Iguacu Falls, Brazil/Argentina

The bus ride from Florianopolis was a 16 1/2 hour night ride. There were quite a lot of families with young children in the bus and they were surprisingly well behaved. There were a couple of stops for meals at huge depots. They were only for buses and had a buffet restaurant, small supermarket, and souvenir stalls. One sold huge statues and large paintings. We saw truck stops as well and they were signed as being just for trucks.

We caught a taxi from the bus terminal to our hostel and have found the drivers to be helpful and using the meters as they should. Where we can, we prefer to use buses to get about but if the taxi drivers are honest then it makes life easier.

The hostel was well located near the local bus terminal and not far from a huge supermarket. Around the corner was a churrascario (traditional barbeque) so we decided to try it out. It was wonderful. They brought around skewers of meat that they had grilled and explained what it was called and you could have as much or as little as you wanted. The buffet was set up with salads and hot vegetables as well as crumbed or battered vegetables and fish. There was a set price and you could have a choice of desserts and cakes. We decided to try the caipirinha,made with a sugar cane liqour, fresh limes and sugar. It was quite nice. We found it a reasonable price so went a couple of times as it was so convenient and the staff were so helpful.

Caught the local bus to the bird park not far from the gates to the Iguacu Falls. We really enjoyed the birds and butterflies in the park. Many of the birds have been rescued from traffickers or nursed back from injury.

Caiman

We walked across the road to the falls and spent a couple of hours walking along the Brazilian side. It was a grey damp day but that didn't matter.

The coati were entertaining as they grabbed plastic bags with food off the unwary tourists or rifled the rubbish bins. There were photos on the warning signs of wounds that they could inflict. Their
 snouts are like a long nosed pig and they root in the soft earth looking for grubs.

The following day we took a tour from the hostel to see the Argentine side of the falls. After working out the logistics of buses entry fees and the border crossing it seemed the most efficient way for us to see the falls. We were joined by four young women from Israel and a German guy who was working in Rio. The guide has been doing the tours for about 15 years and his English was terrible as he never used complete sentences. It reminds me to try to be as accurate as I can with my Spanish so I

don't sound like him!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              It is really nice on the Argentine side of the falls. Three quarters of the falls are on their side and you can get much closer to the water. The horseshoe shaped falls are 2.7 kilometres long.

The begonias thrive in the misty spray on the sides of the cliffs.

The epiphytes on the tree trunks also like the misty environment.

Florianopolis, Brazil

Eliete showed us some bowls with rice and manioc and piles of maize strewn along some of the curbs. She said they were offerings left by some of the African people as part of their religion and worship.Some were in places we would never have noticed if she had not pointed them out to us. The maize just looked like someone was feeding the pigeons or had spilt it.

It was an early morning wake up at Porto Alegre with Eliete as we caught a taxi to the bus station for a bus to Florianapolis. Luckily we left early as there had been a crash on the way and it took 45 minutes to travel 14 kms - just like Auckland.

It was great to have a day bus trip as we saw lots of fields that had been recently planted. We passed wind turbines on small hills and lots of factories producing clay roofing tiles and flooring tiles from clay quarries close by them. We also passed a coal mine which looked like it supplied a nearby power station.

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As we neared Florianapolis there were lots of banana, mandarin and orange trees around the small houses and it was the first sign of a change of climate.

The bus station was well organised with a tourist office that had a fluent English speaker. She had all the bus timetables prepared and typed up in English on handouts which was so great. If she couldn't answer our questions she researched the information. Others have just said they didn't know and didn't bother any further.

After a short walk we reached the local bus terminal which had 3 entrances. You paid a fixed rate  at the cashier and entered the turnstile without a ticket. The platform was fenced off and you could not go from one platform to another. When the bus arrived, everyone entered and sat down. The cashier got on at the first stop and took money or scanned passes from the next passengers who could not exit unless they passed through the turnstile. There is no need for printing tickets and it gives another person a job.

