Ola guys,

Well my plan of weekly updates has clearly failed! So now you get a bumper blog describing the past four weeks where I travelled over 10, 000km by plane, boat, bus, pickup, moto-taxi, shuttle and car from Rio de Janeiro up to and around Bahia and then on to the second leg of my trip in Central America.


Okay so last time I left off it was coming up to St Patrick´s Day which we celebrated in true Paddy style - in the pub and donned in every bit of tacky Irish gear we could find and trying to sing Irish songs with the locals. It was slightly embarassing when the Brazilian Irish wannabees knew more of the words than I did though.After this I left Anna to begin her life as a Carioca and I set off as a solo traveller.


First stop Salvador de Bahia, capital of Afro-Brazil. Salvador was as vibrant and alive as I had expected with the streets full of artists selling colourful Bahian paintings, crafts people and capoeiristas and all to a background of great music wherever you went. It seems to be a city of contrasts though- rich, poor, Catholic, animist. When we arrived we were given a map of Salvador with the streets that were safe to go to before 5pm highlighted and then an even smaller area for after 5pm. I stayed in the Pelourinho area which was the old historical centre, really beautiful but as there were lots of tourists there were also lots of beggars, plenty of them kids high on crack. Despite all that Salvador has lots going for it and I had a busy five days there and managed to get a good taste of Bahian life - played capoeira, ate a delicious tomato seafood stew called moqueca, samba danced around the Pelo in the weekly samba parade led by the Olodun drummers, visited all the opulent churches and then attended a candomble ceremony.

The candomble ceremony was definitely one of my stranger experiences in Brazil, I think I was expecting it to be in a smoky dark room with an old woman chanting and sticking needles into voodoo dolls but I was wrong. Before we went we were told to wear light colours and cover up, it was a big white hall with the doors painted blue to keep bad spirits out. The guide explained to us that it was a celebration of one of the orixas (gods) called yemanji. The ceremony went on from the morning and continued well into the night, we only spent two hours there and that was more than enough. The two hours were spent watching women dancing in costume and going into trances. Eventually the god was received so all the dancers´left and re-entered in very fancy costumes. All a bit strange especially when the bystanders would suddenly stand up and go into trances themselves. Then again, maybe mass looks just as strange to them!


After Salvador I hit off for Itacare, a surf town seven hours south of Salvador. The place has plenty of travellers that came and never left and it´s no wonder why. The town is really easy going and friendly town but the beaches are undoubtedly the highlight - amazing. I hung out there sunbathing, trying to surf and going to beach parties for a few days until the rain came and pushed me along to my next destination - Lencois and Parque Nacional Chapada de Diamantina.

Loved this place which is probably why I ended up spending eight days there hiking, swimming and sliding down natural waterslides. One of the highlights of my trip so far was the five day trek I did in the Vale de Pati, apparently the most beautiful trek in all of Brazil and I agree completely. It was also the best fed few days of my trip, everyday we were treated to a giant spread of delicious food for breakfast, lunch and dinner with even a bottle of wine (our Good Friday treat) or a cold cerveza thrown in for good measure - my kind of trekking! We struck gold with our guide Flor who became our god over the next few days as we trekked across plateaus, scrambled up mountains, spotted wildlife and jumped into waterfalls.

I finally left Lencois just after Easter on a not so fun 30 hour bus ride to Rio de Janeiro with the woman behind me serenading the bus with her songs from her hymn book for a very respectable six hours, I think it was penance for missing Easter mass. Arrived back to the hostel and after commenting on the fact that there must have been a bad storm as there was a lot of debris and rocks on the road I discovered I had just missed Rio´s worst floods in years in which over 200 people died.

The hostel was full so I was sent over to Paolo´s grand house next door where Anna was staying too. Paolo is a lovely bag designer who loves the Queen and wants nothing more than to become a Sir. Had a great time drinking tea (that´s what Sirs do) and chatting away to him and Anna. And so ended my time in Brazil. As for my portuguese, I didn´t leave without learning some key portugese words like ´hippy hoppy´, ´hock e holey´ (rock and roll) and my personal favourite ´chilly ouchy´ (chill out).



