Itaipu Dam and Iguazu Falls

I arrived in Ciudad del Este on Monday afternoon, and I made a bad mistake with my choice of hotel. I decided to stay in Hotel El Caribeño because it was the cheapest hotel listed in Lonely Planet, and since I was only going to be there for one night, I didn't care if it was a bit grim. However, I discovered when I arrived that the hotel had been transformed - the rooms had been renovated, with brand new beds, bathrooms, TVs and air conditioning units. The price had also been transformed, to almost double what it was before the renovation. I reluctantly paid the money, as it was still cheaper than anything else nearby, but what I didn't realise at that point was that the renovation of the hotel was only partially complete.

The workmen had obviously stopped their hammering and drilling while I checked in, but they soon restarted - it carried on until 9pm, and then started again at 6am the following day. At one point there was a builder inside my room drilling holes in the floor to fix a door stop; while he was doing this, I was sitting on my bed watching television (although I couldn't hear the television because of the noise), and the owner's young son was standing in the doorway, staring at me. I wasn't really expecting that!

The reason I stayed the night in Ciudad del Este was to go for a tour of the Itaipu Dam, so the following morning I got up early to go there (it's difficult to sleep when someone's drilling a hole in the wall outside your room). The dam is the second largest electricity generating plant in the world (after the Three Gorges Dam), and was built in the 1970s and 1980s across the Paraná River, on the border between Brazil and Paraguay.

Before the free tour began, we were treated to a short propaganda film telling us how great it all is, with lots of impressive facts and figures (the dam is as high as a 65-storey building; the steel used in its construction could build 380 Eiffel Towers; 15 times as much concrete was used as as during the construction of the Channel Tunnel, etc.). The film completely failed to mention any of the negative impacts of the dam's construction, for example that 10,000 families living next to the river lost their homes, and that the Guaíra Falls, the world's largest waterfall by volume, were completely drowned by the reservoir that formed behind the dam.

We then went by bus to a viewpoint where I took a couple of photos of the dam (here and here), and then the bus drove us across the top of the dam, from where we could see the reservoir. To be honest I found it all a bit underwhelming - sure, it was a big dam, but I couldn't see anything happening at all. In the promotional photos, the gates in the first of my photos are open, with water gushing out of them, and that would have given an idea of the power of the water. However, I think those gates are only opened during the wet season to stop the reservoir from overflowing, and at this time of year almost all of the water flows through the turbines, which obviously you can't see. I did read today that it's possible to go on a special tour that includes a visit to the production building and command centre, etc., but that tour wasn't being advertised when I was there.

After I returned from the tour I had a quick look around Ciduad del Este, which was enough to tell me that it's a pretty awful place. The city is one of the largest tax-free commerce zones in the world, so most of the activity revolves around shopping. The city contains dozens of shopping centres, and along the main road is a manic market that gets more and more frenetic the closer you get to the border with Brazil. So I quickly made my escape to Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, and I've spent the last two days visiting Iguazu Falls - yesterday I went to the Argentinian side, and this morning I went to the Brazilian side.

Unfortunately Iguazu Falls is a massive tourist trap, with coach-load after coach-load of tourists pouring into the place and clogging up the walkways (I know I'm not exactly helping matters). It's true that the falls are one of the most amazing sights on the planet, but it does reduce the enjoyment a bit when you have to fight your way past hundreds of other people just to see it (it was a lot worse on the Argentinian side than on the Brazilian side). This couldn't have been more different from Angel Falls, which is so remote that it receives a tiny fraction of the number of Iguazu's visitors, and where the only viewing platform is a slippery rock.

Anyway I tried my best to put all that to the back of my mind and enjoy the falls, which were spectacular. On the Argentinian side, I began my visit at the Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat), which is probably the most impressive of all of the 275 waterfalls (I don't know how they counted them). I also took a video, which you can see below.

I then walked around the Upper Circuit, from where I got a good idea of the extent of the falls, and where I also saw some of them close up, such as Salto San Martin. Afterwards I went round the Lower Circuit, where there were also good views of the whole of the falls (below), as well as of Salto Dos Hermanos (Two Brothers Waterfall).

I returned from my visit to the Argentinian side of the falls to discover that someone had stolen my copy of Lonely Planet South America from beside my bed in my dorm. I'm not particularly bothered, because I only have three days left in Brazil, and I have a separate Lonely Planet book for Argentina and Uruguay, but it is a bit of a nuisance. On the positive side, it was a heavy book, and it means I now have one less thing to carry around with me.

This morning I went to the Brazilian side of the falls, which gives a completely different perspective. Here is a general view of the falls, and here is a close-up of Salto Rivadavia (with Salto Tres Mosqueteros and Salto Dos Mosqueteros in front of it). I then walked along the trail to get a view of Garganta del Diablo from the opposite side (photos here and here). I also took another video, which you can see below.

