Wilson y 6 de Diciembre, Quito

Still dizzy from the altitude, but already planning to climb the Chimborazo (thought to be the highest mountain in the early 19th century, Humboldt and Bonpland tried to climb it as well back then but got sick from the altitude).
Today will go to see the Mitad del Mundo, a place 20km north from Quito where a wide line is drawn exactly 240m from the equator (according to Lonely Planet and Wikipedia). There is a crater as well, hope to see some lava bubbling deep in the crater.
In the night the New Year's Eve celebration takes place on the Amazonas street. Here the tradition is to burn life-size (and even bigger) puppets made of cardboard. Many of the puppets depict politicians but also cartoon characters like Batman and Bender.

Hostal L'Auberge Inn, Quito

After traveling for 30h from Trujillo we are finally in Quito, Ecuador. It's 3am.

Crossing the border in Aguas Verdes/Huaquillas went smoothly even though Lonely Planet describes this as the worst border crossing in South America.

The bus from Huaquillas to Quito sucked and took 3h longer than expected, but the views seen from the bus window were interesting: banana plantations, houses on stilts, etc. Unfortunately reached the mountains only in the dark. Quito is 2800m high, the bus gained this elevation in that last 100km.

It's also cold here, 12 degrees, I think.

Restaurant Romano (again)

Will visit Huaca de la Luna and Chan Chan today and at 20.45 take a night bus to Aguas Verdes at the border between Peru and Ecuador (11h). After crossing the border there we hope to catch a bus to Quito (12h).

Restaurant Romano, Trujillo

ESPN is showing US college women's volleyball. Penn State just beat Texas.
The Cruz del Sur bus looked fancy from the outside but the experience was worse than with the Brazilian long-distance buses. We traveled on the lower deck. There was no place for the bags and no room to stretch the legs. Maybe the upper deck is better.
Arrived in Trujjillo at 7.40AM. There were plenty of hostels to choose from, we took a one at Plazuela El Recreo (40 soles for a double room).
We are now on our way to Plaze de Armas to visit the tourist information there. Stopped at a nice cafeteria that serves Desayuno Peruano.

Cruz del Sur bus station, Lima

Arrived nicely in Lima. Saw a bit of the rain forest during take off, and a bit of the Andes half-way through the flight. Otherwise it was cloudy.

The Lima Airport is modern, has helpful English-speaking tourist information and free wireless. Unfortunately they haven't solved the problem of offering convenient and cheap public transport from the airport to the city: upon arrival one is greeted by leech-like taxi drivers who follow you even after you have told them 10 times that 50 soles (17 USD) is too much for a ride to the center. They agree to lower their price to 35 but we are budget travellers and prefer to pay 1.50 soles each for a dala-dala ride.

The next direct bus to Quito seems to be only in a couple of days, but actually it's difficult to conduct a thorough research because there are many bus companies, with bus stations in different parts of the city, their websites suck, and there is no central information service covering all the companies. Exactly like in Brazil ...

We picked the bus company Cruz del Sur (had the best website among the 5 companies that the tourist information recommended) and will go to Trujillo in the evening (8h trip). From there we hope to get a bus to the border, and from the border to Quito.

Trujillo has some pre-Inca mud pyramids and is also close to the beach. So we'll probably spend a couple of days there and try to reach Quito for the New Year's Eve.

Iquitos Airport

Fed up with long boat rides and eager to save a few days we decided to fly to Lima. In a few hours we should be there. Will then probably immediately take a bus to Quito, Ecuador.

Another reason to take a flight is to be able to experience the Amazonian fractal (?) landscapes from the air. For this reason we took the morning flight. (Peruvian Airlines flies twice a day to Lima, 8.30 and 19.40.) As the sky is very cloudy, we probably won't see anything, however. :(

Iquitos has been a cool place to visit. The highlights were the Belen water city and the manatee orphanage where visitors can feed four manatee babies with milk.

