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.