A Portuguese paradise

After joining our tour group in Rio we drove to the heritage-listed town of Paraty. This is a perfectly preserved Portuguese colonial town about four hours south of Rio. A truly photogenic town of old white buildings, colourful painted doorways, window sills, and trims, located on bone-jarring cobblestone streets.

Paraty is older than it looks. It was founded in 1597. Over time it developed into a regional centre for Portuguese colonists in the surrounding area. Its impressive array of colonial buildings sprang up after the discovery of the world's richest gold mines in the mountains of Minas Gerais in 1696. Paraty rapidly became a major export port for gold and a supply port for the mines. 

Interestingly, the precious metal was first transferred on coastal ships to Rio de Janeiro and from there on to Portugal. Apparently, the harbour wasn't suitable for larger sea-going vessels. The city briefly boomed again when the coffee trade picked up and again more recently thanks to sugar cane farming. Today tourism is Paraty’s major economic contributor.

On our first day in town our guide took us for a brief walk through the town’s historical waterfront district. Perhaps the most memorable sight is Capela de Santa Rita, the oldest church in Paraty. This all-white structure, trimmed in yellow, was completed in 1722. This was the local church of the freed slaves and freemen, or former slaves. It reminded me of the Chapel of Nossa Senhora da Guia in Macau. Its white bell tower can be seen for miles and is instantly recognizable in promotional tourism images.

The town is set in a harbour full of islands. Our guide suggested we hire a boat and visit a few of them. However, our harbour cruise the following day mainly involved swimming, soaking up the sunshine, and drinking copious amounts of Caipirinha, Brazil’s national drink. It was rapidly becoming apparent that our guide’s idea of a good time was a cliche backpacking experience.

Upon our return to shore we saw the town's unusual street-cleaning ritual in action. The streets in Paraty’s historical district are swept clean by the rising tide twice a day. Although, we later learned that the flooding we’d witnessed only happens a few times a month. It takes a full moon and an accompanying king tide to set things in motion. As the king tide peaks it sends water flowing down the town's colonial streets through special openings in the harbour seawall. These openings are set slightly above the average high tide mark to avoid flooding the town every day.

The waterline image above was taken during our boat trip. I captured it with considerable care.  I wanted to preserve the spirit of our idyllic day sailing around Baia Carioca. I grabbed my digital camera and without any water protection swam ever so carefully into the bay to turn and take the photo you see here.

Sadly, not every memory of Paraty was a positive one. A group of us went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant on our final night. We naively assumed a seafood-based meal in a coastal town was a guaranteed winner. We couldn’t have been more wrong. The fish and the ingredients were anything but fresh. In the end I ate little more than rice and noddles. 

After two nights in Paraty, we headed south to San Paulo. The drive took more than five hours, with the last hour spent crawling along a freeway jammed with traffic on the outskirts of San Paulo. Shortly after leaving Paraty we stopped briefly to admire Cachoeira da Escada. This is a cascading waterfall on the edge of the Rio-Santos highway, about 27 km south of town.  The base of the main fall is protected by a slightly disheveled statue of Oshun. She’s the queen of freshwater, rivers and waterfalls. You’ll find her halfway up the falls in the first image above.

Brazilian Nut Mix

It's time to fill you in on our first week in Brazil. We arrived in Rio on November 14, after two weeks in Peru. This next part of our RTW ticket proved to be another whirlwind of sights, sounds and smells.

Our less-than-direct flight from Lima to Rio passed without incident. As some of you will know we flew Lan Chile which saw us transit via Santiago. The flight left Lima at 1:15 am and took three hours to reach Santiago. However, Santiago is currently two hours ahead of Peru so we found ourselves awakened for breakfast barely two hours into our flight. Ouch! 

However, the painfully early start delivered a truly breathtaking sunrise over the Andes. As our plane descended towards Santiago we soon found ourselves flying alongside the highest Andean peaks. Their rugged snow-capped outline, lit by dawn’s early light, followed us relentlessly as we descended. The Andes really are an impossibly long and unbroken chain of mountains.

After transferring in Santiago, we flew on to Rio. Our flight included a brief stop in São Paulo, another extraordinary experience. From the air, as our plane traced a broad arc around its fringe, we could see that São Paulo was mind bogglingly big. It extended to the horizon in every direction. It reminded me of Tokyo, the only other city I’ve ever encountered with such an overwhelming urban landscape. An exhausting day of dog-leg routed travel finally ended shortly after 2:00pm with our arrival in Rio.

