where my hostel was.He told me about where he thought it might be and how to get there, and since he was sending me to Copacobana, I thought I would at least take the bus he was telling me to get, and maybe ask someone once I got there.

As soon as I got off the bus, someone asked me if I was looking for the Che Lagarto hostel (which I was), so that was rather good luck.

Arriving in the morning gave me plenty of time to go up and see the Statue of Christ and go across town to the sugar loaf mountain in time to witness the sunset behind the city of Rio. Both were absolutely fantastic, and I was lucky enough to go see them on a day that was not too cloudy which I am told does not happen often at this time of year.

Having seen everything I wanted to see in Rio de Janeiro, I bought myself a bus ticket to Salvador leaving the next day at 4pm. I was told it would be 26 hours, and following my good experience on the last bus ride regarding Brazilians´accuracy for estimating bus times, I beleived him...

Foz do Iguaçu

By the time I had arrived to Foz do Iguaçu and sorted everything out it was a little too late to go to the falls, so I decided to go explore the town a bit with some Irish guys I met at the hostel. We took the two necessary buses to get to the city and walked around trying to find a place to eat. We finally had to settle for a fast food place that only had burgers. The idea was to eat for cheap.

Being rather pleased with ourselves for finding such a cheap dinner, we decided that we should celebrate in the traditional Irish fashin: several beers (bought from the supermarket to stay in keeping with the thrifty philosophy of the night). All that was left was to get back to the hostel and celebrate. Never under-estimate the over-confidence of four men in the middle of the night in a foreign country where none of them speak the language needing to get back to a place they had only ever seen once in broad daylight. It did not take us long to realise that the first bus we took was taking us the wrong way, but still it was a long walk back to the main road.

Thankfully we did not make the same mistake the second time, but when we finally got to our stop, we discovered - to our dismay - that the second bus necessary to take us to our hostel had stopped running hours ago. it was only a 10-20 minute walk, but all the delays were enough to have made the beer go warm. What a disaster! No need to worry, though, we drank them, and somehow still managed to have a good time despite this.

The next day we got up early to go see the falls from the Brazilian side. The only difference between the two sides is that Brazil is slightly farther away offering a more panoramic view - which is nice for photos - and Argentina is a closer to the falls - which, for me, was a much nicer personal experience.

Along the path in the forest we came across a family of some kind of wild animal. The Irish guys thought that it would be a great photo opportunity for their little stuffed leprechaun Larry. They set him down on the ground, and of course one the animals picked him up and dragged him away. Everyone watched in horror as Larry was being mauled by this beast. Would he ever be the same again? The monster quickly understood that Larry was not food and left him on the side of the trail with nothing more than a few bite marks and dirt stains.

Once we had taken all the pictures we could take of the magnificent falls, we made our way to the Itaipu dam. It is the largest hydro-electric plant in the world and we were told that they had a free tour. The tour was indeed free, but there was also and option of paying 20 reais for a tour which takes you inside the dam. Maybe I am missing the point slightly, but I want to see the biggest dam in the world from the outside. On the inside it would look like any other building. The free tour took us by bus to see the dam with a recording being played over the speaker system giving us and endless array of pointless facts, such as: ¨The construction iron and steel used at Itaipu would build 380 Eifel Towers.¨and ¨The rate of construction at Itaipu was equivalent to a 20 storey building everyon 55 minutes.¨

Iguazu

The bus from Salta leaving at stupid o'clock, it seemed to me that the best way to deal with the situation was to stay up all night until that point, otherwise I would not be able to wake up. The other advantage was that I would probably sleep quite well on the bus, and any time I could spend unconcious would be a great help. It ended up taking about 28 hours because of delays, but we finally arrived in Puerto Iguazu. By the time we had sorted all of our stuff out, we still had the afternoon to go and visit the Argentinian side of the falls.

When we got there, the whole place was overrun by American pensioners on vacation constantly asking the guide which stop they need to get off at, despite the guide having told them hundreds of times only seconds before. This did detract from the the whole experience of the the falls at first. It seemed like an eternity crossing the long, narrow bridge before getting to the first waterfall. At times it felt like jumping off the bridge and swimming up the river would be a much faster option. Finally getting there really changed my mind, however. The falls were so beautiful that it made me forget about how annoying retired people on vacation in big groups can be.

After taking the train to the second set of falls, we started feeling some rain drops, but thought nothing of it. It was actually quite refreshing having some water fall on us in the heat. We had enough time to get to the second set of falls, really enjoy the view, and basque in the beauty before a grey cloud formed over our heads and let loose almost as much water as the falls themselves. We were already soaked down to the bone before we managed to take even the first step back towards the train. Tropical weather stikes again.

This morning, I took the bus from Puerto Iguazu (in Argentina) over to Foz do Iguaçu (in Brazil). Strangely enough, it is nothing more than a local bus, but it crosses the boarder. The bus eventually dropped me off in Foz do Iguaçu where I managed to find a tourist information desk, where remembered that all the time I have spent learning Spanish is now completely useless, because it is a foreign language here too. Nonetheless, the woman told me about a hostel, which is quite some way out of town, but right next to the falls themselves, which will be nice for tomorrow.

Purmamarca

After Cafayate, the plan was to go to Purmamarca and spend in a night in Salta in between. On arrival in Salta we asked around to find out which bus company could take us directly to Purmamarca. The answer: none. They all told us that we could take a bus going to Humahuaca and that it could drop us off in the middle of nowhere, where we could then take a taxi to Purmamarca, or we could go to Jujuy and take a direct bus from there. Jujuy only being a couple of hours away from Salta, we figured that spending a night there or in Salta would be the same. With that decision, our day in Salta became a mere two hours. The tourist information desk told us about a cable car that takes you up to Cerro San Bernard where you have a nice view of the city. It was a very nice recommendation, and we ended up having lunch overlooking the city of Salta.

A couple of hours later, and we were in Jujuy. Although it is the capital city of the region of Jujuy, there is very little to do there. We walked around all afternoon in the markets looking at the junk that was for sale. I had given my laundry to the hostel, as they promised me it would be ready by 8 o'clock the next morning, and we had a bus at 10. Obviously, at 9 o'clock, it had not been done. They had lied to me, and I was left with no option but to put damp laundry in my bag.

Purmamarca was a really nice little town made up solely of mud huts. It was a fantastic little place that looked like it had not advanced in the last century. That is the way it looks on the surface, anyway. On closer inspection, the whole town is overrun by tourists, and shops selling the tackiest of the tacky souveniers. Still, the village is not the reason why we were there. We wanted to see the Salinas, and the Cerro de Siete Colores.

After finding a hostel, we went on the search for an excursion company that could take us to the Salinas. This is basically a desert that is made up of salt rather than sand. It is impossible to walk around there without sun glasses, because the light reflecting off the salt is blinding. Likewise, it is not recommended to walk around without sun screen. There are some locals who have set up stalls there making sculptures out of salt, and they are all wearing face masks and gloves despite the heat, because otherwise they would burn alive.

In the same afternoon, we went on a walk to see the Cerro de Siete Colores, which is a mountain with several different coloured rocks. Frankly, we never asked why there are different colours in the rocks, but it was amusing to see for the hour we spent on the trail.

The next day, we went back to Salta where we had plans to go directly to Iguazu on the other side of the continent. We were told that there was only one possible route, and that was a 26 hour ride leaving at 5:30 in the morning.