Mamiraua Sustainable Development Reserve

The Reserve (12 400 square km) is located about an hour boat ride away from Tefe, around the Rio Japura. Together with a neighbouring Reserve Amana (no tourist facilities here) and the National Park Jau, it forms the largest protected area in the Brazilian rain forest. The unique thing about Mamiraua is that it protects a flooded forest, meaning that when the snow melts in the Andes there is hardly any dry land here, so all the terrestrial animals have to survive on the trees and have to be good swimmers. Therefore there are not so many mammalian species here as in the usual rain forest. E.g. peccary or armadillo cannot survive here, but on the other hand it is a paradise for fish and the birds feeding on them, as well as for aquatic mammals, like the pink dolphin. It also means that the trees had to adopt to being under water for half a year. It is very difficult for their seedlings to survive and therefore the bottom levels of the forest are quite sparse (almost like in a European forest). After the flooding is gone, in the dry season it is possible to walk around and the animals can move down to the ground as well.
An other interesting thing about the Reserve is that it became protected following a researcher's studies here, who was observing the white uakari monkey (undoubtedly the ugliest monkey there is). He found out that this monkey only lives in this very confounded area and thus its whole home range has been declared protected and the monkey itself as an endangered species. How this researcher has managed to achieve that might be an interesting story.
So this is the area where we decided to undertake our jungle experience. We have spent 4 nights in the only lodge of the Reserve located on its edge. There is no other way of visiting the reserve. The area that the tourists may visit is restricted to a mere 35 square km. But even after 4 days there it did not seem too small, as we visited different parts of it. We arrived in the dry-to-wet transition period, so we could do both walks and boat tours. In the flooded period only the latter is possible. Because of the high amount of fish, there were many many fish-eating animals around, including birds (egrets, herons, cormorants, kingfishers etc.), caimans, and predator fish (including the largest fresh water fish, the pirarucu which can grow up to 200 kg) and of course the dolphins, both the grey and the pink river dolphins. The oxygen level of the water is quite low, particularly during the hot dry season when the rotting plant material also consumes quite a lot. Therefore the fish have developed different oxygen capturing methods. The pirarucu for example has to surface in every few minutes (with a huge splashing usually) and swallow air from which the oxygen is absorbed in its bladder. Other fish have similar organs or have tentacles around their mouth which acts as an additional oxygen filter.
The program at the lodge included jungle hikes on prepared paths, canoing, motor boat excursion, spotlighting at night on foot and from the boat and a presentation of a research project which is currently running in the reserve . There are around 50 different projects to chose from and we listened to one about the boto – the pink river dolphin. The wildlife viewing was a great experience, not only because we saw much more animals than I expected (including a sloth and coatis and all 5 resident monkey species), but also because our guide Pedro was a biologist with a huge amount knowledge about the animals. His English was excellent and he was a good spotter as well, just like the local guides who came with us to every trip. These guides could not really communicate with us, because they only spoke Portuguese, but they always carried books with the pictures of the animals with them and when we saw something they pointed to these pictures. For me the highlights were the paddling on the river with canoes and the search for animals in the canopy. The night boat ride was also quite a lot of fun. There is really a huge number of caimans in the rivers!!! Every 10-15 meters we saw the red reflection of their eyes in the spotlight. There were pretty huge ones amongst them, so there was no question any more why swimming is not recommended, only in the small cage-like pool at the lodge. Around the lodge itself there are a few resident caimans as well which are usually relaxing under the floating buildings. They seemed to be attracted by any noise one made in the water, so swimming and splashing around would definitively be a bad idea around there...
The jungle in this flooded forest is not that one might have in mind as a real jungle. There is actually quite a lot of light in it and the vegetation is not that dense, the trees are not that huge either. Probably this is why spotting the animals is easier than in the terra firme (dry land) forest which is the “typical jungle” (it also explains why we have not seen any larger animals in Alter do Chao which is a terra firme area). There are many trees with huge roots above the ground both for support and to capture air. In this environment it also makes sense to rely on fish to spread the seeds of the trees, therefore many trees have fruits in the flooded season. Similar to the typical jungle, there are also many lians and epiphyt plants (sitting on the trees like orchids and bromelias).
As the name of the Reserve suggests, the main emphasis is on the sustainable development of this area. There are quite a few regulations which limit the exploitation of the natural resources and many projects focus on increasing the income of the local communities from alternative sources instead of agriculture (which leads to deforestation) and fishing and hunting. For example most of the employees of the lodge (some 60 people) come from the local villages, living in the Reserve and many research projects also hire locals. From the lodge visits are organized to the villages (the guide there also receives payment) during which the locals can sell some handicraft. Some of the produce from the villages is also used by the lodge and the researchers. There are many research projects which investigate the impact of the Reserve on the life of the locals and on the environment. The one I could read the summary of concludes that since the establishment of the reserve the young locals use less manioc... Interesting...
Anyhow, it was a great experience to see a sustainable project working in harmony with nature and with the locals, as there are only very few of its kind in the Brazilian rain forest. The lodge itself is an ecolodge, in its real sense, not just on the ads and thus has a very little impact on the environment. They use solar energy, clean their waste, separate garbage, collect the rain water etc... So it is highly recommended for eco-conscious visitors.