Rio was incredible! We wished we´d had more than 1.5 days here. I think we´re definitely going back. The city is set in one of the most beautiful locations I´ve ever seen. Sydney Harbour pales by comparison. Our hotel was close to Flamengo Beach, which sits within the main bay of Rio looking directly at Riõ´s famous Sugarloaf Mountain. 

[2023 Note: Sadly I can't find any record of the hotel's name.  I think it may have been the Hotel Argentina. More research is clearly required...!]

After checking in we spent an afternoon strolling along the beach promenade trying our best to soak in the wonderful laid-back culture. By the time we were done, we'd walked almost 8km. Sadly, I didn't think to take my camera. At the time we'd only intended to take a relatively brief stroll along the waterfront.

Instead, our route ultimately took us past Vivo Rio, a post-modern conference centre, and on as far as Catedral Metropolitana de São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, the city's famous pyramid-shaped Catholic cathedral. The cathedral is located across the road from the terminus of the restored Santa Teresa tram line. We watched a tram pull in with tourists perched along its outward-facing bench seats. However, I couldn't talk Garry into taking a ride so we retraced our steps slowly back to the hotel. 

Later that night we caught a cab to Marius, a popular seafood restaurant, located on the eastern edge of Copacabana Beach. This local institution is a crazy place. The entrance, shrouded by oversized palm fronds, sits at the base of a nondescript apartment complex. Inside, you find a sprawling and suitably chaotic venue decorated with all manner of eclectic items including suits of armour, crystal chandeliers and marine brass fittings. The images above were pulled from the internet. They give you a good feel for the experience.

The meal itself was an endless rodízio style degustation menu consisting of every fresh seafood dish you can possibly imagine. We literally rolled ourselves out the door after one too many prawns! Garry recently reminded me that we also took a brief stroll along the Copacabana promenade to soak in the evening air.

Marius operates a churrascaria restaurant with the same rodizio format next door. Garry immediately made me promise we’d try this establishment the following night. Those of you who know Garry will also know that there is no more dedicated carnivore than him. We did indeed return the following evening and consumed every conceivable part of a cow known to man, plus a few pigs, chickens and other meats I was too nervous to ask for a translation.

Catching a cab to either Marius restaurant is something everyone should experience once in their life. Rio cab drivers are all in training for the national Grand Prix, revving engines loudly at every red light, taking any corner at breakneck speed and generally doing their best to pass every vehicle on the road. 

Of course, road chaos is nothing new to me after many years in Asia. India and China definitely have mastered random driving as a national sport. However, Rio adds the frightening element of speed to the mix!

Given how little time we had in Rio, we wanted to make the most of it.  To give us a head start, I shouted Garry a private guided tour for his birthday. This involved a whirlwind day exploring many of Rio's most iconic locations. Our guide was excellent. He was incredibly laid back and gave us plenty of time to experience each stop before moving on.

Our tour kicked off with a visit to the famous Corcovado mountain, where a 30-metre statue of Christ watches over the city. As expected, the view was breathtakingly spectacular and gave us our classic postcard photos. We reached the summit via the famous Corcovado cable car. This rack railway operates from a base station in the hillside neighbourhood of Cosme Velho, rising to 670 metres over a distance of 3.8 km. The 20-minute ride, through narrow cobblestone streets and lush tropical vegetation, was an experience all of its own.

We then drove through the old neighbourhood of Santa Teresa where even the cable car drivers think they’re Grand Prix champions. I´ve never seen a cable car sway quite the way they did in this particular neighbourhood! The dust we saw being thrown into the air on every curve was unnerving, to say the least. You can see a hint of this in the image above.

Perhaps Garry was being prescient when he refused to ride one the previous day. We’d watched it gliding into the terminus station during our waterfront walk. He was exhausted thanks to the limited sleep we’d had on our overnight flight. Although, in hindsight, a hair-raising cable car ride might have woken us up!

Of course, Rio wouldn't be Rio without Carnivale. Our guide took us to the famous street where it all happens. Television can be so deceiving. You'd think the parade was snaking its way through miles of city suburbs when in reality, it's all happening on a purpose-built 800 metres long roadway, bordered by concrete stadium seating. While there we toured a local museum housing some of Carnivale's colourful costumes. On a whim, I boldly rented one for a photo shoot and had my own little Mardi Gras.