And finally here is a nice picture of a rainbow over the falls!

I'm catching the bus to Florianópolis this evening, to spend my penultimate South American weekend on Ilha de Santa Catarina. The weather forecast is terrible though, so it might not be such a great plan.

Asunción

I've been in Asunción for the past two days, having arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning after a full day's travel from Campo Grande. I crossed into Paraguay at Ponta Porã/Pedro Juan Caballero, which must be the most traveller-unfriendly border crossing that I've ever seen. The two bus stations and two immigration offices were all in completely separate places, which meant that I had to pay a taxi driver R$40 (£15) to drive me between these four different locations. That's roughly double the cost of the subsequent 8-hour bus journey to Asunción.

I arrived in Asunción at about 1:30am, and I ended up staying in an expensive hotel that the taxi driver suggested, after the hotel I originally asked him to take me to was full. However, because I arrived so late, and I think because I had a bit of a moan about the price, the receptionist said that I could stay until Sunday and pay for only one night, which made it not so expensive after all. Nevertheless it did mean that I was stuck in a slightly depressing 3-star hotel for two nights, which wasn't what I'd planned. Today (Sunday) I moved to Black Cat Hostel, which is Asunción's only proper backpackers hostel.

After not a lot of sleep, I spent Saturday morning seeing the sights of the city centre. I started at what is probably Asunción's most famous building, the Panteón de los Héroes, which contains the remains of Paraguay's leaders that were killed in the War of the Triple Alliance, which also killed most of Paraguay's male population in the 1860s. I then walked to the Casa de la Independencia, which is the house in which independence was declared from Spain in 1811. I also went to see the Palacio de Gobierno (below), which I understand in Paraguay's early days I would have been shot for looking at.

Near the Palacio de Gobierno are the Plaza de Armas and the Cabildo, which is the former seat of the government. And just one block north of the Cabildo, towards the Rio Paraguay, is a shanty town, which I didn't really expect to see so close to Asunción's historic buildings. There were also squatters sleeping outside my hotel in Plaza Uruguaya, which is one of Asunción's main squares, so there's clearly a lot of poverty in this city.

In the afternoon I decided to visit Asunción's botanical gardens, which are about a half-hour bus ride outside town. To be honest I wasn't all that bothered about going to the gardens; I was actually more interested in seeing the remains of the Ycuá Bolaños supermarket, which the bus passed on the way. Nearly 400 people burnt to death in this building in 2004 after a fire started in the kitchen, and the owner instructed security guards to lock the doors to stop people leaving the store with goods they hadn't paid for (see the news story here). I also visited the small shrine next to the supermarket.

On Sundays the centre of Asunción is deserted and everything is shut, so I didn't do a great deal today. I thought it was a good idea to get out of town, and I did actually try to go to Areguá, which is a city about 30km east of Asunción. My heart clearly wasn't in it though, because when the bus finally turned up after I'd waited for nearly an hour, and it drove straight past me without stopping, I just gave up and went back to the hostel, and spent the rest of the day reading and studying a bit of Spanish.

Overall I don't think I'll remember Asunción as one of my favourite cities, but it hasn't been as bad as I expected. It's a bit of a weird place, and there's not a lot to do in the city centre at least, although apparently if you go to the rich suburbs in the east, there are as many smart restaurants, nightclubs and shopping centres as you could possibly want. Obviously I didn't see any of that side of the city though.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Ciudad del Este, which is on the Paraguay side of the three-way border with Brazil and Argentina, and is near to the location of the Itaipu Dam and Iguazu Falls.

The Pantanal

I arrived in Campo Grande on Monday morning and booked myself on a three-day tour of the Pantanal leaving the following day. The Pantanal is the world's largest wetland, and it's Brazil's top ecological attraction, offering the chance to see a huge variety of wildlife. Mainly because I'm a bit lazy, but also because I was tired after the overnight bus journey from São Paulo, I didn't shop around, and just booked the Pantanal tour with the agency affiliated with the hostel in which I was staying. The agency's name is Ecological Expeditions, and I knew about their reputation for being one of the cheapest and definitely not the best Pantanal operator, but I figured that as long as they took me to the Pantanal and showed me some wildlife, I'd be OK with that. As it turned out, I did see plenty of wildlife, although I also very much got what I paid for.

The following morning I met up with the rest of the group, and we set off on the long journey to the Ecological Expeditions camp in the southern Pantanal. There were just five of us on the tour - myself and two British couples. They were Sean and Jo from Birmingham, and Gary and Michelle, two students from Belfast who, thanks to their out of date copy of Lonely Planet, had greatly underestimated the cost of travelling in Brazil and were facing serious money problems.

