That's it.  Brazilian airlines are officially mad.  We were informed recently via email from our travel agent that our direct flight from Menaus to Salvador had to go through Brazilia.  No not Brazilia!!!!! The lat time we flew into Brazilia we were bumped to a later flight because we'd miss our connecting flight only to discover, too late, that the plane we were on was the connecting flight.  Images came to mind of Monty Python's Travelogue, run as a prelude to the Holy Grail at the cinemas.  "and now we have more f*cking Brazilia."

And the airlines have not disappointed.  Our initial flight out of Manaus was over an hour late in departing, which meant our connection in Brazilia to Salvador would be tight.  This was an issue for many people on the plane.  Finally, we arrived at Brazilia, only to discover we would have to be bussed to the terminal, making the connection even tighter.  We all piled onto the bus and then had a ridiculously short ride to the terminal.  A quick glance at the board showed us that are connecting flight to Salavador was in the "Last Call" stage, so we scurried to the gate indicated, fortunately nearby.

Minutes later we were clambering on board another bus.  There followed a ridiculously short bus trip and then, to our growing suspicion, we were dropped of t a plane that looked surprisingly like the one we had just got off.  Sure enough, the plane staff that greeted us were the same ones that had said goodbye to us 5 minutes ago!!  That's right we had been madly rushed off the plane only to be madly rushed back on to the same plane!  Auuughhhh.  We were the connecting flight!!!! The final element of madness - we were seated next to a lady who had also been through the same rig morale with her husband.  In the insane plane change her husband had been seated 4 rows back and proceeded to spend the entire trip next to two noisy children.

Ah Brazilia airport, a must for all international travellers.

On the plus side our travelling companion, Marion, was great company and had an interesting occupation - singing for the Welsh National Opera.

And so, onto Salvador.  We took a full day tour, again with an English speaking guide, and it was really the only way to go if you have little time and only the most rudimentary use of the language.  Salvador would probably be one of the more challenging venues unaccompanied as it is the one city where people do accost you to buy tourist items.  Having a guide made it much easier to negotiate,though after a while you did learn to chill out and just say Ola and No Obrigato with a smile.

Salvador is incredible. The historic centre is probably the most impressive we saw outside of Ouro Preto.  As a added bonus we got to see the steps of a church that featured prominently and one of the great Brazilian films - Keeper of Promises.  This was unexpected and surprisingly moving.  In the afternoon our tour took a more confronting turn as we ventured into the parts of Salvador that aren't on normal tours.  We got to see all sides of the Salvador that Salvadorians are familiar with.  It was both sobering and quite beautiful.  We simply do not realise how lucky we are in Australia, though there is plenty we could learn from Brazilians on tolerance and what is really important in life.

Ate mais tarde.

The next stage of our journey was to an Eco lodge on the Rio Negro, but first we were to spend a night in Manaus, the port our cruise had returned us to. Our entry into Manaus had one amusing moment. We disembarked from the cruise at a hotel foyer, and sat waiting for our luggage, with some friends we had made of the cruise. We waited and waited. Eventually Adam (new friend) and I went to find out what they delay was about. It turned out the luggage had been loaded on to a truck but the vehicle had to pass through one security barrier and the guard on the gate had gone to lunch and taken the key with him. So, there was the truck, stuck. In the end we simply took our own bags back to the hotel. This was further and took longer than if we had simply taken them straight off the boat ourselves, as we'd originally offered to do.

Manaus is a largely uninspiring city so we won't dwell on it for any length of time, other than to note what a strange amalgam of buildings and living conditions it was. In Australia we tend to have differences from suburb to suburb but in Manaus you could go from high walled, barb-wired, security-guarded properties to derelict buildings in a block. Similarly, apartment buildings were being erected, right next to tower blocks that appeared abandoned and about to fall down. And everywhere buildings were covered in different stages of mold, a condition of living in a hot and humid climate.

The next morning we made the trip across a 3.5 km bridge (only opened 7 months ago, prior to this is was ferries only) and heading into the wilderness to the Anavilhanas Lodge.