Downtown Iquitos

Arrived in Iquitos at 4pm on a fast boat from Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa is a little Peruvian village across the border from Tabatinga. To get to Santa Rosa we had to take a boat from the Tabatinga port. To get the Peruvian entry stamp the border guard had to be waken up. All this happened in total darkness at 3am in the morning.

Journey in the speed boat reminded a bit flying in an airplane: there was little room to stretch one´s legs and twice food was served. Here they drink Inca Cola and the default coffee here contains even more milk than in Brazil.

The boat dashed in 41 km/h on average over the Amazon and in 10 hours we reached Iquitos.

Iquitos is the largest city in the world with no road connection to the outside world. Our original plan was to continue along the Napo river to Coca, Ecuador. But now it seems (as feared) that this trip would take about 7 days and we can start only Saturday or Monday (unclear, maybe even later). It seems relatively easy to reach Santa Clotilde as there are daily fast boats, but from St. Clotilde to Pantojas (the border town to Ecuador) only slow boats go. We went to see the boat that is expected to leave on Saturaday the earliest and it looked quite scary (small and dirty).

One other option to continue along the Amazon is to go to Yurimaguas (Peru), 3 days by slow boat, and take a bus from there to Lima (24h). There are boats almost every day it seems, although not before Christmas is over, i.e. Saturday. This way we would postpone the Ecuador trip and travel first in Peru and Bolivia.

Finally, we could win some time and (maybe) save some money by flying directly from Iquitos to Lima. Flights with Peruvian Airlines are surprisingly cheap, 95 USD one way, and go out every day.

What would you, our dear reader, choose: option 1, 2, or 3?

Hostel Bagpacker, Tabatinga

Bordertown. Very hot. Got the exit stamp at Policia Federal. Lunch in Leticia, Colmbia. Tomorrow 5am speedboat to Iquitos, Peru.

N/M S. C. de Jesus

After 4 nights on the boat should reach Tabatinga at sunrise today. Exit Brazil there and then on to Iquitos, hopefully on a 12h-fastboat.

Mamiraua office, Tefe

Still in down-town Tefe. Two more people will join the trip to the Uakari lodge but their flight from Manaus has been delayed, so we are waiting for them to arrive.

The Uakari lodge has electricity (from solar panels) but no internet or cell phone coverage. So we'll not be reachable (and cannot reach you) at least until Friday.

On Friday we try to get on a slow boat to Tabatinga which will be difficult because the boats don't really stop in Tefe (because Tefe is not on Solimoes). So it's unclear how this will work out. People here at the Mamiraua office speak English, but they also seem to be confused about how the boats operate here...

