CARNAVAL!

Ah Jaysus if it isn't yourself... Howaya??

You're probably wondering why I've gathered you all here.. Well it is to shite on about Rio De Janeiro and most particularly the biggest party on Earth: Carnaval...

So if you tuned into last week's episode you will know that we were all sad at leaving the epic New Zealand. We landed in Rio and boom: they'd lost my backpack!! Frickin nightmare after such a long flight and smelling like crap with no spare clothes.. Anyway, spoiler alert it showed up three days later. It's a weird thing though you always think it'll never happen to you but it did to me and a load of other people on our flight too..

The hostel we had booked was good. Nice and clean etc. When we arrived the guy behind the counter said "We are having a pasta party tonight if you want to join?" Maybe I've been left out of the loop but I was imagining a big food fight with Ravioli and sheets of Lasagne flying around or maybe some weird kid's party with plastic cups.. but no, it was just help yourself to Pasta, but still a life first.. Pasta party, tick!

So anyway, Carnaval yeah yeah.. So what happens is each suburb or area of the city holds a street party on different days. They get an open top double decker bus and plonk a DJ on top. You congregate around this bus, they spray you with water and you can buy beer from a guy with a Polystyrene cool box/esky/chilly bin on the side of the road. You then follow said bus with beer in hand along the streets whilst people sing and whistle and bang drums and generally party.. Oh and you have to dress in a ridiculous costume, like a non slutty Halloween outfit.. We went to a couple of these and were often followed by drinking at the hostel and going out to bars after.. Good times were had..

Getting soaked at a Bloco

Me, wet!

An elaborate costume

Emma and Graham from our Hostel sporting above mentioned costumes!

Aside from the general debauchery that goes on around, what makes the Carnaval famous is it's parade. It is without question the largest of its kind in the world. If you haven't been, it's difficult to describe how dam big and over the top this thing is. It goes on for over 8 hours, starts at 10pm and goes on till 6 in the morning. There are literally tens of thousands of people participating and it takes place in a stadium which is over 700 meters long along which fits over 90,000 people. It runs for 4 nights and 784,000 people attend in total. It is the most over the top extravagant thing I have ever been to and struck me as quite a wasteful thing as everyone dumps their costumes on the ground at the end of the parade and they get loaded into rubbish trucks and the one's that get left behind are taken by tourists.. but hey, you have to do it.. a mind blowing spectacle...

We got to attend the Carnival with the other people on our truck trip who we would be traveling the rest of South America with so it was good to meet them and get pissed together for the first time..

All the partying and Parading done, Sam and I had to hit the tourist spots: Cristo Redentor, Sugar Loaf Mountain, Ipanema and Copacabana beaches and Escaderia Selaron (this is a set of steps made from tiles imported from all around the world). The highlight was the view from Sugar Loaf Mountain at sunset.. Take a look..

Ipanema Beach

The view from Sugar Loaf

A view of the coast

Me on top of Sugar Loaf

Cristo is in the background..

A view of the city

Me at Cristo

Another thing we did was a tour of a Favela.. I see your blank look so I'll explain. This is the sad side of Brazil. The poor people live in areas called Favelas. They are horrible slums with limited sewerage and the standard of living is very low.. The people who live here are very angry with the government.. Why wouldn't you be? You live in a slum but billions is spent on hosting the Olympics and the World Cup.. Our guide told us about many of the inequalities in the country and how the poor are getting restless as well as the awful health system for the poor. Very interesting and sounds like a complicated and potentially explosive political situation.

A view of the Favela

Samba Drums!

Example of the place

The Streets

To sum up Rio: It smells (the street cleaners were on strike to be fair), it's humid as hell, it's hot as hell, it's busy as hell, it's dirty as hell, it's frickin dangerous, it's very wasteful, there's widespread inequality, it's tiring, the people are beautiful, it's expensive, there's hills everywhere.. What's not to love?