The lodge is fantastic, melding comfort with nature. We could easily have spent more time here, but, in typical fashion, we packed in plenty. We had an awesome guide, Krishna, who came from native and Guyanan Indian (actually India Indian) heritage. One of a family of 17, he was fascinating in his own right, but what he knew about the forest just blew us away.

Our first excursion with him was a full-on Amazon experience. We headed off on a jungle walk, where he introduced us to some jungle survival tips. Plants to drink from, what ants you can use for natural insect repellant etc. This was going swimmingly, until he looked up at the sky and said 'Uh oh'. Uh oh, is not something you like to hear an experienced indigenous tour guide saying. He followed this up with another phrase guaranteed to generate some concern. 'Dark sky now, this is not good. There's a storm coming.'

Of course he was right. The clouds were scudding across the sky and the trees were bending before a wind that had come out of nowhere. And still the good news kept on coming from Krishna. 'We must keep moving,' he said. 'It's not safe in the jungle - tree branches can fall.' This was readily and disturbingly easily confirmed when he pointed to all the fallen timber and, perhaps a tad melodramatically, a branch fell to the ground nearby.

Needless to say we followed hot on Krishna footsteps and made good time, but all to no avail. The storm caught us and the rain simply fell out of the sky in sheets. I do not recall ever having been more drenched. In the end we were laughing, especially as we had to finish with a boat trip across a waterway that had been so whipped up by the storm that it felt like we were out a sea, and we couldn't see more than a few metres ahead of us, courtesy of the torrential rain.

That was our welcome to this part of the world, and despite being drenched to the skin it was a pretty impressive way to start. That night we headed out on another boat trip, animal spotting. We were able to add a four-eyed opossum (cruel name, probably got him bullied at school) and a tree boa.

The next day featured a morning fishing trip (unsuccessful but fun) and then one of the highlights of the trip, a visit to a place where the pink dolphins came to shore for feeding. This was amazing. I got close enough to pat one. The pink dolphins are the strangest looking creatures, pink, long-beaked, with prominent foreheads, but seriously intelligent and friendly. It was quite brilliant. On the way home we added an iguana to the list of creatures seen.

That night we snuck ourselves onto another boat cruise and had a great trip. We saw a different kind of possum, a new snake ( garden boa) and a porcupine. The weather was wild at times but beautiful and the moon rose over the river as we returned.

The final leg of our Amazon encounter was an early morning boat trip to watch the sun rise.

There remains only one further observation to be made, pertaining to the difference between individuals and tour groups. We had met some wonderful American travellers. Dana and Adam on the clipper cruise, Art at the lodge. But while we were at the lodge a tour group of Americans descended, and it truly did feel like an invasion. En masse all the stereotypes bubbled to the surface. Perhaps it's only the loud people you notice in a group and they all seemed to be talking about the share market dropping 200 points, litigation, the use of leases to diversify their fund and there was the occasional yee har. Our own American, Art, seemed to blend into the woodwork (having made his own wry observation on American tourists) and Kate and I tried to be inconspicuous. During their very brief stay, even shorter than ours, some of them arranged to fly out rather than taking the three hour bus trip back. As one person observed, loudly and in front of Lodge workers on probably fairly ordinary salaries (we've been told the average Brazilian salary is around $100/week), it was only going to cost him $1,200 to fly, which was less than the cost of attending one Lakers match. Lording, lordie, lordie, such sensitivity.

There was an amusing moment when one of the group couldn't find his table. The Lodge used a system where your room had an animal on its door and on the key ring and you sat wherever a wooden model of the animal was set up. Ours was a monkey. At dinner one gentleman was clearly lost and I offered to help him. He held up his key and said 'I can't find the beaver. I'm not good at animals.' i told him, in friendly fashion, that was an agouti and showed him where I thought his seat was. He certainly wasn't that good at animals, not only did he have no idea about the Brazilian animals, he didn't know his own. His 'beaver' didn't even have a tail, surely the one feature that would have to be mandatory in calling an animal a beaver.