We arrived at the camp at about 4:30pm, and there was nothing planned for that first evening, so our three-day tour had already turned into a two-day tour. What did I say about getting what I paid for? After dropping our things off in our sleeping quarters (hammocks again) and taking a brief look around the camp, we walked down to the river just beyond the perimeter of the camp to watch the sunset. We then relaxed in our hammocks until dinner, which was actually pretty good (a typical Brazilian buffet of chicken, spaghetti, rice, beans and salad), after which we all got an early night. It was a surprisingly cold night too, considering it was 35C during the day.

The next morning we were woken early for breakfast, and then set off for our first bit of wildlife spotting, which was on foot, although we first had to be driven for about half an hour in a jeep to the start of the walk. In the vehicle with us were a group of three Chinese tourists who'd arrived the day before us, and one of them was carrying an extraordinarily large camera lens. I'd never seen anything like it - it was nearly a metre long. I don't know why he didn't go the whole hog and bring the Hubble Space Telescope along with him as well.

Actually that kind of camera equipment might have been useful, because it was pretty hopeless trying to take pictures of wildlife with my tiny point-and-shoot camera. Anyway, even from the jeep we saw some animals, including a hawk and some otters, and there were some good views of the Pantanal wetlands (below).

Where we went for the walk was a lot drier, as you can see here. We walked around the grassland with our guide, Gabriel, for about 2½ hours, and we saw quite a few more creatures, including macaws and monkeys (I can't remember what kind), and we also had a very close encounter with a caiman, as you can see below.

It's currently the dry season in the Pantanal, and the water was either very low or completely dried up in most places. Gabriel told us that this walk is a very different experience in the wet season, when it sometimes rains non-stop for days, and the water level can be up to three metres higher than it is at the end of the dry season. During the wet season we'd have been wading through chest-deep water, which can be a bit risky, as Gabriel explained. He told us the story of how on one such walk, an Australian tourist was bitten on the leg underwater by an anaconda, which then started to wind itself around the man's body (anacondas aren't venomous, but they're constrictors, so this is the way they kill their prey). Gabriel managed to get the snake to let go by stabbing it with his knife, and in the end the man was lucky to survive with just a nasty wound to his leg.

After the walk we returned to the camp for lunch, and then after a few more hours' lazing around (the best use was definitely not being made of the little available time), we set off for our second and third activities, which were a boat trip followed by piranha fishing. On the boat trip we saw plenty more wildlife, including more otters, a family of capybaras (the largest rodents in the world), and also a frog that hitched a lift on our boat.

But beating all of that, we spotted a jaguar, which Gabriel told us is a very rare sight (he said he sees on average about one jaguar a month). It was only visible for about twenty seconds, and was quite a long distance away, so I completely failed to take a photo of it. However, Jo did manage to take a video of it, and for what it's worth, you can see it below. I should warn you that the video's pretty shaky and not exactly professional quality, but it's better than I managed, and I think it does at least prove that there was a jaguar there.

Shortly afterwards, Gabriel stopped the boat to allow us to do a spot of piranha fishing. I didn't catch anything worth keeping (I clearly had beginners' luck in the jungle in Ecuador), but some of the others did, and we ended up with five or six fish that were prepared for dinner that evening.

The following morning we again set off early for our final activity, which was a jeep safari. Calling it a jeep safari makes it sounds like we were driving around the wide open plains following animal tracks, whereas in fact all we did was drive up and down one very long, straight road and look for any wildlife that happened to be sitting by the side of it. In fairness that's all it's really possible to do in a jeep in the Pantanal, because you can't go off-road on that kind of terrain. Anyway, we did see a few more animals, including some toucans, a kingfisher with a fish in its mouth, and hundreds of caimans. The reason there were so many caimans in one place is that they live in water, and there's not much of that around at the moment. Gabriel said that just a few days after we were there, that river would also dry up, so they'd be forced to move on, possibly into the Paraguay side of the Pantanal.

We were back in the camp for lunch, and that was pretty much the end of the tour. We just had a couple more hours to kill before we caught our transport back to Campo Grande. I'd say that overall it was a reasonable tour. It was very disorganised (for some reason Gabriel didn't seem to be able to tell us until the very last minute which activity we'd be doing next), but I think we did see as much wildlife as we could have expected to see, and with one very big bonus, which was the jaguar.

I've now entered Paraguay, so this marks the end of my time in Brazil, at least temporarily, because I'll be coming back when I go to Iguazu Falls next week. I've spent six weeks in Brazil, which have been by a long way the most expensive six weeks of my trip (I don't want to know how much money I've spent on bus tickets). But it's been worth it, because the highlights (Jericoacoara, Rio de Janeiro, Ouro Preto, São Paulo), as well as the people I've met along the way, have definitely made Brazil a contender for my favourite country in South America.