After a week in Rio during Carnaval, all you wanna do is.......

Zzzzzzzz

New Zealand South Island

Hello hello hello again.. How have you been? Good? Good..

So I last left you on the ferry from the North to the South Island of NZ. A great time had been had in one week on the north island. We had 2 and a half weeks planned for the south. Make sure you've been for a pee cos there's a lot to tell..

Firstly, the natural beauty of this little part of the world is ridiculous. You actually get sick of beautiful mountains and lakes. Imagine. You get lethargic about it. "Oh, another beautiful alpine lake created by a glacier? Zzzz" So many times I was slapping me head off the windscreen going "You ungrateful prick." Ha ha  seriously though this place is amazing everything has been created by Volcanic activity and everything is breathtaking.

So we started off the first day driving the LESSER known Marlborough Sound (Sound being the word for Fiord I gather after doing no research). Look at the pictures, look!! This is the little brother of Milford Sound barely even on the map..Come on!

After a side trip to the beautiful Kateriteri (spelt wrong) beach we made our way to camp in the world famous Abel Tasman National park. This is a NP along the North coast of the south island famous for it's three day hike along the coast. Unfortunately we didn't have time for this so we made camp in a class campsite and satisfied ourselves with a half day hike at sunrise. Pretty spectacular I'm sure you'll agree. After this hike we made our way back along and visited the Captain Cook monument and enjoyed the long scenic drive back down in land from the National Park. Then we visited the Te Waikoropupu springs (Or Pupu for short). They claim to have the cleanest water in the world with underwater visibility of over 60 meters. We did all this before lunch. We hadn't had lunch yet and we had hiked a national park, visited a monument to a great explorer and seen some amazing springs, before a sandwich. Today's word boys and girls is: "ridiculous"

Kateriteri Beach

Sunset Abel Tasman NP

Abel Tasman

More Abel Tasman Beaches

Sam happy she finished the hike..

Captain Cook Monument

Pupu Springs

Pupu Springs, you can see how clear the water is here

We headed south and camped at Lake Rotoiti in Nelson Lakes National Park. We hit a bit of rain here and got maimed alive by sand flies (New Zealand's version of mosquitoes sent directly from hell to ensure you don't enjoy the place too much). But we did get some sweet photos of the lake in the morning  with the mist.. it's all about the mist..

Sam at the lake

Lake Rotoiti

We began the journey down the west coast of the south island in the direction of the glaciers. Not a massive amount to see and the fuckers rape you on the petrol price. We managed to fit in a Gorge formed by an earthquake and a seal colony, as you do..

We then arrived at Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Two little towns that have sprung up due to the easily accessible Glaciers. The Glaciers are great an all, amazing products of nature etc etc but they certainly don't advertise how much they've shrunk. Holy Crap the things have halved in size in the last 5 years alone. Look at the pics below and you can see a sign which shows where the Glacier used to be and where it is now. Very shocking. However a massive tick off the list of the NZ must do's.

A far off view of Franz Josef Glacier

At Franz Josef

Fox Glacier, the sign is where it used to be only 3 years ago..

It was here that we both did our skydive. Another huge must do in life is the skydive and holy crap it was amazing. A serious rush with a beautiful view of Mount Cook and the Fox Glacier as you jump. And yes, they did scare the crap out of one of the girls next to me asking each other if they'd fixed the harness and saying it was a temporary fix for now and she fell for it too dumb bitch hahahaha.. It wasn't too scary the worst bit is shuffling to the door and then hanging out before you jump it's like holy shit and then next thing you know you're falling to the ground like a stone.. But seriously if you haven't done it, do it! Gravity is great.. Take a look at the video by clicking here


It was now time to head towards Christchurch to pick up our friends Andy and Tracy who were joining us from Melbourne. We camped at lake Wanaka a beautiful campsite on a Glacial lake. I took a swim in the lake unbeliveably clean water. The next night we camped at the foot of Mount Cook. This was a little gem of a place as the drive to Mount Cook is the most spectacular scenery there is. Unfortunaltely as we arrived the weather turned nasty and a storm came in real hard. We parked up and couldn't even get out of the car it was raining so hard. So to pass the time I smashed (drank) a bottle of Red and Sam polished off a big plastic bottle of cider (classy bird!).. in the words of Doris from Gavin and Stacey "I won't lie to you, I was absoultely twatted." Oh and I had a pack of Oreos for dinner. At least we got some sweet pics of the mountain...