Having said all of that, he was a nice enough fellow, as were many of the people in the tour group (there were clearly some tossers as well). Curious how groups tend to bring out other less appealing stereotypes.

We survived the drive from Ouro Preto th next morning, though it was just as terrifying as before. More so really, because much of I took place in the fog. By the time we arrived at the airport Kate was feeling unwell and was off her food for some time.

Nonetheless we made it. A word on Brazilian airports. You never really know what is going to happen with you flights. Our flights back to Sydney had to be dramatically changed because they had cancelled one of our flights. We've had numerous miner flight changes (at least four that I can think of) as well as being put onto a later flight that we didn't need to have taken. You also need to keep an eye on the gate you flight is leaving from. We almost missed a flight out of Brazilia because they boarded it from a different gate from the one they announced. This time the problem lay with the fact that a whole series of flights were running late and they started changing the gates around. This meant that nobody in the airport seemed sure if they were getting on the right flight as the wording about the gates seemed to change regularly. I can't tell how wonderful the experience is to be sitting in an airport, not speaking the language, watching flights drop into and out of existence, not certain which gate to take, comfortable in the knowledge that if you get it wrong you could find yourself on a flight to the opposite end of a very large country. In the end, with some concern that we may be getting on to a plane to god knows where, we managed to make it to Manaus, launching point for our Amazon leg.

We saw little of the city itself as we were whisked off to our first Amazon adventure, a three day river cruise. The boat we were on, the Amazon Clipper, was fantastic. It looked like an old paddle wheel steamer, without the paddle, a d had a wonderful crew. By good luck the boat, which was designed to take 20 people, only had 8 on board, so we had plenty of room to move, though not necessarily in the cabins, where swinging a mouse would have been out of the question.

We had brilliant weather the whole time, which extended to full moons on both nights, on a cloudless sky. Our rout took us up the rio sollimoines, which is the Brazilian name for the amazon before it joins with the Rio Negro.

This would prove to be the part of our holidays here we would take a ridiculous number of photos. It was just gunning scenery. That night we went on a small motorised boat trip into the jungle waterways, getting to handle a wild caiman along the way.

The next day we went out on early on a morning trip in the same small boat. Again the light was fantastic and we saw a ridiculous umber of sloths, doing what they do best - nothing. We also saw the first of our pink river dolphins.

Later that morning we went for a jungle walk. Now our guide informed us of how dangerous walking through the jungle was and to progress slowly and follow the guides instructions. This we did, but it all sounded a little Hollywood and melodramatic, until we got attacked by a swarm of bees, followed minutes later when we had to detour around a deadly snake, a bushmaster, curled up on the path, almost invisible in the leaf litter. We didn't st s foot out of place after that.

After lunch we were encouraged to take a swim in the river. The staff assured us that it would be ok. Sue, there were piranha around but as long as you didn't start bleeding you'd be fine. And, of course, we we told, the stories about the fish attacking people are exaggerated. At this point I might add that our guide at Iguassu had told us some horror stories of the piranha. You could tell that everybody felt the same way, but in the end three of us went in, though, by sheer coincidence, no doubt, none of us swam more than spitting distance from the boat and only spent a few minutes in the warm water.

It was to prove a remarkably full day and in the late afternoon we headed out to catch piranha. This was a heap of fun, though hardly sting endorsement for swimming in these waters. We went home with plenty of fish.

The next morning, the last on our cruise, featured a wonderful early morning boat trip to see a water lily lake, as well as dropping in on a floating market, where we also got to see some of the huge fish that live on the Amazon, swimming around in a large tank.

On the way back to port we went to the meeting of the two rivers - the Samoias and the Negro. This is a remarkable sight. The Semoias is muddy, fast flowing and runs at 22 degrees C. The Negro is clear, though dark tea coloured, slower and is up around 28 degrees C. as a consequence, when they meet they don't merge for many kilometres. This creates a bizarre visible boundary on the river. On the left, it is muddy brown, on the right, quite black. This was the start of the Amazon River.