Great colourful walking streets in Florianopolis City

From the City of Florianopolis we crossed to the Island of Catarina where we got off the bus at Lago do Conceicao and walked to our guesthouse. It was a small but comfortable room with a kitchen and a lovely bathroom. They are experts here in Brazil at getting a handbasin, toilet, bidet and shower into the smallest space they can! The garden was  well maintained and every spot was filled with plants as well as some pottery Disney characters- quirky.

Lagoa is a buzzing place in the summer because of the surf beaches. There are loads of restaurants and bars, supermarkets and clothing shops.One night we ate at the food truck park which had Tex Mex, Japanese, Aussie burgers, Belgian pancakes, and a craft beer truck. Another night we ate at a cafe/bistro place and it would not have been out of place in The Mount.

It was very relaxing and we walked to a different surfing beach each day we were here. Lots of dreadlocked surfers and young backpackers selling jewelery on the street. A few businesses were set up for stand up boarding but lots of places were closed as it is the off season.

The shower heats the water in the rose and the temperature regulated by turning the rod under it with red being hot and shades to green being cold. In 1981 we often had to join two wires together to get hot water in our showers so this is a huge improvement and economical compared with our hot water cylinders.

On one of our walks we saw the fishermen hauling in their nets full of fish and the locals were there to buy some and the bins had the names of locals restaurants on them. Men on phones directed the fish into appropriate bins as they confirmed orders with local businesses.

Life guards at Mole Beach

Mole beach

The beach was deserted except for a few day trippers like us. Only a couple of restaurants were open but no one was inside. The place apparently pumps in the summer.

                                                                                  

Tourists trying out sandboarding on the dunes at Joaquima Beach.

Joaquima Beach

I was fascinated with the new paving they had installed on the footpaths along the lagoon. The long lines let a blind person know the direction of the path and the small dots let them know there was a driveway or roadway.

Unfortunately for the blind person the route was disturbed by construction works or sand spilling over the path or  it was never finished.

Saw several signs about the zika mosquito.

This area is well known for its lace making and these outfits were made by the locals. A sculpture in the main square was dedicated to them.

We tried to busy a SIM card for our phone and had a lot of problems tying to find out what the number was so we could charge it. The man in a small kiosk that sold it to us had no idea how they worked. We caught a bus into Florianopolis City to ask at the telcos office and was told it would take 48 hours to verify the number. That made it pretty useless for us. Each state needs a new SIM so if you are not long in a state and it takes that long it will be a pain to use the data on the phone. However lots of places have free WiFi but they are not always powerful enough to do anything other than open emails.

Bought a bus ticket to take a night bus to Foz do Iguazzu.

Porto Alegre, Brazil

The 13 hour night bus ride from Montevideo was pretty comfortable but we didn't get much sleep as the lady next to us got out at every stop the bus made and smoked as fast as she could. She got back into her seat and coughed incessantly until the next smoke break. The seats reclined further than they do in an aeroplane and they have a leg rest that folds down to lie your feet on. A thin flat cushion was under us and and a polar fleece blanket over us. Sadly my earplugs could not cut out the noisy cougher. Included in the price of the ticket was dinner; a cheese pastry slice, a chicken pastry slice, a cheese and guava jam pastry slice, that were all cold with two fudge balls for dessert and a cup of coca cola. Most people did not eat their dinner.

We handed our passports to the driver and he checked them when we got on the bus and then presented them at the border checkpoints while we were sleeping so we never had to get out of the bus until we arrived in Porto Alegre.

We caught a local bus from the bus station to our hostel. The bus had a turnstile just past the driver. It was managed by the operator who takes the money or prepaid cards. With our day bags in front of us and our packs on our backs it was such a tight squeeze that the operator had to give us a lift and a push so we could get into the aisle. We have been scheming ever since to find a way to get through these things in a more dignified manner.