(Deep breath)

Next stop Christchurch to collect Andy and Tracy (hereby referred to as Trandy).. We managed to get a day looking around Christchurch. The destruction from the Earthquake is still very evident there.. the entire city is a building site. But since they've reopened the city center there seems to be a very optimistic vibe there for the future, and loads of building work!

So we collected Trandy from the airport after they took their sweet time going through customs and headed south again towards Queenstown. We camped in a place called Fairlie for the night. It was fairly good..........
We had a good night. Me and Andy shared a bttle of wine together and there were candles.. 

A nice leisurley drive the next day and we arrived in Queenstown. The tourist capital of NZ. We stayed with Sam's friend Helen who lives and works there which was sweet (Thanks Helen if you're reading) and hit the booze to get the reunion properly underway..

The next day was a big one. It was time for another huge life tick.. BUNGY JUMP! Wohooooooo what a buzz. This was much much much scarier than skydiving even though it was only 47 metres as opposed to 12,000ft.. All 4 of us did it which was a massive surprise as Andy is terrified of heights he can't go up a building without getting queasy and Sam did it too. I've never seen her so scared she was trembling.. the guy said to her when he was putting on her harness "So what do you do back in Ireland" Sam said: "I don't know.." ha ha ha And AGAIN they told me they'd have to be careful so as not to brake the harness.. basterds.. but so funny. Again, serious buzz.. Click here to see the video of me Bungying..


After the Bungy jump we did Luging. We did this on the north island. But it's so much craci flying fown a concrete hill in a plastic cart is serious craic.. And I beat Tracy every time she's a serious slow coach..

That evening we went to a place called Fear factory where you walk along a maze in the pitch black and people jump out and scare the shit out of you. Sounds laim.. it's not!! It was fookin scary nearly pissed myself. Oh and then we hit the booze again after a round of frisbee golf in the park..

Knackered after a seriously fun 2 days we were on the road again. We were heading towards Milford Sound. This is one of the major NZ attractions. It's quite a journey by car so we decided to camp close by and then get an early morning boat trip as it was cheaper and not as busy. So we had a mini road trip and stopped off to camp.. This is where the weather screwed us over.. Tracy made Potato Curry (as you do) and just as we were eating, the feckin ghost of Irish weather past slapped us in the face.. We had to sit in the van and play Chocolate Monopoly and drink more wine to cheer us up whilst we took bets on how far Trandy's tent would blow whilst the car shook with the wind.. think Father Ted on holiday in the caravan the only thing missing was Graham Norton (which is debatable..).. But hey, no sandflies!

The next morning, still soaked, we hit Milford Sound. An amazing spot. We got hit with a bit of fog and more rain but the sun lifted just enough to get out and get some pics.. It has some amazing views, great waterfalls and kick ass Seals on rocks..

After this we made the long drive back to Queenstown and then onto Christchurch the next day as we dropped the guys off at the airport at 3am (typical Tracy having to be awkward..). Very sad saying bye, but hey; Shanbally Reunion 2: the Revenge of the Punch, is currently in filming...

So there you have it.. New Zealand is an incredible country. So much amazing scenery, cool stuff to do and the people are the salt of the earth.. It gets 10 out of 10, I'm not even taking points off for the weather, that's how good it is..

Next week on Ben's Blog: Brazil, including the biggest party in the world: Carnaval..