Every trip has one of those days. They start out no different from any other day and then they transform into something far less pleasant. We refer to these as a Glenorchy day, courtesy of a challenging day our family had in New Zealand many years ago.

Perhaps the mad ornithologist experience from the night before could have been some kind of warning, but Glenorchy days always take you by surprise.

We were picked up at the pousada at 7.30 am, for an 11.30 flight. Two hours drive later we had reached the airport, as planned, but then things started to unravel. We were catching a flight from Campo Grande to Brasilia and then a connecting flight to Belo Horizonte. Now, our first flight was delayed by around 20 minutes, and this meant that the timeframe between the connecting flight was too tight. So, the airline put us on to a two hour later flight out of Belo Horizonte. Oh well, better than missing the connection.

So, at around 12 noon we took off and arrived at Brazilia around 2.30. Now, as we were disembarking the pilot announced that those going on to Belo Horizonte could remain on the plane. What? A few other passengers also looked bemused. As we entered the airport we could see a queue of people waiting to get on to our plane. The sign above the gate said the destination was Belo Horizonte. What !!! The plane we had left Campe Grande on WAS the connecting flight. It didn't matter how late our first flight had been it could never miss the connection. But it was all too late. Our seats had been sold and our luggage booked onto the next flight, so we got to experience the joys of Brazilia airport for two unexpected hours. A number of other people were in the same boat, which made it a little easier to bear. Misery does love company.

Finally we got on board and arrived at Belo Horizonte at 8 p.m. More than 12 hours of travelling, but it hadn't finished yet. We were met at their airport by our guide, Jose and the driver. We found out we had a two hour drive ahead of us, which was bad enough, but it was the nature of the drive that would really take the breath away.

Despite his mild exterior our driver was a maniac and I struggle to recall a more hair raising car trip. Speed limits were ignored, as we're yellow lines. We weaved in and out of traffic, all done in darkness. Kate held my hand tightly for most of the trip and we practiced a fair amount of rapid, shallow breathing. The drive actually became quite surreal, with the most absurd moment occurring when we had to brake to a halt on a busy city street for a family of capybara to cross the road. That's right - capybara. The animals we had scoured the Pantanal for, seen in numbers in the middle of the city. Kind of ironic.

Somehow or other we survived and arrived at Ouro Preto at 10 pm. But the day held one more twist for us. Ouro Preto may be best known for its amazing historic buildings but what we didn't know was that it is also a student town. We had arrived in the city on Saturday night, and it was party time. The streets were crawling with intoxicated students and the one night we really would have appreciated some quiet (we'd been travelling for 15 hours) was not to be. Our accommodation was in a wonderful historic hotel, that had no soundproofing at all. It felt like the party was going off in our backyard, accompanied by loud bursts of music and people roaring around on motorbikes with noisy motors. This went on until around 6 am.

The final twist of the knife - the next morning was Sunday, and the church bells began ringing loudly from 7.30. Fortunately, we'd been woken up even early by a bird tapping on our window chasing insects. Glenorchy had arrived with a vengeance. 

All I can say is that, despite the less than joyful trip, it was actually worth it. Ouro Preto is a remarkable city. A unesco world heritage site, the city is an incredibly well preserved example of 19th century architecture. The streets are outrageously cobbled, steep and narrow. The churches have that classically overembellished interiors and the whole town just exudes vitality. I should be on everybody's tour destinations in brazil. We were fortunate to have an excellent guide who took us on a six hour walking tour.

Now all we had to do was survive the car trip back.

We rose in the morning to make our way to the Pantanal, via Boca da Ounca, Panther's Mouth, and featured an impressively high water fall, with an option to rappelling down part of it. At something like 100 metres straight down, I was rather glad it was closed. The fact that three large vultures were perched on top of the lower pulleys only reinforced this feeling.

Then it was on to Pousada refugio do ilha, in the Pantanal, a wetlands as big as Victoria.

