Our first taste of BA

With Phil and Jen's upcoming wedding back home in April, our itinerary means we will be back to spend longer in BA, but as we were nearby we couldn't resist an action packed weekend:

• City walk including Eva Perón's "tomb";
• Tango lesson and show;
• All night and morning clubbing; and
• Antiques market

It could be Surrey quays...

Like Trafalgar Square but just not quite

Beautiful buildings

And the Weird...

The city graveyard has hundreds of extremely ornate tombs/crypts

Including the First Lady of Argentina

The Argentines just love the tango and perform in bars, street, basically anywhere - here are the steps to one version.

Teachers pet

Star pupils

The world famous Plaza Dorrego antiques market

Mate anyone - the Argetines love their Mate! it tastes like a combination of tobacco and tea - I'm sure it will grow on us...

There were some weird and wonderful items in the market, including a guy who sawed out coined to leave only the design. He wouldn't let us take picture, probably for fear of imprisoniment for defacing every countries monarchs.

Buenos Aires has a very European feel too it and even after a couple of days there, the place we would like to live the most.

 

Iguassu falls - Argentina

After Florianopolis we headed to the Iguassu falls, the world's largest. They are just amazing.

You get to walk at different viewing heights and at the lowest levels you got pretty soaked from the falls. We even went on a boat trip which goes underneath some of the falls where you get completely saturated after a second, it was great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah got attacked by a lizard who thought her flip flops were a butterfly

Ad then we went to the Devils throat, where falls fall into other falls and you cant see down because there is an eternal mist.

 

 

Time to relax - let's go to Florianopolis

A beautiful town with over forty beaches and actually a massive party scene so not so relaxing after all.

There were some good surfer beaches with such choppy waves, no bikini was safe

A restaurant we went to famous for its fish and mouri (a stock like sauce) with over 70,000 notes from customers stuck to the walls. There's even been a book written about them

And then it was time to say goodbye to Brazil to head to Argentina. Absolutely loved it, apart from the queuing...

 

Rio - TIME FOR CARNAVAL!

So, we made it to Rio, and with a couple of days before Carnival starts we decided to get the sightseeing underway. It was quite lucky that we arrived early as it meant we had our choice of bed... 70 beds and 5 bathrooms was fun!

The first thing we wanted to see was Cristo Redentor. You can see this from most places in Rio, but up close it is special, and the view of Rio is even better. Here is a few of the thousand pictures we took from the top.

 

 

 

 

One of our favourite things was going on a favela tour of the biggest favela in Rio, Rocinha, with over 300,000 people living there. An average flat in Copacabana costs R$2000 a month (about £600) but the average minimum wage is R$600 a month, so any taxi driver, hostel worker, police officer will live in a favela. There were up to eight stories of houses built o top of each other and with only one road, most people don't have addresses, so post is delivered to a van. There was a real community feel with thousands of businesses, some schools, health care facilities and even a couple of hostels opening up.

 

 

 

 

 

And now time for carnival, what can we say, blocos, beer, capirinhas, feathers, heat, dancing, street parties, samba, Lapa Lapa Lapa

 

 

We went to the sambadromo to see the parade which was incredible. Each samba school has an hour and a half to parade and have thousands of people taking part in amazing costumes and show stopping floats.

 

 

 

Yes that is a water slide

Ad my favourite. Each person starts as a piece of Black Forest gateau, then they form together to make a cake, then pop their heads up to be the cherries on top!

And then it's all over