Having taken a very early flight from Rio de Janeiro, we arrived in Foz do Iguaçu (also known as Iguazu Falls) late morning and had plenty of time to do all the walks in the Iguaçu national park and take lots of photos, despite it being a little chilly and overcast. Loved it though. In each place we visit we have a local guide with us as well as our own guide, so this time we had a swarthy Portuguese guide called Eduardo, who was very knowledgeable. Continue reading →
So the Frosty Top Tour is well underway and we are having a ball with our 9 fellow Kiwi FTs and our lovely Ecuadorian tour guide, Leni. So lucky to be with such a neat group of people, as we have tons in common with all of them and we’ve had such a laugh the whole way through. We’ve all travelled heaps, so have plenty of travel stories to tell. Out of 11 people, 6 of us have discovered we have a friend in common, which is pretty amazing, considering we are all from different parts of New Zealand. Continue reading →
Hello again – thanks to everyone who posted comments on our last blog posts. We’ve just left Búzios, having had an extended stay there due to the fact that we both ended up getting the flu – so much for the flu injection – and couldn’t face all the effort involved in another 3 hour bus journey back to Rio and then another bus and ferry ride to Ilha Grande, where we had intended going after this. Had a very challenging conversation with a pharmacist, trying to describe our symptoms by a series of charades, but the name of the cough lozenges made me smile – they’re called “Endcoff”. What else?? Continue reading →
Finally, here’s my first ever blog, which will no doubt be quite amateurish due to my natural state of technical constipation. But maybe it’ll improve with practice. A huge thank you to Michelle for being my blog support person – couldn’t have done it without you!
So we made it to Rio de Janeiro almost a week ago, armed with everything we could possibly need for three months, including all the really important apps on our phones, like ‘Google Translate’, ‘Find My iPhone’ and, more importantly, ‘Find My Husband’. Very handy when he goes walkabout, which he often does. Continue reading →
3 days in the big smoke was enough for us, especially as we’re going back there for another 3, so we caught a bus to a place called Armação de Búzios, 180 kms east of Rio de Janeiro, which is on a peninsula made up of 23 different beaches and villages.
Búzios was a simple fishing village until it was made famous by Brigitte Bardot (who is now 80 years old believe it or not) in 1964 when she came here with her Brazilian boyfriend. There is a bronze statue of her in the village, wearing a sleeveless top which became known as the ‘Bardot neckline’. Ha! Bet you never knew THAT. Buzios is known as the ‘St Tropez of Brazil’, descended on by the glitterati of Rio de Janeiro at weekends, although it has managed to retain its fishing village charm, with its cobbled streets and the fishing boats still coming in with their daily catch and filleting and selling the fish (Tuna and some other unrecognisable fishy items) from the beach.
We are staying in a hostel right on the beach called Nomad, which is perfect for us and has a view we will never get tired of. First day we got there, we settled ourselves happily onto two sun loungers and had been there no more than 10 minutes when an enormous herd of seagulls flew over and crapped copiously all over us, completely missing the other two people sitting near us. So copiously in fact that we had to shower and start all over again!
In Búzios there are cafes and restaurants absolutely everywhere, all along the waterfront and it reminds us a bit of a cross between a Greek island and an Italian village. We love it here, and since there is plenty to do and see in the area, we’ve decided to stay here at least a week and have a really relaxing holiday, as we know the next 2.5 months on the road will be pretty exhausting. We’re walking 10 kms or so a day and going on a few day trips, including a snorkelling trip yesterday for three hours, which was fun. Búzios has its very own micro climate so it rarely dips below 20 degrees or above 28 degrees Celsius all year round. In saying that, yesterday was 30 degrees and if this is the start of winter, I don’t know that I’d like to visit in mid summer when the population also rises from 20, 000 people to over 100,000.
We have only met about 3 people in a week who actually speak any English at all, so we either get by with a smattering of Spanglish (seems to be the 2nd language here, as Buzios is frequented a lot by Argentinians) or sign language, because apart from the basic stuff, we can’t speak Portuguese and it’s SUCH a hard language to pronounce. But we have seen some hilarious mis-translations on menus, which is one of the fun parts of travelling in a foreign country. The first thing we ever do when we go into a restaurant is proof-read the menu and chortle over the mistakes, although we’ve yet to see anything that surpasses the ones we saw in Portugal in 2012 which stuck in our minds – Muffled Prawns and Pork’s Paws (pig’s trotters).
With the Google Translate app you can point your phone at a foreign phrase, title or whatever and it automatically translates it to your chosen language. Yesterday we pointed it at some fruit juice in the supermarket to see if it was apricot or peach and it came up with ‘Nectar of Sleeve’ which had us sniggering all the way back to the hostel.
More from us soon, but here are some photos of the surroundings
Armacao de BuziosView from our hostel, BuziosBuzios from the eastSunset from hostel, BuziosDon’t pee in the garden, SteveTres Pescadores statue, Buzios (at low tide they are standing on rocks)Filleting tuna on the beach, BuziosFisherman bringing in the day’s haul, BuziosSunset from our balcony, BuziosBuzios from our balcony
2 Frosty Tops Do South America 