We're back, baby!

Ok, I appreciate that this may be a little out of sequence as the blog doesn't yet cover Australia or any of China but hey, we were too busy enjoying ourselves!

We got back in from Hong Kong at 05:15 on Friday morning, to be met by my parents who had got up at 03:00 in the morning to fetch us from Heathrow; fairly impressive considering my previous slanderous comments about my fathers age, I'm sure you'll agree.

Anyway, Siobhán is back to work on Monday, but as I am now officially part of the Great Unwashed, I will be endeavouring to finish off the blog for our own reminiscence, so if you are interested and would like to see how we finished our travels please do pop back over the next week or two as I keep myself entertained by putting in the final entries. If you no longer care, tough, it'll be here anyway.

The Wedding Crashers

Ok, well maybe it wasn’t a wedding, but we do seem to have got pretty good at getting involved in peoples honeymoons. Indeed Parity seems to be a fairly popular destination for honeymooners from various countries, with two newly wed couples staying at our Pousada and several more with whom we ended up spending time.

Before I go any further, I must thank Mendel with whom I used t work at BarCap, as it is he who suggested we spend time in Parity and it is a truly beautiful spot. The Pousada where we were lodging was the top recommendation from Trip Advisor (the travellers Bible) and it turned out to be a beautifully constructed boutique hotel owned by an American former network engineer (maybe that could be a career for me, when it turns out our impromptu travels have destroyed my once promising career!) and his artist wife, who couldn’t do enough to recommend places to go, lend a bike to get around on, or provide maps and recommendations for days out.

We managed to fit in a couple of dives, a jeep tour through the jungle where Siobhán froze under a waterfall, and afternoons and evenings, trawling around the stunning old town, one of which we spent in the company of another Brazilian lady and her American husband at the grandly (if perhaps slightly suspectly) named Academy of Food and Other Pleasures. This entailed three other couples (all newly wed and rather tragically nearly all in Investment Banking), plus ourselves spending an evening in the hosts beautiful home, being taught how to make a risotto and drinking as much red wine as you could handle. It turned out that the chef (the lady of the host couple) has also just written a cookery book, at the request of a publisher and as we speak should be embarking upon a world wide publicity tour for it.

It was on our last day in Parity that we had the good fortune to meet another newly-wed couple who were staying at our Pousada, Ian and Lorraine. Ian an actor and carpenter and Lorraine who is the spitting image of Thandi Newton were given the same advise as ourselves by the Pousada proprietor, of a beach side restaurant and bar that would be a good place to spend the afternoon. We arrived a little after them at the beach and sheepishly introduced ourselves, as we recognised them from the hotel. Within about five minutes we were alll sitting around a table, drinking the strongest passion fruit Caiprinhas you have ever seen in your life and that is where we remained for the following six or seven hours, covered from what had become an unfortunately rain drenched afternoon, but which bearly registered on us as we chatted away like old friends, getting more and more drunk!

The following day we had to head off to catch a bus to Rio, but not before we had exchanged contact details and agreed to meet up in Rio on our final day, when Ian and Lorraine would also be in town. The final bus journey to Rio was again rather arduous, but none the less we finally made it to our hotel, dropped off our bags and headed to reception to ask for a map of the area so we could go and get some dinner. At this point, you may have thought we had just suggested to the receptionist that we would like to take a stroll around Baghdad wearing “I Love Bush!” T-Shirts, such was his apparent dread at what we had proposed. Liking to think we are careful about such things, we heeded the gentlemans advice and took a taxi to a restaurant he booked for us, deciding we would decide during day light hours if Rio was quite as inhospitable as he was attempting to suggest.

By the gleam of daylight (and plenty of rain) it is fair to say, that Rio did not quite match the pictures we had in our heads of tanned beauties and muscle bound show-offs, strutting around Copacabana beach, but at the same time nor did it turn out to be Beirut on a bad day!

We slowly built up our courage over the next few days through visiting the usual sights such as Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf Mountain and had decided that our final evening in Rio was to be spent in Lapa (what is considered perhaps the worst part of town), sampling the local nightlife and Samba clubs, when as luck would have it we received an email from Ian and Lorraine who had arrived in Rio early due to non-stop rain in Parity since we had left. We called them up and arranged to meet in Santa Theresa for drinks . . . well it didn’t take long for us to get back in the swing of things and four hours later we persuaded the perhaps dubious Ian to accompany us down into Lapa at some time approaching midnight.

Four more drink fueled hours swept by and we all got to experience the dubious pleasure of spending time in what can only be desribed as the OAP Samba club in town, getting to watch distinctly old people (even older than my father!) strut, gyrate and grind into positions and poses that may be forever indelibly printed to my rather delicate mind!

Anyway, with that it was time to leave Brazil and embark on what we had both been dreading, the several day journey to the Land of Oz and a visit to Ms. Aisling Twomey!

Brazil by Bus

We caught the first if our four buses from the national bus terminal in Foz do Iguazu following a late dinner at a restaurant describing itself as Modern Brazilian . . . from the brief exposure we had thus far experienced, this meant little more than more expensive, with the fare on offer not being dis-similar to our previous meals in Brazil, largely consisting of copious quantities of cooked meats in various guises. Indeed the salad that pre cursed Siobháns meal would constitute a considerable sized meal in any restaurant London may have to offer.

To be fair, I was pleasantly surprised by the bus on which we had booked. Front row, airline style seats, plenty of leg room and no fear of annoying passengers behind when reclining. Unfortunately even the most luxurious of bus cannot turn an 11 hour, overnight journey into something one could actually describe as a wonderful experience and so we were more than happy, when upon arrival in Curitiba at 7 o’clock in the morning that our hotel was a mere five minute walk away and they were happy for us to check in immediately.

The hotel, like the town itself was no great shakes, but we did manage to visit an Oscar Niemeyer designed building, he is the architect responsible for large portions of Brasilia, as well as make a trip to the local cinema, where the usual hapless American hero managed to save the world (by which I mean the American version of it) from an evil computer, hell bent on a logically baffling US genocide!

Just one night in Curitiba and we caught our second bus on to Sao Paolo, the financial centre of Brazil and home to the worlds largest Japanese population outside of Japan, apparently. Whilst nothing spectacular to look at, we spent three pleasant days in Sao Paolo, even managing to find a delicatessen that sold fabulous cured meats and French cheese, the kind of food we have been rather missing since we embarked upon our little sojourn and spent a lovely evening in our little apart-hotel devouring our spoils and washing them down with liberal quantities of wine!

A third, very winding, bus journey took us to our penultimate Brazilian destination of Parity, but that can wait for the next installment (I bet you can’t wait!)