beaches, brothels & boca...

ps. i love travelling... i have just spent 20 minutes speaking with an argentinian guy...he spoke about 7 words or english (not including his 1-10 numbers) i speak a few more in spanish...but with a combination of charades, pictures, maps and the 20 words or so we both understand we managed to understand each other...love it. he will also be in bolivia in a few weeks, so i told him i will practice my spanish on the bus, and we'll meet up for a good chat...he was stoked...

Don't worry mum, i didnt actually go to a brothel. We got into sao paulo, brazil at about midnight, and walked around trying to find a reccommended hostel for half an hour. we decided to just jump in a taxi...but he took us back about 100m away from where we had started walking to some random dodge looking hotel. couldn't be bothered getting to the other place so just booked in for the night. few minutes later (and repeatedly through the night) our neighbours made some interesting and quite disturbing noises...yeah...luckily we had pay tv and were able to drown it out by cranking mtv...

i seem to be writing in reverse chronological ( not sure if thats spelt right...i had to write a word out for a spanish speaker last night, and realised how rubbish at spelling i have become...or always was) order we spent 10 days in brazil. flew into rio - pretty much just chilled on the beach and relaxed a bit, went to a futbol game. fluminese vs vasco. man it was sweet as, you cannot believe the passion these guys have for the sport - it is pretty much life or death, the game ended 3-3 heaps of action, fans going ape...seriously reminded me of a zoo, an out of control zoo. The fans, sing, yell and scream. Slap, punch and break chairs. slap, punch and break billboards and signs. Light flares, fires and seats...man its is awesome, the best atmosphere. Definitely the highlight of rio for me.

Then we moved onto saquarema for the weekend, a quiet sleepy surf town 2 hours north east of rio. pretty chilled out, not alot to do rather then hit the beach and cruise around.

An overnight bus trip took us to sao paulo, home to 12 million people, went up a skyscraper and all you can see is buildings and house disappearing into the smog, absolutely massive...stayed for 3 days and just cruised around, wasnt really to interested in the city, but found some things to do. most notable being the portugese museum, the only one in the world...must see in SP...(i didnt understand a word, but the pictures were ace.) Heaps of homeless people. ate cereal from the box, just tip the milk in. no bowl, no worries....

From SP another overnight bus took us to the iguazu falls on the border between paraguay, argentina and brazil. Small problem at the border, the girl stamped me into brazil again, instead of out. she copped a bit from her supervisor as well, poor kid. got that sorted and jumped on a local bus to the argentine side and started chatting to some british boys...started talking about england, and as things were revealed one guy worked at the same gym i did 2 years before and the other guys played in the band at newbold college church ( i remembered his face from somewhere...and they knew a few aussies i know as well) random, on a tiny local bus on the border of argentina... couldnt believe it... both sevvies as well...so cool....

did i mention i love travelling...thats another one of the reasons( and the main one) the people you meet...

iguazu falls are mad...in total 3km long an dup to 80m high...awesome. look it up on google images, that will explain everything...i cant put my pics on here yet...

5 hours down the road we stopped at san ignacio mini, home of some jesuit ruins...awesome... actually while youve got google open, just look that up as well- itll save me from explaining a lot. and if you see the paddock behind the ruins... we jumped the fence and camped there for the night, just for something to do...it was freezing and the ground was hard as...so kind of like sleeping in a fridge, a fridge with a concrete floor...

We are now in buenos aires, Argentina. its an awesome city(and i dont even like cities) , so much to do, but i am running out of time - today went to these massive street markets, about 1km long heaps of antiques and artists who sell their work, so heaps of original and cool work for sale...if only i had heaps of money and didnt have to carry everything on my back for the next few months...also saw another futbol game this arvo. boca juniors vs. jujuy. it was the first game of the season so all the fans were keen as, and had a few months of pent up yelling and singing to get out. the atmosphere was awesome. we were in the locals stand, the cheapest ( and dangerous, we were told) and you stand up and sing, yell, chant for the full 90 minutes...sweet as...they even have a full band in there leading all the chants...had a great time boca won 4-0 and all was sweet despite all the warnings recieved...

anyways, thats about 1% of what ive done, and not even the best - just what came to my head now - having a ripper time, meeting awesome people, and seeing some really cool places and experiencing some sweet culture (how good is my adjective range...ha) jumping on an overnight bus tomorrow to not sure where, but were making our way west towards chile where will get in a week of snowboarding before camilla jets home. hope all is well where you are. take it easy. andy