Having heard many horror stories about people being mugged in Rio, we were paranoid about carrying around our expensive cameras which unfortunately, means that we don’t have as many photos as we would have liked.

Food

On our first night in Rio we were taken to a Rodizio, a very popular style of restaurant in Brazil. This is where you pay a set price and you get a salad buffet while the waiters walk around with skewers of various grilled meats which they carve onto your plate. They keep coming around until you can’t eat any more. We had been to one in Spain and another in London and as you can imagine, this is Ross’ favourite type of restaurant so he was very excited to go to this one. The restaurant didn’t disappoint. The salad bar was delicious and the meat cooked to perfection.

Paraty

Paraty is a preserved Portuguese colonial town located on the coast of Brazil in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The old town was very charming with its cobblestone street lined with white walls and painted doorways and windows. There are supposedly a few nearby beaches that are nice, unfortunately, it rained for the entire time that we were there so there wasn’t much to do apart from walk around town and try cachaça, a spirit derived from sugar cane which is used to make caipirinha’s.

 

To get to Paraty from Foz Iguassu we took a 24-hour bus ride from hell. We did however wake up to the most incredible sunrise and luckily our breakfast stop was at the same time for us to get some photos.

The sunrise also gave us the opportunity to try out our new camera. We had to be careful with our Nikon DSLR’s in Brazil as we didn’t want to stand out to thieves so the small camera came in handy.

Ciudad del Este

We’d been told that across the border from Brazil was a massive shopping city called Ciudad del Este where you could get a electronics cheap. Being on the lookout for a new point-and-shoot camera we’d hoped we could find the Canon S90 there. After doing some research online before heading across, we’d found out that it’s not just a shopping city for cheap electronic goods, but for absolutely everything including guns and drugs. They even offered a service to smuggle the goods back over the border for you. So you can pop across, buy an AK47, 50 kg’s of marijuana and they’d deliver to your hotel room back in Brazil. Now that’s what I call service!

Iguassu Falls are waterfalls of the Iguazu River located at the border of Brazil and Argentina. Our hotel was on the Argentinean side in a small town called Puerto Iguazú. We arrived there in the afternoon and the tour company arranged a BBQ for us in a small town on the Brazilian side of the falls. Since it was Carnival time, they arranged for two almost-naked Samba dancers to perform for us. It was quite the show!

Colonia

The ferry from BA took us to a small town called Colonia. The ferry itself was a bit strange. It actually had its own lounge singer and this was at 10am in the morning.

Colonia is appropriately named as it’s an old Colonial town on the coast.  There isn’t much to do there but the old town is very picturesque with lots of cafes and restaurants by the sea. We were only there for a day so we took the chance to hire buggies and drive around for the afternoon. The buggies were these little cars that looked like massive roll cages and had a small engine in the back. On the open road we got it up to about 50 km/h which is not bad. We drove to the beach for look, but at seeing the colour of the water we decided against it. Colonia is at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata river which runs into the Atlantic and the winds and tides stir up them mud and silt making the water turn a cloudy brown colour.

    

After driving round the old town for a little bit, we returned the buggies and went out for dinner. As usual we’d looked at all the local postcards to get ideas for photographs, and the only thing we could find were sunsets, so Ross took the camera with us to try to capture the sunset ourselves. The photos he got were spectacular.

 

After spending another day in Ushuaia going through Antarctica photos and meeting up with new friends for dinner, we flew back to Buenos Aires to start our 17-day overland tour to Rio via Uruguay / Iguassu falls / Paraguay and the Brazilian coast.

Buenos Aires

On our first day we were free to do whatever we wanted, and since we didn’t get a chance last time we were in BA, we decided to visit La Recoleta Cemetery. It is famous for housing the graves of some of the most influential and important Argentineans, Eva Perón being the most well-known. It was designed by a French engineer and is laid out in sections like city blocks, full of mausoleums. Some were in very good condition while others were falling apart. It was a rainy and overcast day but this was actually perfect for visiting the cemetery.

 

Click on the map to view a larger interactive map.

We woke up in the open ocean heading back towards Ushuaia. Since there was nothing to see outside, we spent the day going through the thousands of photos that we had taken. That night at the bar, we were talking to the staff and they mentioned that there might be a surprise landing the next day. They wouldn’t tell us any more details but we were pretty excited at the prospect.

The next morning Ross got up early to take some photos of the   birds that were circling the boat.

Shortly after breakfast, we heard the anchor go down so we knew that we must have reached a landing spot. An announcement came on telling us that we had had anchored near a group of islands called Islas Diego Ramirez.

Paradise Harbour

Well normally when they name things there is always an element of marketing involved. Just think of Eric the Viking and the naming of Greenland or Wood Green in London. Well, when they named Paradise Harbour they really weren’t exaggerating. We got up and after some quick photos and an even quicker breakfast, we went into Zodiacs to land and go for a walk up to the view point.

All around the water was still creating a mirror effect and with high mountains all around it was sometimes hard to tell if you were looking at the real thing or its reflection. After grouping at the Argentine research base (yes, somebody gets to live there! at least during the summer months) we started up to the view point.