São Paulo

Earlier in my trip, before I even arrived in Brazil, I met some Brazilians and we spoke about São Paulo. What they said gave me the impression that it was such a dangerous city that I'd probably be attacked if I even dared to set foot outside my hotel. For that reason I hadn't planned to visit São Paulo, but having spoken to other people more recently who'd been to São Paulo and liked it, I decided to ignore the earlier advice and go there after all. I'm glad I did too, because I had a great time, and had absolutely no security problems at all.

São Paulo is a huge city. With 19 million inhabitants, it's the largest city in the southern hemisphere, and the seventh largest in the world, and it's the financial and cultural centre of Brazil. It also has the world's largest public transport system, including an excellent metro system, which made getting around town pretty easy (although I never managed to figure out the buses).

I arrived at Vila Madalena Hostel early on Thursday morning, which meant that I had to wait a few hours until I could check in. Eventually my bed became free, so I checked into my dorm, and then Tulio, the eccentric owner of the hostel, presented me with a city map, and spent half an hour scrawling all over it, suggesting places I should visit during my stay. It was by far the most helpful advice any hostel owner or employee has ever given me.

After a brief rest I set off on the walking tour that Tulio had suggested to me, which took me from the hostel, through the upmarket Jardim Paulista neighbourhood, and onto Paulista Avenue, which is Brazil's most important financial centre and also home to MASP (São Paulo Museum of Art), which is Latin America's most important museum of Western art. I then spent an hour or two looking around the museum, which contained artworks by most of the big hitters in the art world (Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Rembrandt, Constable, Turner, etc., etc.). I then made my way back to the hostel via Oscar Freire Street, which is apparently the ninth most luxurious street in the world.

Tulio describes Vila Madalena as an art and design hostel, and he's personally very interested in art, so much of the advice he gave me was based on the art galleries and exhibitions that he suggested I visit. One of them was actually a street, Beco de Batman (Batman's Alley), the walls of which are completely covered by graffiti, so after returning from Tulio's walking tour I went to take a look. I had a bit of trouble finding the street, but once I did, there was no question that I was in the right place. There were some quite impressive but weird paintings there, for example here and below.

It was started to get dark by this point, and I didn't think it was a good idea to linger too long in a dark alley, so I quickly made my way back to the hostel. When I got there I met Zani and Maria, two girls that were staying in my dorm, who were from Australia and Brazil respectively. They invited me to go out to dinner with them, so we went out for some typical Brazilian food, followed by a few beers back at the hostel.

The following day Maria and I went for a walk around two of São Paulo's neighbourhoods, Centro and Liberdade. Centro is the historic centre of São Paulo, and Liberdade is the Japanese district, which is home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan in the world. In the morning we saw the main sights of the historic centre, including the Cathedral and the Viaduto do Chá (Tea Viaduct), which is São Paulo's oldest viaduct. We also called in at Edifício Itália (see the photo below), which is one of São Paulo's landmark buildings, and the second tallest building in the city. There's a restaurant and viewing platform on the top floor of the building, which I'd read that it was possible to visit, but the man at the information desk told us that if we wanted to go there without eating at the expensive restaurant, we'd have to come back between 3pm and 4pm.

So we walked over to Liberdade, where we had Japanese curry for lunch, and it was at this point that Maria admitted that my preference for walking everywhere had caused her feet to blister almost to the point of bleeding, which did make me feel a bit guilty. However, after stopping off at a shop to buy a new pair of Havaianas we were ready to continue, and we carried on walking around Liberdade, calling in at a big orchid show (I never knew the Japanese were so keen on orchids).

We then made our way back to Edifício Itália, via the Mercado Municipal, which is one of the best food markets I've ever visited. We arrived back at Edifício Itália at the appropriate time, and made our way up to the top floor, where the view was pretty impressive - there are some photos here and below.

That evening Maria, I, and Lesley, a Canadian girl also in our dorm, went to a gig, because there were three Canadian guys staying at our hostel who were members of a samba band, and they were in São Paulo to do a mini-tour. They'd invited everyone they'd met in the hostel to their gig the previous night, but since it was in a different neighbourhood we didn't go. However, their second gig, which was taking place that night, was in a venue about three blocks from the hostel, so this time we had no excuse.

Even though the club was nearby, it was in an extremely obscure location, and we'd never have found it without detailed directions (we had to walk about 50m through a car park until we spotted it, and there was no indication on the street that the club was there). And it was a really good night - I thought it was pretty brave of a Canadian band to come to Brazil to play samba music, but they really pulled it off. The band were playing with a local saxophonist, and the keyboard player, David, told us at the interval that they'd only met this guy half an hour before the show started, which seemed pretty amazing to me.