We then caught a cable car up Sugarloaf Mountain for more spectacular views. This included watching ant-sized climbers making their way up the rock face the hard way. In the opposite direction, Rio's stunning Atlantic coast stretched into the distance. It was a genuine pinch me moment.

From Sugarloaf, our guide took us past an endless stream of beautiful coastal beaches reminiscent of the best in Sydney. This included brief stops to view Ipanema Beach and a glimpse of luxurious lakeside villas lining the tranquil shores of Lagos de Jacarepagua in the Barra da Tijuca district. These are gated communities so our guide had us peer through a steel-grilled fence bordering the lake.

These high-walled, gated villas stood in stark contrast to Rio de Janeiro’s slum districts, known locally as favelas. Their densely packed, makeshift dwellings cascade down the surrounding hills everywhere you go. This includes Rocinha, the city’s largest and most infamous favela. It dominates a hillside above the coastal highway between Barra da Tijuca and Ipanema Beach. It’s somewhat ironic that some of the city’s poorest residents enjoy some of its most spectacular views. The photo above shows a small favela visible from the Corcovado tram.

We finished our private tour with a leisurely cocktail at an outdoor bar overlooking Pepino Beach. As we sat there soaking in the coastal view several tandem hang gliders came into land. Our guide offered to take us up to the launching point for a flight. However, visions of a broken limb curtailing our forthcoming Egyptian adventures saw us politely decline his offer. Although if truth be told a part of me secretly regrets not taking him up on it.

Later that evening we joined our next overland tour group. Then, early the following morning our small group departed for the heritage-listed town of Paraty. Imagine a dozen of us crammed into one large minivan driven by another complete and utter manic.

Our Brazilian adventure continues here.

A most Amazon adventure

It's time to tell you more about our grand tour of South America. Perhaps one of the more exotic places we visited was the Amazon Basin. We flew into steamy Puerto Maldonado from Cusco on November 10, ready to enjoy three nights in the jungle. This was a side trip we'd tacked onto our original itinerary.

The contrast between the Andes and the Amazon was obvious from the moment we touched down. The jungle is humid. I mean, really, really steamy. Within minutes of exiting our plane, we had sweat flowing from every pore, a situation that didn’t change the entire time we were in the Amazon. I’ve never felt so perpetually damp in my entire life.

The Amazon's unrelenting humidity was manifested the moment the aircraft door opened. Almost instantly, cool air from the cabin’s overhead vents began condensing into misty streams along the aisle. It was an odd sensation walking through the plane as a dramatic dry-ice-like vapour curtain led the way.

Our group was transferred from Puerto Maldonado to the banks of the Rio Tambopata, an Amazon tributary on the edge of town. Here we boarded a slender open-sided boat - no fancy wharf, just a muddy track down to the water’s edge. For the next two hours, we travelled upstream to our jungle lodge, Refugio Amazonas. 

The lodge was located about 35 km upstream as the crow flies. However, thanks to the river’s winding switchback channel, we eventually travelled closer to 50 km.  Unlike rivers in Australia, New Zealand and Europe, the Amazon's tributaries twist and turn dramatically, often doubling back, for hundreds of kilometres. The closing photo in this post gives you a sense of what I mean. I took this picture north of Puerto Maldonado, on our flight back to Lima.

The leisurely pace of our journey gave us plenty of time to watch the locals going about their daily lives. The river is a communal place. We saw women washing clothes, children swimming, and village people gathering along the shore, watching as the world passed by. Simple huts were everywhere, some thatched, some protected by corrugated iron.

There was an endless stream of traffic on the river. With few roads in the area, the river acts as a regional highway. Many of the boats we passed were traditional wooden dugout canoes - with one modern twist. They were always propelled by an outboard motor with the propeller attached to the end of a long, manoeuvrable shaft. All were loaded with cargo, people, or both. 

Everything you can imagine is transported in these slim, elongated canoes. We saw timber beams, sacks of food and entire families crammed into their narrow hulls. Many were so heavily weighted that they barely sat above the waterline. It’s hard to imagine living entirely without land transport. Yet here these people were deftly manoeuvring their boats up and down the river, sitting in the open, exposed to the elements year-round.

The lodge was far more luxurious than expected. It had 32 rooms, each simply but comfortably appointed despite its remote location. This is a real jungle, located within 200 privately-owned hectares in the buffer zone of the Tambopata National Reserve. The final image above was ripped from the lodge's website. Sadly, the photos I took of our room, while showing the same scene, were rather dark and blurry thanks to low light. The jungle is a heavily shaded world, and our room was without electricity during daylight hours.