Alter de Chao

Alter de Chao is located an hour bus ride away from Santarem. We booked a 2 days trip to the primary rain forest located on the eastern bank of the Tapajos river. The trip started at 8.30 am which is actually quite late for jungle trekking. From Alter de Chao, the village we spent the night we had to take a boat upstream on the river. The ride was quite bumpy because of the waves and took 1.5 h. We arrived to a small riverside community with 90 families. After arrival we looked around in the village, visited the local bars- there were 2 of them, both had a pool table, which seems to be obligatory in all the communities - the small school, the community house where they hold meetings, the manioc processing hut, and the football field (every small village must have one). The houses seemed to be in a good shape, scattered far away from each other and with animals running around them, e.g. pigs, chicken, ducks. That village even had electricity and most of the houses had satellite dishes in order to receive lots of TV channels. We were told that there is a huge soap opera cult in Brazil and the theory goes that this is why the birth rate has decreased dramatically over the past few years... Indeed in the house of the village chief the TV seemed to run all the time we were around and most of the family members were watching it. It has to be added however that it was a weekend as well, when people tend to have more time for such activity.
In the afternoon we went for a bit of paddling on a small creek which ran into the Tapajos river. The landscape was very impressive, with bright green grass on the banks and semi-dry trees. The water was the clearest I have ever seen before with all the water plants visible and with many many fish one might see in aquariums in Europe. I just loved that area. During paddling we have spotted jackanas running up and down along the bank, and a few other birds including king fisher and an eagle. It was very easy to see the fish in that transparent water and so we have seen among ca 10-15 other species piranhas. They were relatively small and harmless as we were told, so at the end of the boat ride we even went swimming and snorkeling. It was a very cool experience!!!
When we finished with snorkeling, we paddled closer to the Tapajos, which was separated by a big sand dune from the small creek and started walking back to the village on that sandy beach. The next surprise was the 6000 years old pieces of pottery scattered all over on the beach. These are the oldest signs of human civilization in whole Latin America. And we were just walking among them!!! Those pieces were really everywhere. Our guide told us that archeology is underfunded in Brazil, so the scientist have no money to collect them. Weired. In Europe such a site would be closed down from the public and would be buzzing with archaeologists... On the beach we also found colored clay in yellow and red which was used back then to paint the pottery. Quite strangely, this whole beach is flooded during the wet season - when by the way one might see peixe boi (manatee) in these waters – so why all these pieces of pottery are not washed away is a mystery to me...
Next we jumped into our motorboat and drove downstream to a neighboring community where most of the people live on latex production. This area used to be a rubber plantation a few decades ago and now they are tapping the remaining trees to produce rubber. They are also making a few articles for sale, e.g. bags, hats, sandals, pen holders and rubber animals (similar to the rubber ducks used in the bath tubs...). In the village we were shown the process of latex making and visited the small shop. We bought a rubber manatee (what else?!) and a small rubber frog as an amulet. This frog is the symbol of good luck in this region and is depicted on the pavement and in the parks in the towns we visited.
After a sunset cruise we returned to our home community where we had dinner and slept on the beach in hammocks. We were sitting at a bonfire and sipped caipirinha before going to bed. A relaxing way to end the day.
Next morning we had a jungle hike which was supposed to take 6 hours. The community we visited is located a protected area, the Floresta Nacional do Tapajos . There are few hiking trials which one can visit with a guide. The guides all come from the communities in the park and are trained by the EMBA, the organization which is responsible for the National Parks and Reserves. This is also a way how locals make a living. Besides the latex production they live on tourism.
The hike was pretty cool, the first half was in secondary forest and we passed by plantations as well. The second half was in primary forest with quite a few huge trees. The end point of the hike was a 600 years old gigantic tree. We felt like small ants standing next to it. It needs 25 people to hug its trunk!!! it was very impressive!!! Along the way our guide explained us a lot about the trees we have passed and their possible usage e.g. eatable fruits, leaves to cover the roof of the houses, resins to make boats waterproof and which part of which tree is good as medicine. He was really knowledgeable and told us that their community learned all these things from the indigenous population which does lived there before them and which does not exist any more. Nevertheless their genes survive partially, because the colonizers produced offspring with them, so the current inhabitants are their descendants. About the jungle: it is really as it is described in the books. Many trees, impressive flora but very little visible of the abundant fauna. One only sees the small animals, which I found just as interesting as the big mammals. The funniest thing was the swarms of caterpillars on tree trunks. The aggregate for the sake of protection and form fuzzy spots on the trees. Touching them is not advise as they burn the skin with their secrets. An other cool creature was a huge grasshopper ca. 20 cm long!!! We also saw huge butterflies, some of them had camouflage colors but some of them were shiny blue. These latter ones one can see often in insect collections of museums and here they were just flattering around everywhere. There were also many many ants, most of them marching in a line across or along our path. Some of them were like 1.5 cm big and had huge scissor like mouth-pieces. These are used by the local to stitch wounds, just like in Africa. At the end of the hike we also saw silver tamarins jumping around on the trees (small white monkeys with black tail). So at the end it was a very enjoyable trekking. As we stopped so many times along the way to listen to the guides explanation, the hike took us 8 hours. Eventually we got back to Alter de Chao around 8 pm, a few hours later than planned, but for that we had a beautiful boat ride back with the setting sun and a few river dolphins jumping around our boat.

N/M Ludovico Celani, Tefe

Arrived in Tefe at 5am after about 44h in the boat (it was supposed to take 34h). At 7am (i.e. in 1 hour) we get picked up by a speedboat and taken to the Mamiraua reserve where we spend until Friday in the jungle lodge.
(There is wireless here at the port, but the laptop runs low on battery.)