The following day was a bit of a write-off, as I was so tired from Friday night. In the morning I set goodbye to Zani, and then I went over to the bus station to buy my ticket for the following day to Campo Grande. On my way back I stopped off to take a look at an antiques market that takes place every Saturday about two blocks from the hostel. Obviously I wasn't planning to buy any antiques, but it was interesting to have a wander round, and there were food stalls and even a band playing. Afterwards I called in at two more small art galleries that Tulio had particularly recommended to me - one of them was an alternative gallery with graffiti-like artworks hung on black walls, and it was pretty weird. It was more Japanese food for dinner - sushi this time, at a local restaurant.

On Sunday at lunchtime, Maria left to catch her flight to Rio, but my bus wasn't until 8pm, so I still had the afternoon to kill. After an aborted attempt to visit the Museu do Futebol (Museum of Football), which turned out to be closed, I walked over to the huge Ibirapuera Park, and I spent the rest of the afternoon there, visiting a couple of museums including MAM (São Paulo Museum of Modern Art) and generally wandering around.

That just about all I have to say about São Paulo, where I spent four really enjoyable days. São Paulo has none of the beauty of Rio de Janeiro, and if you don't like big cities you'd probably hate it, but it has an energy and excitement unlike anything else that I've come across in South America.

Ouro Preto

I took a bit of a detour en route from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo, to spend a couple of days in Ouro Preto, which is one of the most beautiful and best-preserved colonial towns in the whole of South America. Ouro Preto (which means Black Gold in Portuguese), was the centre of Brazil's gold mining industry in the 18th century, and it was the wealth generated by this that paid for the construction of the baroque churches and grand administrative buildings that are dotted around the town.

To give you an idea of what the town looks like, there are a couple of views of Ouro Preto here and here. This is a photo of Tiradentes Square, which is Ouro Preto's main square, and Rua São José is one of the main streets in the city centre. However, Ouro Preto is best known for its churches, and I've been to see quite a lot of them, including Igreja Nossa Senhora do Rosário, Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Conceição de Antônio Dias and Igreja São Francisco de Assis (below).

The second of these churches also houses the Aleijadinho Museum. Aleijadinho was a sculptor and architect who sculpted the exteriors of several of the churches in Ouro Preto, including Igreja São Francisco de Assis (which he also designed), as well as numerous statues that are situated inside the churches. He did this despite losing his hands and his feet due to illness at the age of 40, after which he continued to sculpt with a hammer and chisel strapped to his arms (Aleijadinho is a nickname that means 'little cripple' in Portuguese).

Other than the churches, I paid a quick visit to the Teatro Municipal, which was inaugurated in 1770, making it the oldest theatre in the whole of the Americas that's still in operation. I also went for a tour of the Museu da Inconfidência (Conspiracy Museum) - see the photo below - which is at the opposite end of Tiradentes Square from the photo that I linked to earlier.

The museum describes the history of Ouro Preto, concentrating on the Inconfidência Mineira (Minas Conspiracy), which was an independence movement that began in Ouro Preto in 1789. The movement was led by a man called Tiradentes (which means 'tooth puller') - he was a dentist, hence the nickname. The conspiracy failed, and Tiradentes was tried and then hanged in the square that now bears his name. Since the late 19th century Tiradentes has been considered a national hero in Brazil.

That's about all I have to report from Ouro Preto. After yet another overnight bus journey I've now moved on to São Paulo, a city with 19 million inhabitants,which is a bit of a change of scenery once again.

Rio de Janeiro

I'm now at the end of my fifth day in Rio, and they've been five full and busy days, with excellent weather, and I could easily have spent longer here. I'd say Rio has probably jumped right to the top of my list of favourite cities in South America. It's a beautiful city, not really in terms of its buildings, but more in terms of its location, which must be the most spectacular of any city in the world. I've been staying in Copacabana, which is one of the smarter areas of Rio, with a great central location. I'm also glad that I've finally found where all of the Western tourists are in Brazil. There must be as many Westerners visiting Rio as there are in the rest of the country put together, but I guess that's not very surprising.

I found myself staying in a bit of a party hostel, so having arrived here from Salvador on Wednesday afternoon I went out to a bar in Ipanema that evening with a group of people that I'd met in the hostel. I was ready for bed by 3am, so I came back to the hostel then, but most of the rest of them stayed out until about 5:30am, and they then continued to do exactly the same thing every night of the week. I couldn't keep up with that kind of pace, particularly as I actually wanted to see some of Rio during the day, so I gave up trying after the second night, and left them to get on with it.

After a bit of a late start on Thursday morning, I went to see two neighbouring parts of Rio - Centro and Santa Teresa. Centro is the financial centre of Rio, the equivalent of London's Square Mile, and it's buzzing on weekdays and deserted on weekends. It has several impressive buildings, including the Petrobras Tower and the incredibly un-cathedral-like Cathedral. I also went for a look around the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (National Fine Arts Museum).