As you can see, we slept safely behind a curtain of mosquito netting that fully enclosed our bed. We’d slide between the sheets each night, carefully ensuring we left no gaps for anything to crawl inside the netting. During the day, the housekeeping team would gather up the netting and stow it on an overhead canopy. 

The threat of yellow fever and malaria is ever-present. One afternoon, much to our surprise, one of our guides matter-of-factly recounted his own experience with a debilitating bout of malaria a few years earlier (that's him in the image below). He seemed fully recovered, but the recounting of his illness certainly put the fear of god into our entire group.

Our room included a wall of unglazed windows permanently open to the surrounding jungle. However, the complex itself was separated from the dense vegetation by a grassy buffer zone about three metres wide. From the comfort of a hammock, we soaked in the endless sights and sounds of animals going about their daily lives. 

I never realised how noisy the jungle is. It's never silent. Crickets and cicadas chirp, monkeys screech, and birds call out. We also witnessed a cavalcade of reptiles of all shapes and sizes constantly rustling and foraging through scattered leaf litter along the jungle’s edge (and there's lots of leaf litter).

Incredibly, on our second day, an agouti wandered out of the dense foliage and brazenly searched the grass in front of us. The agouti is a short-tailed rodent, about the size of a large cat, but with a distinctive, flat snout. Garry and I couldn’t believe our eyes. In unison, we turned to one another, confirming we’d just witnessed the same thing.

On our first full day in the Amazon, we rose early and went fishing for Piranha in Lake Condenado, an oxbow lake that was once part of the nearby river bed. The trek through the jungle was magic. As we walked, our guide pointed out giant soaring balsa trees, massive strangler vines the size of trees and an array of deadly plants and fungi. He also explained how the trails we used were rarely man-made. Instead, they've been created and maintained by animals traversing the jungle, day after day, night after night, and year after year.

The lake itself was a murky body of water surrounded by impenetrable, lush, verdant jungle. In the early morning light, its surface was serenely calm and glassy. You’d have never guessed that schools of deadly Piranha lurked below. As we fished, I was secretly grateful that our pontoon boat had waist-high side rails to stop us from toppling in.

Sadly, we tourists never caught a thing. However, we could feel the fish nibbling and tearing at the bait. Eventually, our guide took pity on us. He dropped a line, wiggled it skilfully, and within minutes successfully hooked a Piranha for us to examine. Rows of deadly razor-sharp teeth were clearly visible. It's hard to believe such a tiny fish can be so deadly.

After lunch, we ventured out again to climb a 35-metre canopy tower. It offered a spectacular bird 's-eye view of the surrounding jungle and the river beyond. In every direction, wilderness stretched out into the distance as far as the eye could see. It was a magical experience looking over centuries-old Brazil Nut trees, Acacias, Ceibas, and Ironwoods soaring above the canopy. 

Before we'd set out, our guide revealed that the tower is the only place in the jungle where you could pick up a weak cell phone signal emanating from base stations near Puerto Maldonado (about 30km away). We took a phone with us to test his claim. Sure enough, a solitary coverage bar appeared on the screen atop the tower. On a whim, we called Garry's mother and exchanged best wishes for his birthday the following day. 

The following morning (Garry's birthday), we rose at the crack of dawn to watch parrots and colourful macaws gather by the dozen at a local clay lick. This was an incredible sight that I’ll never forget. The black-framed image above was taken with the binoculars our guide brought along. As you can see, we literally enjoyed a bird's-eye view of these magnificent creatures from a nearby sheltered hide. 

When we first arrived, the muddy clay ridge was barren. Our guide urged us to be patient and remain silent. For a while, we stood in his ramshackle wooden hide staring at nothing. However, our patience was eventually rewarded as the cautious birds, initially just one brave soul, slowly increased in number. 

[Note: A few years later, in 1994, the lick was featured on the cover of National Geographic magazine.]

Later that evening, our friendly lodge staff sang Happy Birthday to Garry, then presented him with a delicious cake they'd baked earlier in the day. This surprise treat was all the more impressive considering the camp was powered by a generator for just a few hours a day. Otherwise, we went about the day without electricity, and hot water was the last thing you wanted to shower in.

Our final morning saw us rise at dawn to catch a boat back into town and then on to the airport for a flight to Lima. We'd done Peru! The trip was shaping up to truly be an experience of a lifetime. After five weeks on the road, Garry and I were still in good humour and enjoying each other's company. Next stop: Brazil.