Welcome to the jungle

I am writing this in the border town of Corumba, which has excellent pizza al forno and is very charming, we are going to fly into Bolivia in a few hours time, so it will be bye bye Brazil!

We spent the last few days in the wetlands of the Pantanal, staying in jungle lodges by the riverside, surrounded by wildlife. On the first day we fished for Piranhas (photos coming up!), the second day we went walking through the pantanal wetlands in flip flops, so you cant really get more involved than that. As if that was´nt enough, we also took a horse ride through the wetlands, which was a very odd experience, being knee high in water most of the time. This could have been avoided if the Gauchos had given me a steed worthy of my height, but I guess it was their little idea of a joke. Apparently I looked very amusing from the back when my horse decided to spring off on one of many random gallops!

It was great to spend a little time out of the cities and in some nature, even if every night we were awoken to the sounds of the local Howler monkeys having some sort of rave in the communal areas of our resort. Sanni has perfected an impression which I´m sure she will demonstrate on our return.

We are sad to leave Brazil as the people are great and we have seen so many amazing things during the past 2/3 weeks here, but we are also looking forward to the next leg of our adventure.

Paraty

What a change of pace!

Rio was brilliant fun, but I just love this sleepy little town, full of great cafes, bars, shops and beautiful old Colonial buildings. We arrived yesterday at noon after a 4.5 hour coach journey (the coaches here are very comfy, not like the horrible contraptions we get in Europe and Sydney to Byron Bay…).

First activity was lunch, we got introduced to a marvelous way of eating, whereby you have a buffet full of all kinds of food which you pile onto your plate and at the end they weight the plate and charge you per kilo! Genius!

For the rest of the day we just chilled out, it was really lovely walking around the town, taking in the quiet atmosphere, trying not to take the same photos, and stopping for some delicious ice cream which was charged – yes, you guessed it – by the kilo!! Perfect!

Today we took a boat cruise around the islands here, it was great to get to swim and snorkel for the day. My favourite moment was grabbing a beer after the first swim and chilling out in the hammock at the bow – pure bliss.

 Oh and the scenery was truly magnificent. Missing home? Not so much  🙂