I then caught a rickety old tram to Santa Teresa, which is a bohemian neighbourhood with cobbled streets and lots of art galleries, set on a hill overlooking the city. The most interesting place I visited was the Museu da Chácara do Céu, which is an art museum in the 1950's-built former home of the art collector Raimundo Castro Maia. Several of the rooms in the mansion have been preserved almost exactly as they were when Maia was living there, and the gardens have great views of Sugar Loaf Mountain and the Centro (below).

I also went to see the Escadaria Selarón, which is a staircase that the Chilean-born artist Jorge Selarón has been decorating with tiles for the past twenty years. At the top of the stairs a man was removing some of the tiles with a chisel, and I wondered what he was doing, because he seemed to be destroying the staircase. However, when I reached the bottom, I read this sign, which explained everything - Selarón is constantly changing the tiles, and as the sign says, he will only complete this crazy original dream on the last day of his life. And here is the great/crazy man in action.

On Friday I went to see what are probably Rio's two most famous sights, the Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugar Loaf mountain. I started off in the morning by catching a bus over to Cosme Velho, from where I caught a cog train to the summit of the 710m-high Corcovado mountain, which is where Christ the Redeemer is located. Here and here are a couple of photos of the statue, but even more spectacular were the 360° views of Rio. I could see Ipanema, Copacabana, the eastern side of Rio (including Centro, Guanabara Bay and the 13km-long Rio-Niteroi Bridge), and Botafogo and Sugar Loaf Mountain (below).

I then caught a bus over to Botafogo, from where I walked around Botafogo Bay to Morro da Urca, which is where you catch the first of two cable cars that take you to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain. There are a couple of other views of Sugar Loaf mountain here and here, the first from Botafogo, and the second from the foot of Morro da Urca. Once at the top, the views were again amazing, including views back towards Christ the Redeemer, and of Copacabana Beach, Niterói to the east, and Botafogo Bay.

On Saturday I stayed a bit closer to home, and went for a long walk from my hostel along Copacabana Beach, and then I continued along Ipanema Beach. Since it was the weekend and the weather was perfect, the beaches were packed, and they did look pretty tempting even to me. I then walked back to my hostel through Ipanema and Copacabana towns, first making a detour from Ipanema to take a look at Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, which is where the rowing and canoeing events will take place during the 2016 Olympics.

The following day I decided to get out of the city, and went for a walk in Tijuca National Park, which is a piece of tropical rainforest in the mountains close to Rio. In fact the national park isn't really outside the city at all, because it's only a 15-minute drive from Copacabana, and it's surrounded by districts of Rio on all sides. Having arrived in the national park, and once I'd got away from the road and from all of the children's birthday parties that were going on (it was Sunday, after all), it was very peaceful, and only the occasional roar of an aircraft jet engine reminded me that I was so close to Rio. I spent a couple of hours walking along some of the trails, then made my back into town.

Rio is a very divided city, with an ever widening gap between rich and poor, so this morning I went to see the other side of the story, by going on a favela (slum) tour. We went to Rocinha, which is the largest of the more than 900 favelas in Rio, with a population of around 200,000. It's also one of the most improved favelas, and we were assured that it was quite safe to walk around. Our guide, Daniel, explained that favelas tend to be controlled by drug gangs, and they maintain order in the favelas, so there's generally little crime there (other than drug crime, obviously), and the main risk to those not involved in the drug trade is getting caught up in a gun battle between rival gangs. However, Daniel explained that the man who greets you with a smile in the favela may be the same man that robs you on Copacabana Beach.

There were twelve of us on the tour, and after being driven to the entrance to the favela, we all caught moto-taxis to the top of Rocinha, from where we could see the whole favela below us, as well as Gávea, one of Rio's smartest districts, in the distance. We then walked down along narrow alleyways that in places were barely wide enough for two people to pass. The condition of the houses varied - some looked well built, and others looked unstable and in a state of disrepair. A few others, such as this one, had already collapsed, due to landslides caused by the heavy rains in Rio earlier this year.

Waste disposal is clearly an issue, because there was rubbish all over the place, causing there to be a horrible smell pretty much everywhere. Daniel explained that the reason for this is that the houses have all been built illegally on land that used to be part of the rainforest of Tijuca National Park, and the illegal status of the people living there means that they don't pay taxes, and as a result they get few services in return. There was also a spaghetti of electricity wires throughout the favela, which was a result of people hooking up their own wires from their houses to the grid to get free electricity. Apparently those living near the top of the favela are the most likely to get away with it.

About halfway down we stopped off at a centre housing a social project that aims to improve the lives of the favela's residents. The building seemed to be occupied by a nursery at the time we visited. It also had great views from its roof terrace, as you can see here, here and below.

