Around the world...in a TRUCK!: Brazil

Greetings greetings greetings one an' all.. I hope this fine day finds you well and in the best of spirits. I am currently residing in Argentina (don't cry for me) and its sophistication and Europeaness has me feeling cultured and posh. But my dear blog readers, we are not gathered here today to discuss such worldly locations, we are here to discuss the journey south from Rio de Janeiro through the humidity and random rain of Brazil...

Anyway enough of that shit..

So we were off! Finally after months and months of planning we got on the truck. Readers of my London-Singapore blog will know the format: 20 strangers in a truck making our way overland with a driver and a tour leader. It's over-landing baby and the only way to travel in my book. We went with Oasis Overland for this trip as they had the route we wanted for the most reasonable price. See the route below. Feel the excitement.

I don't have the time or the energy to describe all the people in the group so hopefully you'll get to know everyone a little better as you read. It's a slightly younger crowd than my last trip mainly English with a few Aussies, Irish, Welsh, Scots, Americans thrown in the mix with a guy from Thailand as well to make a merry group..

So our first stop was an easy 2 hour drive from Rio to a place called Parati. This was a small little country town and was a welcome break from the craziness of Rio. It was good to breath fresh air and not smell piss. We had our first group meal and we were settling down for a very civilized beer before we got accosted by a group of pissed up Aussies from a different overlanding company drinking "Jungle Juice" out of a kettle that they'd robbed from their truck.. The next day we all did a boat trip around the bay in the area. It was so hot you could jump off into the water and be dry in 5 minutes though the humidity was taxing. We had a great day on the boat with food and free Caprihanas all day (a rum cocktail mixed with sugar). Sam got beaten by the Caprihanas... Caprihanas 1 - 0 Sam.

Drinking Caprihanas in the water

From Parati we headed with a hangover to the Pantanal. This is a low lying wetlands area (which you can see on the map) which is famous for it's abundance of wildlife. What they don't advertise is it's the mosquito capital of the world. I've never seen so many in the one place those little flying dirty snidy basterds were everywhere. I committed mass murder on them a couple of times.. Aside from dealing with this we had a great time here. We stayed in a nice hostel with a pool and did lots of activities. We did a boat ride along the river and saw lots of wildlife including Caiman, Tucans, Woodpeckers, Monkeys, Vultures, an abundance of Parrots and colorful birds and the pet Peckerings that were kept in the hostel. We also went Piranha fishing which was great craic. You put a tiny bit of meat on your rod and next thing your rod gets ATTACKED and you think you've caught a bleedin' shark. We had them for dinner that night as well which I suppose can be described as a 'first..' The other guys did horse riding but I skipped this due to fear of death by asthma attack. It was a very fun couple of days in the Pantanal in which I must have sweated my bodyweight..

Chillin' by the pool

It was this big

Caiman

Monkeys..

Vultures or reincarnated bankers

From here we made our way south to the next stop which was a little place called Bonito. Another quaint little town, another nice campsite, another encounter with the lardy Ozzies! We were crammed into a small campsite with another truck of them and were kept awake by one of the classiest birds in the world gettin her hole in the tent near us, to which Craig (who's on our trip) shouted encouragement in the form of: "Go on son!" Then the bird stuck her head out of her tent and shouted to her friend "Do you have a condom?" to which Craig replied: "Don't worry about that mate, do her in the a***"
Multiply that by 100 times when alcohol is involved... And you get funniness..
Apart from that entertainment we managed a trip to Blue Lake Cave which was, well, a cave with.. erm.. a blue lake in it.. and managed to watch the second half of the Ireland France match which was AWESOME!
The next day we went snorkeling in a river nearby. We had 3 hours swimming through the river and seeing the awesome fish that live there.. very fun!

Snorkeling

look: Fish!

Does what it says on the tin..

A few bush camps later and we were at our final stop in Brazil; Foz. Sound familair? Probably not, it's the home of one of the largest waterfalls in the world: Iguazu Falls.

Now the falls and the river on which they lie marks the border between Brazil and Argentina so it is possible to see the falls from both countries. All guide books say you need to see them from both sides so this is what we did. There's not a lot to say other than they were obviously incredible. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

At the falls as well they also had these cheeky chappies coming up trying to rob your sandwiches...

Next to the waterfalls they had a native bird park with lots of birds native to South America. I made tge mistake of giving Sam the camera so we've 18 million pictures of birds. Here are just a few...

In Foz, we also celebrated Paddy's day. My cook group cooked up a Beef and Guinness stew which everyone enjoyed and then we had a big session with music and dancing on tables before the campsite manager came and said he was going to call the police if we didn't stop, a sign of a good Paddy's day!