The pousada is in a stunning location, surrounded by the Rio Solumbres. We have now had three days here and it will be incredibly hard to leave. We have been busy on every single day. We have ridden horses through the wetlands on sunset and had two early morning boat trips through flooded forests, met wonderful people and, of course, seen plenty of wildlife.

I had come to the Pantanal to acquire animals. Flagship animals like capybara and maybe some water mammals. What I hadn't counted on, was the staggering number of bird species we would see. They have over 600 species in the Pantanal, pretty much the same number as encountered across all of Australia.

On our first boat trip with travelled with the owner's son, Leonardo, and Trevor, an American bird enthusiast, who volunteers at this pousada during his summer break.

The two could spot a bird at a thousand spaces and name it despite seeing only its left wing tip. I began to realise that there passion for birds easily trumped mine for mammals and that perhaps it represented an even more sophisticated form of mania. Is there a hierarchy to animal spotters, starting with if mammals as the most rude, working your way through birds, down to insects? Of course, an exciting animal discovery trip for an insectologidt is probably a packed lunch into back yard.

I found myself getting into the swing of things, though we were so out of league. "No, that's not the Lesser Banded Heron, it's the Slightly Larger Banded Heron. You can tell because it's got a small crimson ring around it's anus rather than a red one.". Damn.

I even found myself being disappointed when I failed to see the green banded woodpecker. nevertheless I reached a point where I would have rolled all the birdlime up into a ball for one descent mammal. Fortunately it didn't come to that. As we were just about to head home what should pop up besides us but an otter. A neotropic otter to exact. It swam beside us and disappeared. Then on our return home we scored a capybara hidden under a bush. Later the next day, as if for a joke, a couple of otters swam around the building we had lunch and entertained us for some time. Coming out on the land at one point to eat a fish.

That afternoon we took a horse ride, the first for decades for both of us, and watched the sun set across flooded plains.

This morning we headed down river, this time with Olaf on board as well. Olaf is a garrulous, interesting and friendly soul who was thrilled at everything we saw, no matter how mundane the creature was. His enthusiasm was infectious, though even he ran out of puff in the end.

There is really no way you can adequately describe the beauty of this place as you drift through fields of water hyacinth, or over bushes that had been on dried land not so long ago, and you begin to realise why Leonardo was happy to take us out again and why Trevor keeps coming back. All of us on that boat had come to the Pantanal to acquire something, birds, mammals, life, piece of mind and quietly, almost unobserved, the Pantanal had acquired us. It is a trade I'm more than happy with.

Later the afternoon there is an option to take a jeep ride to see giant anteaters.

For the record, at the Pantanal, we acquired a giant otter (on the road coming in), neotropic otters, a capybara, countless species of birds, spotted swags of brown capuchin monkeys and got within touching point of loads of caimans. Not so long ago I was watching a kingfisher catch a fish, whilst a hummingbird was dashing from flower to flower in the bush besides me. 

I wonder what we'll see the next time.

Our last night in Iguassu turned out to be a Saturday night and lived up to expectations. Our sleep was regularly broken by cars roaring around, loud stereos, fireworks that could have been gunfire and the sound of police cars. Foz do Iguassu by night - a different kind of tourist experience.

Nevertheless we survived, and began our journey to Bonito. The reality of travelling around brazil is that travel is a significant part of it. After two plane trips we were treated to a three hour car trip before we made it to our destination, with a driver who could hardly speak a word of English.

This wasn't as bad as it sounds. We could dispense with dialogue and take in the wonderful scenario, which included our first giant ant eaters!

A word on driving around this country. Brazil does have the same road rules as us. Stop signs, yellow lines, speed limits, it's just that they must be optional, and judging by the way people drive, most choose not to take up the option. It made my hair stand on end, and as I don't have any on my head you can imagine how uncomfortable that experience is. The only thing that seems to receive full respect is a speed bump, so they've got plenty of these in the most unexpected places. In the city lights are also respected and they have a really cool feature. Pedestrians can see how many seconds left of walking time there is, but beware. So can the drivers, which means when they count down to zero you better be on your skates.

