Iguazu & Rio

The second day at Iguacu on the Brasilian side was amazing, the weather cleared up completely and we saw rainbows and everything - did you know that a rainbow can actually go nearly all the way around in a circle, if there's enough mist/light floating around? Anyway, it was great, and kind of a shame we didn't get a chance to have similarly nice weather the day before but one day of nice weather was better than none.

Unfortunately that turned out to be the last bit of sun we'd see on the trip, when we landed in Rio it was raining, and it... hasn't really stopped raining since. Which puts a bit of a dampener on things like going to the beach (what Rio is famous for) and up hills like Sugarloaf and where the Christ the Redeemer statue is (again, what Rio is famous for).

Yesterday we took this rickety old tram thing to the Santa Theresa area, which was quite nice but also very small... then we headed off to the main football stadium, which turned out to be a bit of a letdown because the entrance fee was more than we were willing to pay, given all the museum stuff was in Portuguese... For lunch, we went to what seemed to be a local pirated mashup of McD's/BK called 'Bob's', and met a very friendly and enthusiastic waitress who was very keen to chat to us in English (rare for the locals here from what we've come across so far), reiterated the advice about being careful with our valuables lest we get mugged, and for some reason thought NZ was a very cold country. I guess it might be compared to Rio, but it's not exactly warm here at the moment! After that we kind of gave up on activities for the day, seeing as the weather still hadn't cleared up.

Today... was much the same, we woke up to more rain and decided, well, we better at least try to go to Sugarloaf and Christ the Redeemer because it was our last day here, got to Sugarloaf, found that the cable car fare was BRL$44 each (about NZ$34), and also that the cables just faded into... nothing. James and I have taken a cable car through the clouds once, in HK to the Big Buddha, and as mystical and stuff as it sounds, actually, it's quite boring just looking at a big grey blob of nothing for the entire trip. So we decided to head to the famous Christ the Redeemer statue instead, figuring that even if the weather still didn't clear by then, at least we should be able to see the statue itself...

Highlight of the day was probably finding a Subway for lunch! We all got meatball as it was the Sub of the Day (yes, they have that here), and it was comfortingly familiar. Afterwards we eventually found the right bus stop and ended up in the right place. We took another tram (I don't think this one counted as a funicular) thing to the top, and as I suspected, basically all you could see was mist - at least we also caught glimpses of the statue too. Oh, I suppose another highlight of the day was Bruce getting interviewed by some guys of uncertain source, may have been for a tourism video, or 6 o'clock news, who knows! They might also have gotten some footage of me dozing off in the train, hope that doesn't air... anywhere.

You know how at viewpoints they have captioned pictures telling you what it is you're looking at? Well, it was almost agonising how they had these at the top of that hill, with blue skies and glittering beaches, all nicely numbered, while all we got to see was grey blob.

Overall, my advice to people visiting Rio would be - if the weather forecast seems to be bad, change your plans and come back another week when it's sunny, because most of its attractions can't really be enjoyed when it's cold and wet... Oh well, at least we've been here! Tomorrow we'll start back to NZ, first a flight back to BA, transfer to the other airport, and then the final leg home.

Bits and pieces of stuff

This blog isn't really turning out as well as I had hoped, mainly because by the time I get to go online here I either 1) have forgotten what I wanted to write, and/or 2) am too lazy to bother nothing it down... however, before I forget, there are still a few things I wanted to jot down...

• I've never seen as great a concentration of SuperVHS camcorders and film cameras as I have today at Iguazu. Seems there are a few laggards in the continent. The funniest thing was some people were wearing them on a lanyard around their neck - it was literally like wearing a brick around your neck, could seriously do some long term damage. 
• In Argentina they like their everything sweet. And I mean, you get a tiny cup of coffee at a bus station and they give you four packets of sugar to go in it. I reckon if you actually put it all in it would actually saturate and some of the granules wouldn't dissolve. What's even better is the pre-sugared coffee on the long distance buses, basically it's like drinking hot coffee syrup.
• I really liked how when you bought locally made handicrafts in stores around Salta, every stall basically had a fixed price which was quite reasonable, and the same around the whole area, so you didn't really have to worry about getting ripped off, shopping around or bargaining too much. And even when people come up to you trying to sell stuff, once you turn them down they give up and don't aggressively continue to pursue you, unlike in India or parts of China...
• They seemed to like wet rooms and bidets in the northern parts of Argentina. The bidet thing is still completely mystifying to me, and the wet room thing is just annoying - basically the showerhead is just in the (sometimes middle of the) room and there's no shower curtain, dip, trench or anything to stop the water going everywhere and making the room, well, wet. They give you a handy huge wiper broom thing to sweep the water back into the drain, but do you know what would be even more handy? A proper, enclosed shower...

Oh well, that's it for now, except - we'd put most of our warm clothes away thinking it would be really hot in Brazil, turns out where we are now is actually kind of freezing! Hopefully Copacabana will be a bit nicer... who knows, maybe we can even get a swim in!

Iguazu Falls

The falls were amazing! Unfortunately it was pouring with rain most of the day and our pants got pretty much soaked, also given it's high season we had to jostle with busloads and busloads of local tourists at the viewpoints, but still really worthwhile... I tried to upload a photo but gave up after ten minutes of nothing really happening. After pretty much doing all the walks in the park we went back to our hostel on the Argentine side, and then headed off to the Brazilian side. I have to say, it's a bit weird taking a taxi to another country, especially when you don't even have to get out at the border, the driver just handed our passport over in a toll-booth type thing and we got to stay in the car the entire time. Hopefully the weather will be a bit better tomorrow when we look at the falls from the Brazilian side, and probably will also go to the bird park next door as well. Tonight we're having Brazilian buffet, hope it's a bit different from the Argentine fare!