Birthdays, Brazil, buses and boozing on boats

Bon dia!

So after another 24hr bus journey we arrived in the very north east of Argentina in Peurto Iguazu.  The mighty Waterfalls are the main attraction which are on the border between Argentina and Brazil.  We visited the Argentinian side first on Urvys birthday (yippe! Happy Birthday!), although the day started badly, having our travel cash card swallowed by a machine for the second time this year.  The falls were fantastic, although the weather was not great.  However that wasn't the reason we got soaked.  We went on a boat ride up to  and into the falls, fully prepared with our Poncho's on, although they didn't quite work out as planned.  As soon as the water hit, it was so hard that it got in around the hoods and were both looking like drowned rats within seconds. So instead of keeping water out, they kept water in! We might as well have been holding an umbrella.  Urv was so soaked, we had to change clothes.  She wore Petes semi dry t-shirt and Pete zipped  his jacket up for the rest of the day.  After that we walked around before being chased out the park by a miserable petty official.

After that we had a slight mistake with out next bus to Sao Paulo, (in that we got the times wrong and missed it).  So this gave us the opportunity to visit the Brazilian side of the waterfalls as well, you see, every cloud has a silver lining.  They weather was great and the views were stunning, although we did see a stupid tourist tease a small furry animal (a Quachi ???, a bit like a raccoon) then kick it as it went for his trouser leg.  Prat.

At the second attempt we got another bus, this time to Rio de Janiero, as there was no time for Sao Paulo now.  Rio is a fantastic city!  not cheap, but lots of fun.  We stayed at a really great hostel near Ipanema beach and did the usual tourist stuff like get the funicular train up to see the big Jesus, and the cable car up to Sugar loaf mountain.  There was also a night time boat trip around the harbour, (basically a booze cruise) which got a bit messy.  Especially at about 3:00am when a passing container ship sent out a massive bow wave that sent everyone on the boat flying. When you are drunk on a wobbly boat, you don't need much encouragement to fall over.  Apart from that we hung out on the beach, bought some fantastic local artwork from the market and generally had a great time.  We didn't see any of the crime that everyone talks about and felt perfectly safe.  Pete thought at one point that he had been a victim of crime, and someone had stolen his left sock, but later found it in his right shoe.

Anyway, that concluded out South American adventure, which was great fun and we would definitely recommend it to anyway who hasn't been, and is thinking of going.  We then got a flight back to the UK for a brief stop before heading back out to China, Japan, New Zealand and Australia for the last leg of our world tour.

Hope everybody is well back home, and hope to catch up with as many of you as we can in the new year.

Lots of love

Pete & Urvy
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