Brazil Pt 1

Tomorrow marks the end of our time in Brazil, when we fly from Sao Paulo to Santa Cruz in Bolivia. After arriving in Brazil, through the Iguaçu border, on the 1^st of March, I've had an amazing three weeks. Seen some breathtaking sights, meet some amazing people, seen some familiar faces for the first time since leaving Australia and covered some 5000km.

After experiencing the up close and personal experience of Iguazu Falls from the Argentinian side, we crossed over the border on a local bus and after a quick and painless passport check, we said alo to Brazil.  Having only one day in Foz do Iguaçu, we jumped in a taxi to the falls. On the Brazilian side we got a breathtaking panoramic view of the same falls we were directly underneath on the previous day, I wouldn't bother trying to describe it, as it was literally beyond words. After checking out the many vantage points on the walk we said goodbye to some new friends and headed straight to the bus terminal where we hopped on our bus to Sao Paulo.

After a 14 hours trip we arrived in Sao Paulo and after failing to figure out the buses in this massive city we took a taxi to our hostel, which despite being under construction was very nice. After checking in we met up with Emma and Haley with their local friend Rodrigo and enjoyed a meat packed lunch at restaurant nearby. It nice to see some friendly and familiar faces after over a month of travelling. After getting to know everyone in our hostel we all headed out to a samba club, heaps of fun meeting locals who tried, and failed teaching me the samba. The following day we took to relax. Our shuttle to the airport somehow got lost on the way and even having three hours to spare when we left, we just got to the massive Aeroporto Guarulhos with just enough time to check in and run to our plane. From Sao Paulo we flew three and a half hours to Recife, then onto Olinda where we spent our awesome carnival.

We took a 16 hour bus from Recife to Salvador on the Wednesday after carnival, ash wednesday as they call it in Brazil, the 9^th of March. Our hostel was in Barra. We were about to organise finding everyone who spend carnival in Salvador, when Kim and Rita happened to drive past the hostel and see me outside, in a city of millions, it's still a 'small world'. Unfortunately all the boys had left, and the girls only had one more night, but was good to have another night with good friends. Straight after carnival Salvador seemed pretty dead, not a lot a night life to speak of and a little dodgy on the streets, the first and only time I felt at all threatened on the street. It was a visible threat with every house and building having either massive amounts of razor wire on every wall or broken glass glues to the tops of walls. Despite this it was nothing dangerous if you kept your head screwed on. We spend the next three days chilling on the beach and exploring Pelourinho, an old area of town with lots of history, as usual for Salvador we had people trying very hard to sell us anything and one guy who insisted on being our give to the area. Did turn out well though, wouldn't have realised the history of the area without his help. Including the first Jesuit school (Pictured, not sure if its in the world or in Brazil) the first surgery college in Brazil and a church with more than 600kg of gold inside! Good to see the vow of poverty is taken serious by all. (sorry couldn't resist saying that...) and that Micheal Jackson filmed a massive music video in Pelourinho.

We left Salvador airport at 9am on 14^th, bound for Rio De Janeiro.

To be continued...