Next up Guatemala! I´ve been to Antigua which is a lovely old colonial town, San Pedro de Laguna and San Marcos on Lago Atitlano. San Marcos was hilarious, lots of people believe it´s a spiritual centre and it´s become a hub for alternative therapies. I knew there was something a bit odd about it when I came across a garden full of people just sitting and staring at a different plant each. This was on my way to a yoga class where the teacher told us a legend about a monkey god and reckoned we should try to relate to him when the class got tough....After this joined forces with Laura and Ivan and headed to Semuc Champey - definitely my favourite place in Guatemala. It´s like a natural waterpark with loads of different pools and jumps and slides. We also did a trip into a cave that also involved jumping, swimming and sliding and all by candlelight! We also visited the ancient Mayan ruins at Tikal which was pretty cool to see too but I the Mayans were right to emigrate from there, 85 % humidity and mid thirties temperature. Our last few days in Guatemala were spent in a jungle lodge and getting a taste of Carribean living along the Rio Dulce just a few kms from Livingston.

That´s all for now, apologies for the length of the blog, hope its not too boring!!

Hope everyone´s happy and healthy and not covered in volcanic ash or anything like that, keep in touch

xx










Some of the cool street art around Rio (the cow is just for you Tom!), there were some pretty amazing tattoo´s toobut slightly more difficult to photograph!

Brazil Part 1

Hey folks,

Can't believe I'm in Brazil nearly two weeks already, I figure it's time to let you in on some of the fun I've been having since leaving the homeland.

After a quick stopover for some tinto verano, tapas and salsa in Madrid with Pamela I landed in Rio de Janeiro. And it was raining!!! Soon got over that though....

My home for most of my trip so far has been a really friendly little hostel-guesthouse in Santa Teresa with amazing views of JC himself (who has been renamed SuperJesus thanks to the scaffolding surrounding him resembling a cape), the Sugarloaf and all of Rio.

So far everything has been great. Met lots of cool people, all the Irish I've met are here courtesy of the 'the current economic climate'. I've covered most of Rio's must visit sites like the Sugarloaf, Ipanema, Santa Teresa, etc but what Rio de Janeiro has really got going for it is its nightlife - love it!!

I've been to two favela funk parties so far, one was in a place called Tijuca, in a big hall with one wall covered in speakers and everyone just dancing like crazy. The second was in a favela called Rio das Pedras and we went with an organised tour. I was afraid we might just be shoved into a gringos only area and not be able to mix but it was grand, got to dance away with everyone else and watch the gringos vs locals dance off.


We had planned another big night out in Lapa, Rio's hotspot for nightlife, for Satuday night but a big storm hit and getting back to our hostel was just about all we could handle. It went a little something like this..ran to the metro stop in the torrential rain, got off at our metro stop only to discover the road had become a river, got to another metro stop, walked for ages trying to avoid all the floods, nearly got mugged, walked through the floods some more, eventually got an overcrowded kombi bus home - madness! Better luck at last Friday nights street party though, got there around midnight and by 4 am we had danced to samba, forro, reggae, funk, house and even U2, sang with the buskers and somehow ended up in a dance-off.

Balance is the key of course so we've had plenty of relaxing beach days too. We spent a few days in Ilha Grande, beautiful island with miles of white sand beaches a few hours from Rio. And last weekend we went to Buzios for a night which was lovely too, apparently it's the StTropez of Brazil so we obviously fitted right in.

Just back from a day hiking to waterfalls in Tijuca National Park and looking forward to our Irish pub crawl tomorrow in honour of good old Paddy.

And of course no report home would be complete without a rundown on the weather of course.....cloudy the first few days but warm and then there was a massive storm and since then the sun has been transforming my pasty Irish skin into a mix of white and red stripes with a tiny hint of a tan and a decent spattering of mosquito bites thrown in for good measure too.

That's all for now, hope everyone's well and Happy St Patrick's Day!

Elaine

xx