The hostel was great and as it is low season there are not many guests. Even though we arrived about 8am and check in is usually 2pm we were invited to have breakfast and were shown our room. It had a heat pump which we used as it is still quite cold. There was also an extractor fan in the room and the outlet pipe went down near the wall of the neighbouring carpark. This meant that the noises of cars starting, doors slamming and people talking was amplified up the extractor pipe. Luckily the earplugs could keep out most of the noises
.

We had a map of several self guiding tours of the city so  spent some time doing those. Most people pass through Porto Alegre on their way to Iguazu Falls and don't spend much time there. We noticed that the streets were very clean and people recycled their rubbish. Sadly there is still a lot of graffiti but not as much as in Uruguay and Buenos Aires.

The people living in the parks and streets never bothered us. There are lots of people selling sweets or small items as they walk about and lots selling things they have made on the footpaths.We saw some musicians busking with banjos and playing American bluegrass tunes.

The account that shows we paid a set price

On one day we got hungry and saw a lot of people in a restaurant having lunch so decided it must be a good place to eat. A young lady gave us a ticket each and mumbled something in Portuguese so we went in. We asked at the cashier if anyone spoke English and they shook their heads. We looked at the buffet dishes and found a person monitoring a set of scales. She found us an English speaker who explained how the system worked. If you eat a little your plate is weighed and you pay per 100 gms. If you eat more than a certain weight you pay a set price and can eat soup, a drink, a main, and dessert and have as much as you want for that set price. It is called a buffet livre. There were so many dishes; salads, pastas, stews, vegetables, fried meats, and accompaniments. It was great to have a choice of cooked and salad vegetables.

The desserts

On the Couchsurfing website we saw that the local group was meeting at a bar near the hostel so we signed up to join them. What a great night. There were about 40 people and most spoke English. Every time a person arrived they went to each person and introduced themselves and gave everyone a kiss. This is such a welcoming tradition compared with what would happen at a NZ gathering. People mingled and came over to chat to us. On Couchsurfing they are all interested in travelling so we have a lot in common to chat about.

On the way to the bar we passed two groups of people being watched by the police and the streets were shut down. A couple of fireworks went off and we hurried on to our meeting. We were told it was protesting about the impeachment of the current female president by those for it and those against it. It will be 180 days before the investigation into the impeachment is resolved and the vice president takes over running the country in the meantime.

I had posted a public trip notice on the CS website saying we would be in Porto Alegre and that means that anyone in the area can contact you. A young lady named Eliete read it and invited us to stay with her at her place in the south of the city for the weekend. We accepted her invitation and then she sent us a message to say that some people in the group were going trekking and organised for her friends to pick us up and take us to the Itapua State park where we caught up with her.

The park is home to one of the indigenous tribes and we had to hire a guide to take us on our trek through the park ending at Lake Guiaba.

The guide showed our group of 12 the different varieties of plants and we had to preserve the spider webs that crossed the track.

No Capybara but his droppings.

 The park is home to lots of different kinds of snakes, monkeys and capybara the largest rodent in the world. The only wildlife we saw was an enormous spider right in the middle of the track and it was bigger than a golf ball.

Eliete lives with her mum on a piece of land that was her grandfather's farm. It has a small orchard with mandarins, lemons, loquats and huge passionfruit with yellow skin. The farm now has three houses on it for her sister, cousins and brother.

It rained while we were with Eliete but she got out maps and brochures and gave us suggestions for places to visit and things to do in Brazil. When we told her it was our wedding anniversary she made us a heart shaped polenta cake and put some sparklers on it and sang to us. She does not speak much English but we managed to communicate in three languages at the same time- English, Spanish and Portuguese. What a great time we had!

Punta del Este, Uruguay

We decided to get out of Montevideo for a day trip and picnic to Punta del Este. It was a two hour ride in a very comfortable bus. All along the two lane highway were laybys with a numbered bus shelter and the locals waved the bus down and it stopped to pick them up. As we left the city we passed through an industrial area and then a expensive area of huge houses all well kept. All the side roads off the highway were unsealed and unlit with the occasional horse and cart. It was surprising to pass thatched houses along the road as well.