N/M Ludovico Celani, Manaus

Leaving the rainy Manaus after 3 days spent mostly on organizing the trip. Reach Tefe Mon at 3am, then on to Mamiraua reserve.

Hostel Manaus, Manaus

Arrived in Manaus at 4AM, after two nights on the boat. Got off the boat after sunrise, at 6AM. Took a taxi to Hostel Manaus, 25 BRL for 2 taxis / 5 people (we were joined by other travelers: a Norvegian, an Egyptian and a French).
Cannot check in before midday, but they have wireless, so just hanging out till then. Maybe get breakfast at some point.
Activities to be done in Manaus:

• Visit the Teatro Amazonas
• Buy something at the local electronics market (Manaus is the Hong Kong of the Amazonas)
• Visit the meeting of the waters, where the black and warm Rio Negro meets the milky coffee and cold Rio Solimoes to form Rio Amazonas.
• Visit the market building (Mercado Municipal), designed by Jean Eiffel
• Go on a jungle trip

Unclear how long we stay here. It depends on the lengths and availabilities of the jungle trips and boats to Tefe, which is our next destination.

N/M Ana Beatrice III, Santarem

View to Prinsendam from Rotterdam and crossing the meeting of Tapajos and Amazonas. Should reach Manaus by Wed.

Alter do Chao

After 60h on boat now relaxing on a sandy beachresort 1h busride from Santarem. Today swim in blue Rio Tapajos, tomorrow primary rainforest.

S1.8 W53.45

Only ca 13h left to Santarem. First 2 nights in hammock have been tolerable. Fed up with rice&beans. Cs saw a sloth. Cows grazing on riverbanks.

Hammock slot 89, NM Santarem, Amazon

After 3h delay boat now moving upriver. We get off in Santarem Thu or Fri. Staying on hammock deck with 150 people.

Two days in Belem

We arrived to Belem yesterday (Sunday, 29.11.). It is located at the delta of the Amazon, therefore a good starting point for boat trips upstream the mighty river. Strange enough it does not seem to be a good day for tourists around here, because strolling on the streets other than the main avenue and the pimped up waterfront area is supposed to be dangerous. At least according to the guide books and the receptionist at the hostel. So we obeyed.... and thus had a relaxing day. Actually there might had been something in those advices because the streets were quite deserted, almost nobody walking around in the side streets and only few people on the main avenue. The waterfront area was however much busier. There is a big building complex which used to be docks (Estacao das Docas). The architects simply gave it a face lift, so it looks very modern and fancy but preserved the atmosphere of the docks by leaving the ca dozen of cranes in front of the building and not disguising its basic iron and glass constructions. Inside there is a theater, a few restaurants, ice cream booths offering exotic Amazonian fruit treats, souvenir shops, travel agencies and alike. This is where we had the first glimpse at the Amazon. It is really huge!!! Although we only saw an island on the other "bank" it seemed to be at least 5 km away. The water was quite rough with big waves and light brown.

Finally Monday (30.11.) has arrived and we were free to move around in town. So we asked around for the boat tickets to Santarem, our next destination, located 4 days of boat ride away upstream (it is supposed to have gorgeous white sandy beaches along the turquoise waters of the Tapajos river and untouched primary rain-forest). Finally we bought our tickets at a shabby "office" of Macamazon where people did not speak English. So our Portuguese must be getting better... Later it turned out that we should had been pretty teenage girls to get the tickets 20 reais cheaper, as such girls staying in our hostel got the very same tickets for that lower price. I guess it was not because of me, but rather Kaarel should finally shave and comb his hair... Actually in his swimming pants and flip flops the officers might have thought that he cannot be such a wealthy guy, and maybe the 20 reais discount we have received was due to this... Concerning the boat tickets, the big stories in the guide books about how to get them seem to be quite unrealistic. They suggest e.g. going directly to the docks and talking to the captains. I do not quite see how that would be possible because the docks at the city centre where the boats to Manaus and Santarem should be waiting (again according to the guide books) are fenced off and it did not seem to be allowed just to walk in there. On the other hand our boat will not even depart from these docks but from another one on the other side of the peninsula. So I do not see how one could approach the captain and negotiate with him...
Anyhow, now that we bought the tickets we started the actual sight seeing tour of the city. I would say it is another colonial city, similar to the ones we have visited so far, but in a much better shape. The houses are not that run down, in downtown there are wide avenues besides the narrow cobble stone streets and there are many well-preserved or restored buildings and many well-kept parks. The similarities are the amount of trash on the streets and the smell... Here I have seen the most impressive churches as well, the Catedral de Se and the Basilica de Nossa Senhora de Nazare. Btw here in Brazil most of the churches have such a long name and most of them are dedicated to some sort of nossa senhora (our lady of ...).