I wouldn't say I was particularly shocked by the conditions in the favela. The ramshackle style of the buildings actually reminded me a lot of La Paz in Bolivia, although the narrow alleyways reminded me more of the medieval medinas of Morocco. Things are definitely changing though, and after decades of ignoring the problems in the favelas, the government is finally taking an interest. Access to public transport is improving, and a cable car is even being built in Rocinha. Daniel told us that by the time the Olympics are held in Rio in 2016, staying in a guesthouse in a favela will be a viable option, and at a fraction of the cost of a hotel room in somewhere like Copacabana.

And that's my report from Rio. From here it's be a bit of a change of pace, as I'm catching a bus to Ouro Preto tonight, which is a small colonial town in the mountains.

Salvador

The bus journey from Recife to Salvador on Sunday night didn't quite go according to plan. Everything was OK until around 5:30 on Monday morning, when the driver stopped the bus in the middle of the road and switched the engine off, and we just sat there for a long time. At first I couldn't see what was going on, because there was a long queue of traffic ahead of us, and the driver wasn't letting anyone get off the bus. I could see smoke in the distance, so I thought that perhaps there'd been an accident that was blocking the road. However, after about an hour the driver opened the bus doors, and I walked down to the source of the smoke, and this is what I saw:

After adding some punctuation, the banner on the left reads 'Exigimos nossos direitos de ir e vir. Asfalto já BR-400', which means 'We demand our rights to come and go. Asphalt now (for) BR-400'. Basically they were protesting about the lack of paving of the BR-400 highway, which one of the other passengers explained to me was one of these roads down below the main highway, which they were also blockading. For some reason they'd decided to take out their frustration by inconveniencing us and anyone else who happened to be travelling along that stretch of road on that Monday morning.

The protesters seemed to be having a great time, playing loud music and letting off the occasional firework, and meanwhile the queues of vehicles were growing ever longer in both directions. After several hours the police turned up, and at about 10:30am they finally managed to get the protesters to clear one of the hard shoulders, allowing traffic to pass. I don't know if the protest was successful, but I'm sure that at least some asphalt will have to be provided now, if only to fix the damage they did to the road by lighting fires on it.

The delay added five hours to what was already scheduled to be a 14-hour bus journey, and in the end I didn't arrive at my hostel in Salvador until 3pm, which was 23 hours after I left Olinda. I'd only allowed myself two days to see Salvador, so having lost most of Monday I now didn't have much time at all.

So I went straight out to see the sights of the Pelourinho, which is Salvador's historic centre. Salvador is the biggest centre of Afro-Brazilian culture in the country, with over 80% of the population descended from African slaves. The African influence is apparent everywhere in the Pelourinho, in the street food, the women in traditional African dress, the African music, and the performances of capoeira. The capoeira was particularly impressive - I didn't really understand what it was before, but I do now, and these guys were quite amazing gymnasts.

Walking around the Pelourinho I saw the usual assortment of colonial churches, such as the Cathedral, Igreja de São Francisco, and the similarly named Igreja da Ordem Terceira de São Francisco. I was able to go inside the last of these, and the church was looking very smart, as it was obviously being prepared for a wedding. There was a museum attached, many of whose rooms were decorated with Portuguese azulejo tiles like these ones. I also saw lots of other examples of colonial architecture, for example here, here and below.

In the evening I went for a meal and a few beers with Bert, who's a Belgian guy that I'd met in the dorm in my hostel. Salvador is Bert's final destination of a six-month trip around South America that's been very similar to mine, and he's also the first person I've met who's been to Paraguay, which is where I'm planning to go after Brazil. He told me that from what he'd seen of Paraguay, it's hardly worth going there. This isn't exactly surprising news, and I'll still go there despite what he says (I need to go in that direction anyway if I'm going to visit Iguazu Falls), but now I think I'll spend some extra time in Brazil, and cut my time in Paraguay down to the minimum.

Today I saw a bit more of the Pelourinho, although it's Independence Day today in Brazil, which meant that a lot of things were closed, so it wasn't the ideal day to be doing that. I also went for a ride on the Elevador Lacerda, which is an art deco lift linking the Pelourinho, which is located on a cliff above the sea, with the Cidade Baixa (Low City), which contains the city's commercial centre and port.

Tuesday evening is the big party night of the week in the Pelourinho, so a lot of live music has been going on this evening, and I went to take a look at a free concert that was being held in the Terreiro de Jesus, which is one of the Pelourinho's main squares. I didn't stay for long, partly because it's been raining almost non-stop this evening, but also because Salvador is one of the most dangerous cities in Brazil, and I didn't feel very safe. In fact Bert told me that a man tried to rob him this evening, so it quite clearly isn't safe here at all.

Tomorrow morning I'm catching a flight to Rio. I'd hoped to do this whole trip without flying, but in this case there was hardly any price difference between going by plane and going by bus, and when you consider that the flight takes two hours, but the bus takes between 24 and 28 hours, it wasn't a hard decision to make.