The bus emptied at Maldonaldo and we were the only ones on it. We assumed that the workers reside there as it is too expensive to live in Punta del Este. We know the name of this place from the Round the World yacht races as it is one of the stops on their races so it is good to get to know more about it.

 The fingers are a well known site on the beach.

 We found this building interesting with its own wind turbines on the roof.

 The port was pretty quite with it being winter.

 The fishermen had just come in and the South American sea wolves or sea lions were diving for the scraps of fish but we couldn't see where they were to photograph them. However we saw quite a few sea birds that posed for us.

There are hundreds of high rise apartments lining the beach and more being constructed because South American celebrities have holiday places here and come for the summer. At this time of the year it is deserted and lots of places are closed.

It was so lovely to get out of the smells of the city and enjoy the peace and tranquility of the beach again.

We said good bye to Noel and cleaned up ready to head to Brazil.

Montevideo, Uruguay

A few years ago we hosted Juan from Uruguay, through the Couchsurfing website. He said we had to contact him if we ever got to Uruguay, so we did. Unfortunately, he had been posted with the army to Haiti as a translator. However he organised his friend Noel to prepare his apartment for us which was fantastic. It was close to the bus station that we had arrived at and Noel was there to show us around the second floor apartment in the 10 storey block. We had picked up a street map at the bus station so we were able to see that we were in a handy location to do the things we wanted to do.

Noel and Juan were both brought up in the block when it was built 36 years ago so have been friends a long time. Noel lives alone in her parents apartment on the tenth floor.

We took our rubbish to these bins on the side of the street everyday. It is such a shame that there is so much graffiti everywhere. A few people keep the street fronts clean but most do not. We saw men with horses and carts come by and take things from the bins for recycling or selling. The bins were also visited by people collecting cardboard and paper to sell as well as people who slept on the streets looking for food.

These well looked after houses near Juan's caught our eye. They have security cameras and razor wire or electric wire on the side walls. It would be a nightmare to escape from such a house in a fire with all the grills over the windows and often more than one key is needed to open the doors.

The first task we needed to do was to get a visa for Lil for Paraguay. John has a NZ and a UK passport and a visa is not needed for his UK one. I had to pay $140 US and wait a couple of hours to have a two page visa issued. It took a while to find the consulate as we had different addresses from different places and then discovered that the streets had been renumbered so were looking in the wrong block. I spotted a postie and he put us right.

We walked to different parts of the city each day and one day saw about 40 people filming this shot for a telenovela or soap opera.They were accompanied by about 6 buses and 10 vehicles and a couple of streets in the centre were closed for the filming.Noel thought they were probably foreign companies. We had read that Colonia del Sacramento was used for movies set in Havana, Cuba because the settings are similar.

One day it was a warmish 20C so we strolled around the centre and ate lunch in the sun.

There were people selling handicrafts on the side of the walking street and buskers entertaining onlookers.

The Palacio Salvo and its bulbous towers in the city centre is quite impressive.

















The walking street heads down to the port where the tourist boats come in and we visited the overpriced Mercado del Puerto where the tourists from the boats head to eat parilla- grills and buy
souvenirs.

Marijuana was legalised for personal use in 2000 and the sale of it was legalised in 2013. We only ever saw a couple of shops selling it and they were in the tourist area.

On the weekend we visited the Tristan Narvaja area where there are several blocks of this huge street market. There are antiques that take us back as well as secondhand goods, fruit and vegetables and pets for sale. The intersections are jammed with people listening to buskers and stalls selling fried foods.It is massive. We bought a thermos so we can have tea and coffee when we feel like it or carry cold water in hot weather. Well, we are hanging out for hot weather.

Along the coast is the Ramblas area where Noel works selling apartments. We saw several cranes and new tower blocks going up.

We went to a parilla restaurant with Noel one night and enjoyed a sample of different grills. It had a great atmosphere and had been a store before the family converted it.

We really appreciate what Juan has done for us and enjoyed our time with his childhood friend Noel as well. Couchsurfing is such a great way to meet people.