So as I said these churches were really worth a visit even though we wrote before that we were getting a bit fed up with the churches. They were very tastefully decorated, not just stuffed full of golden carvings like e.g. in Ouro Preto, which was also impressive but in a way already too much, pretty much just showing off. Particularly the Basilica was a good experience. Not only because of the beauty of the church itself, but also because in front of it in the park there we have seen hundreds of parrots chirping deafeningly loud and flying around in big swarms. I have never seen so many parrots at the same spot!!! and that all in downtown!!! quite weird.

That reminds me of the other weird experience of today. At the port we saw a dead dog on the shore and big black vulture-like birds were picking on it. It was like in a horror movie when one of them picked out the eye-ball....

Belem

Arrived to Belem after a 11h bus ride from Sao Luis. Surprisingly the trip was 3h shorter than expected, but we were quite grateful for this surprise, because it was freezing cold in the bus. Today we will explore Belem a bit, go to a hummingbird/butterfly garden and try to get tickets to an Amazonas riverboat to go Santarem in a few days.

Restaurante dos Arcos, Sao Luis

Sipping a caipirinha. The town has many tile-covered houses and stinks. At 20 will go to Belem by bus (14h).

Hotel Lord, Sao Luis

a run-down place, but the Rough Guides suggested hostels where nowhere to be found. Will go to eat now, many restaurants in the centro.

Teresina

Lunch break. Still some 350 km to Sao Luis. The Teresina bus station has about 20 wireless networks. Some are freely accessible.

Leaving Recife

Nice colorful houses in Olinda + many churches. Getting fed up with the churches. Cool giant carneval puppets (bonecos). Now 24h to Sao Luis.

Recife

Arrived to Recife after a 14h bus ride from Salvador. The bus was comfortable and not so air-conditioned as during earlier bus rides, plus there was a TV showing videos by Europe, Bonny Tyler, and Lobo.

Now going to explore Olinda (small colonial town 6km from Recife), and in the evening go to Sao Luis and try to visit the sand dunes / lagoons.

Hostel Sao Jorge, Salvador

Arrived in Salvador after a 20h bus ride. Staying for 2 nights at hostel Sao Jorge in the historical center Pelourinho. There is drumming and other music all around.
Possible activities here:

• Visit a capoeira school
• Visit a candomble sermon
• Visit all the historical buildings in the Pelourinho district
• Have a taste of the comida baiana (seafood + West African ingredients)
• Visit the Igreja do N.S. do Bonfim

Exploring Vitoria

After recharging the laptop for 2 hours at the SALA VIP of the bus company that takes us to Salvador in the evening, went to explore the town.

The center is quite close to the bus station. Just walked over there. Arrived at the recently renovated Palacio Anchieta (see: http://www.palacioanchieta.es.gov.br) around 10:30. The next excursion was about to start at 11.00, but since it was going to be in Portugese anyway, then we immediately were offered a private tour in English (for free).

The governor of Espirito Santo uses the Palacio as his office but otherwise it seems to be open to the tourists. On Sundays one can even visit the governor's rooms. It's really nicely renovated, e.g. the foundation of the old church that used to be part of the building is shown under the glass floor. A multimedia presentation (also available in English) presents the building's history.

Then walked aimlessly in the town, trying to find a restaurant but ended up eating "frango with queijo" and drinking Coke at a fast food place.

Then got an idea to visit one of the beaches (praia de Costa). Getting there on a public bus took about 2 hours. It doesn't help that we don't speak any Portugese beyond "aqui onibus para o praia?"

The beach is nice, reminds a bit of Copacabana in Rio. There are no booths where one could exchange into the swimming suit, and the showers to wash of the salt water are very scarce. But the waves are huge and it's fun to jump in them.

Now back at the rodoviaria, using the Internet for 3.50 BRL per hour. Unfortunately they don't allow one to connect one's own laptop.