Olinda & Recife

Twelve hours along the coast by bus from Fortaleza is Recife. I arrived in Recife on Friday morning, and immediately caught a local bus out to Olinda, which is Recife's much smaller and more peaceful sister city. Olinda is a colonial town with picturesque streets and grand churches, and I've spent a couple of afternoons wandering around seeing the sights, and trying to avoid the annoying guides who keep offering me guided tours and won't take no for an answer.

I went to see several of the churches including Igreja da Sé (which is Olinda's cathedral), Mosteiro de São Bento, the derelict Igreja do Carmo, and Igreja da Misericórdia, together with its nuns. Igreja da Sé is located at the top of Alto da Sé, which is a hill that offers a good view of the old part of Olinda, with the sea behind it. Looking towards the south-west, you also get a great view of Recife's skyline in the distance.

Olinda is full of cobbled streets and colourful houses, some more colourful than others. The town is also known for its Carnaval, during which giant dolls are paraded through the streets. While the dolls aren't being paraded, a lot of them are kept on display, and you see figures like these throughout the town.

On Saturday morning I went into Recife, the main reason being that I'd completely run out of books, and I'd read in Lonely Planet that there was a big bookstore in Recife called Livraria Cultura, which had an impressive range of foreign-language titles. And this time Lonely Planet wasn't wrong, because Livraria Cultura did have a good selection of English-language books, and I bought a couple that should keep me going for a week or two at least.

While I was in Recife I took the opportunity to see the sights, such as the Paço Alfândega (originally a convent, then a customs house, and now a smart shopping centre) and the colourful houses on Rua Bom Jesus (Good Jesus Road). I wasn't particularly impressed by Recife - the centre is dominated by ugly 1960's tower blocks, while the old part of town, Recife Antigo, is small, and most of the buildings range in condition from merely crumbling to completely derelict. However, there is work going on to renovate some of the historic buildings (see the photo below), so maybe Recife will look a lot smarter in a few years' time.

You may have noticed in a couple of the Olinda photos that there are signs advertising something called MIMO. That stands for Mostra Internacional de Música em Olinda (International Exhibition of Music in Olinda), and this has been going on while I've been here. There are several musical performances every day, as well as showings of films. I skipped the films because I thought I probably wouldn't understand them, but I did go to one of the concerts in Igreja da Sé yesterday afternoon. It was given by the Symphony Orchestra of the Federal University of the Rio Grande do Norte, and they were really good, but the concert was spoiled for me by the noise of the fans that had been set up along one side of the church. They were obviously meant to keep us cool, which they did, but they also drowned out the music except during the loudest parts of the concert.

I considered going to Porto de Galinhas today with a couple of people I met in my hostel, but I decided against it as it would have involved spending several hours sitting on a bus just to go and sit on a beach, even if it is considered to be the best beach in Brazil. Instead I spent the morning writing this blog post, and now I'm going to relax and enjoy the sun until late afternoon, when I have to head back into Recife to catch my bus to Salvador.

Fortaleza

Fortaleza is all about beaches, and although it's a big city, it doesn't have a lot else of interest, so this blog post is going to be fairly brief! Yesterday, which was my first full day here, I went to take a look at the modern, and very concrete, cathedral, as well as the nearby central market, with its weird winding walkways.

I also visited the Dragão do Mar, which is a cultural centre with museums, galleries, walkways, restaurants and bars, and even a planetarium. Its biggest draw is the Museu de Arte Contemporânea (Museum of Contemporary Art), which I also went to. It was split over two floors - upstairs they had what I thought were a few fairly pointless video installations, but downstairs was a lot more interesting, with paintings by some big names like Picasso, Miró and Matisse.

I've been to take a look at a few of Fortaleza's beaches, even though I think I've already established that I don't like beaches. The nearest beach to where I'm staying is Iracema beach, which as you can see was deserted when I was there. This morning I went to Meireles beach (below), which is a couple of kilometres east of Iracema, and is where most of the big luxury hotels are situated, so it was correspondingly busier.

These beaches are right in the city centre, and littered with rubbish in some places, so they didn't seem particularly pleasant. I think Fortaleza does have some really good beaches, but to get to those you have to go further out of town.

I carried on past Meireles beach to the harbour and then to the fish market, where you can buy fish and then take it to be prepared at a nearby stall for a few extra reales. I considered buying a few prawns or even a lobster, but then I remembered that I'd paid the price for eating shellfish just before a long bus journey when I was in Peru, so I decided against it. It was near here that I witnessed a policeman beating up a young homeless man - I have no idea whether he'd done anything to deserve it, but it did seem unnecessarily brutal.

I leave Fortaleza tonight, and the long bus journey I was referring to will get me to Recife in the morning, although I plan to stay in Olinda, which is Recife's smaller sister city.