At 18.00 leaving for Salvador. Unclear how comfortable the bus is, or how many stops it makes on the way but the trip lasts 20h. Maybe it would have been better to pay approx. 100 BRL extra and fly there instead.

Vitoria

Stuck here for 12h until we can take a bus to Salvador. Came here from Ouro Preto, 8h overnight. Vitoria has churches and beaches, will visit them.

First full day in Rio de Janeiro

Woke up early because we wanted to explore the city as much as possible. But getting anywhere with public transportation is pretty difficult here, because there are only 2 subway lines, which obviously cannot cover the whole city. e.g. it is not possible to take it to the touristy places like the Corcovado (the hill with the Christ statue) or to the Sugar Loaf mountain. So the expensive option is to take a cab or the cheap option is to take buses. Traveling on a tight budget we opted for the latter.
However there are a few problems one faces after such a decision: 1: there are no maps with the bus lines and their stops 2: most of the bus stops are not signed, they are only a shed which kind of looks like a bus stop and often there are several of these close to each other, 3: at these often unsigned stops there are no schedules or even the number of the buses are not marked, 4: rough guide has no information whatsoever about the location of the bus stops either and as there are many one way streets one can only guess on which street one should try to catch a bus, 5: even though the locals are friendly and helpful, they basically do not speak English, but start talking to us in Portuguese, in which situation we can only start nodding and smiling and finish the conversation with an obrigado without having understood anything... so after having explained the situation one will not be surprised that it took us about 4 hours to get up to the the Corcovado with public transportation, particularly, because we walked most of the distance.
The problems were the followings: we could not find the bus stop for bus 584 which was supposed to take us to the cog train station which goes up directly to the hill. So we took the metro to downtown and then a tram. The latter was pretty cool, the tram itself is from the 18th century, kind of like which might run in San Fransisco. It was rattling as much as one can imagine, but the surrounding cobblestoned streets and the houses on them looked very impressive. But, the tram only took us about 1 km further, although on our map the tramline was supposed to go to a middle station of the cog train. So we got off the tram and started walking, hoping that still an other tram will catch up with us. But it did not happen, only buses passed us by, which would also have taken us to our destination, but we only figured that out on the way back. After a few hours of walk with some spectacular views to the city from the hillside and in a secondary Atlantic rainforest of the city's national park, we reached the middle station of the train. Only to find out, that the train always goes directly to the top station without stopping anywhere... great... so we started walking up again. On the way a minivan stopped by us and offered a ride to the top for 15 reais each. We took the offer. We stopped at a view point/ had really cool views to the city and then reached the top station for private vehicles. So we started walking again to the statue. However it turned out pretty soon that the statue would be still at least 40 minutes steep uphill walk away and that there is an entrance fee of 14.20 reais, which was not mentioned in the rough guide. So we started arguing with the people, but they would not let us walk up for free, but insisted that we need to pay and after having paid we could take a minivan up to the statue. So we paid and took the ride. So this was the story of our 4 hour journey to the Christ, the Redeemer.
The statue itself is not as impressive as I thought. It is big, it is true (30 meters) but I thought it was bigger... the view from up there is also pretty cool and we were lucky with the weather, so we could see quite far. The nicest thing was the view to the sugar loaf mountain with the Botafogo beach. Behind the mountain there were a few other smaller rocks in the sea, which also looked cool. The ride back to the city was quite uneventful. We simply walked down to the bus stop, where the tram should be running actually. It was only ca 3 km and the cab drivers wanted to charge us a ridiculous 20 reais.
In downtown we walked around a bit, visited a few churches, among with the metropolitan church was the coolest. In that area a guy wanted to grab my camera out of my hand while I was taking a picture, but it was secured to its bag which was hanging around my body, so he did not get lucky, only I was a bit shocked. Was a similar experience in Zambia when the baboon tried to grab our backpack. Both creatures were pulling pretty hard and both attacks came so unexpected. But we stayed safe, this time did not lose even any biscuits as we did with the baboon..

rodoviaria, Belo Horizonte

Arrived here after a 7h busride from Rio. Now going straight to Ouro Preto (2h), small town in the mountains with Baroque houses.

Hostel Newton's Roof-Top, Rio de Janeiro

After two days in Sao Paulo (which as a city was more interesting than originally expected) took a 6h bus to Rio. The bus ride was very comfortable, lots of leg room.

Staying at Hostel Newton's Roof-Top, 70 BRL per double room but very bad quality, e.g. compared to Joamar. So tomorrow will probably move again. The staff here is nice though.

The afternoon has been rainy, but still walked to the Copacabana beach (made well known by the Singer Vinger song), just a few blocks away. The beach was completely empty. Touched the Atlantic Ocean. The Sugar Loaf mountain was visible although less impressive than expected. Jesus was nowhere to be found. Maybe covered by the clouds or blocked by the skyscrapers?

After sunset had a peixe frito at a Chinese place. The hill with Jesus was lit up and Jesus nicely emerged for a couple of seconds from the clouds before disappearing again. Less big than originally expected.

Activities to be done in Rio:

• Go up to Jesus, and then to the Sugar Loaf mountain
• Hang out at the beach (Copacabana or Ipanema)
• Watch a football match at Maracana (on Wed a team from Rio plays a
  team from Uruguay?)
• Visit a favela
  
• Go to the center, e.g. the places where the Sambodromo is located
  during the Carnaval

Will stay here 2-3 days before continuing to Ouro Preto.

Hotel Joamar, Sao Paulo

Oi! Hotel Joamar, Sao Paulo. Hot and damp. There is electricity, but the sockets are not supported by our multiconverter. Now nap, then sightseeing. Tchau!

Heathrow Terminal 5, London (leaving for Sao Paulo)

There was no need for more volunteer work. We are now sitting at gate B45 about to board the plane. Estimated time of arrival at Guarulhos International Airport at 7.07 AM local time.

Heathrow Terminal 5, London

We originally planned to stay just half a day in London, just to get on the Sao Paulo flight. We have now stayed here for two nights already, and might stay for another night.
On the 11th I arrived at the Heathrow Terminal 5 around 18.45. Cs had been waiting there since 2 o'clock already. Our flight to Sao Paulo, the first flight on our RTW ticket, was scheduled to depart at 21.25. The possibility to drop off luggage had just opened. Turned out, however, that the flight was overbooked by some 20 people. (Quote from the BA information sheet: "Most airlines overbook to make up for people who make a reservation and then do not present themselves for travel.") (There are 247 seats in this aircraft.)
We were offered to take the flight the next day. This is called a "Volunteer scheme". BA offers you

• 600 EUR, placed on a Visa Electron in British pounds, to be used up within 3 months (if you lose/destroy the card or forget the PIN then you lose the money);
• a night in a hotel close to the airport (including transfer to the hotel and back, dinner, breakfast, and lunch), check-out can be later than 12, e.g. at 17.

In return, you agree to take the flight the day after.
Sounds like a good deal, and there didn't seem to be an alternative anyway. So we took it. I guess it's even an ethical thing to do as we don't really need to be in Sao Paulo on a specific day, while some other people might have to. The BA representative said that the next day the flight is also overbooked, so one can probably "volunteer" again.
Hotel Renaissance is a nice hotel about 15 minutes from Terminal 5 on a Hotel Hoppa bus. We got a twin room, with a bathroom, and TV. Watching the news in the evening revealed that Sao Paulo was without electricity for 5 hours, so maybe it's good to arrive a little later.
On the 12th we spent the day in London. The day felt quite short — it takes 1h30min to go to the center (first by bus to the subway station "Terminals 1,2,3", and then by subway to the center), then 3 hours in Westminister Abbey (one of the places that we didn't visit the last time we where here), then back to make it to lunch at the hotel (closing at 17).
At 18 we took the Hotel Hoppa shuttle to Terminal 5 and went straight to the Volunteer Scheme counter. The flight was overbooked again, as expected. By 36 people this time! So we volunteered again. (Btw, the 2150 pounds received has already covered one of the RTW tickets.)
The accommodation was at the Renaissance again. This time in a double room.
On the 13th, went to London again and spent some time in the British Museum (the Rosetta Stone is there). The last cash we spent on the subway but the BA Visa Electron can be used everywhere to pay for books, food, beer. The Museum was free of charge.
We are the airport now, signed up for volunteering again, and will learn in an hour if there is need for some volunteer work, or if we have to fly tonight.

Lennart Meri Tallinna lennujaam

Had lunch (Kanarisotto). Now waiting for the flight to STN London.

Mustamäe

Winter, snowing heavily. Tomorrow flying to London, and then to Sao Paulo for a 3-month stay in South America. Stay tuned for more short messages.