Anyway, back to Bonito. Bonito is one of the great ecotourism centres in Brazil. In classic Jones fashion it appears that I had indicated to the travel agent who organised our trip to cram in as much as possible.

Our digs have been really cool. bonito has a populate of 17,000 and plenty of style about it, though a drive on their local roads would indicate that Australia clearly over-invests in this department. Tar with potholes is standard and secondary roads are red dirt with potholes, and not just woosy potholes. must raise this with Council. There could be some more funding for public libraries out of it.

We seem to have done just about everything in Bonito. The first day involved a walk into a cave with an awesome blue lake, complete with Harry Potter style owl. This was followed by a snorkel down a spring-fed river. This was bucket loads of fun, though Kate greeted it with bladder-clenching trepidation (which is handy in one sense as it's considered bad form to relieve oneself in a hired wet suit). Of course it turned out brilliantly and Kate proved to be a supreme snorkeller. We saw oodles of fish, some up to a metre long. There is something really cool about snorkelling along a Brazilian river with monkeys in the branches overhead.

The next day, today, we reversed the order. We went snorkelling in the morning and walking in the afternoon. Once again Kate was confident she wouldn't snorkell and, once again, she was wrong. We spent a wonderful hour snorkelling down a fast moving river before strolling around some beautiful waterfalls in the afternoon.

And for the record, animal bingo now also includes macaws, toucans, rheas, caimans and crab eating foxes, along with a host of other birds. It's a strange thing about travel. People speak a different language, and you expect that and that's not surprising. The same can be said of the scenery and the animals. It's the everyday that takes you by surprise. It's waking up to bird calls that you have never heard before that makes you feel most like an interloper.

And surely that's a wrap. Thanks for your patience.

The next day we headed out to the airport, picked up by the guide organised by our travel agent. She was the same one who had dropped us at the apartment two days earlier. Her English was good and her favourite topic was the traffic. At one point she turned to me, gesticulating expressively, and spoke about how a bus driver had had a fatal accident because he was always turning to talk to his passengers and taking his hands off the wheel. There was a moment when we both noted that she was looking at me and waving a hand around and she gave me a quick apologetic smile grabbed the wheel with both hands and continued the story whilst looking firmly ahead. The whole driving experience was further enhanced by the presence of literally hundreds of vultures watching you from their lamposts ... And waiting.

Of course, we arrived safely in Iguassu and were meet by one othe most intense, fascinating and generous people I have ever met -our guide for two days - Ortiz.

Ortiz took us straight to the falls, there being no time to book into the accommodation. There had been significant rainfall for the past week and later in the day the mist from the waterfalls would obscure visibility.

It turned out that the cloudy weather we had experienced in Rio had meant significant rainfall in the catchment of Iguassu. If we hadn't had this in Rio we would have missed out on what turned out to be incredible conditions in Iguassu. Only a month earlier the conditions had been so dry that the falls had dropped to one fifth of the size we saw them at.

We had two days planned in Iguassu and on the first day we were to see the falls from the Brazilian side. The day was cloudy but clear and Ortiz was thrilled that we were going to have good viewing and good levels of water.

I do not believe that I have ever seen a more making natural sight that the Iguassu Falls. Their sheer size and force simply belie description. So much water. Enough water for every single person on the planet to receive at litre every few minutes! It is a scale that seems incomprehensible and yet there it is in front of you.

And to top it all off we saw capuchin monkeys up close, coati and agouti.

A word of warning though, Foz do Iguassu (the city near the Falls) was the first place that felt dangerous. All the houses seem to have high walls and barbed wire is common, as are security systems. Ortiz told us that up until recently 15% of local youths died a violent death before the age of 20. And you could believe it. The government had sent in extra military to try and bring some sanity back to the place.

That night we were dropped off at the hotel and the best advice was not to wander too far. We decided to eat in and we had an unexpected bonus. Our room had been upgraded to a suite, and it was pretty awesome.

The next day we headed over to the Argentinian side of the Falls. again we traveled with Ortiz and he continued to a source of fascination. He had grown up in incredibly poor situations in Paraguay. He had seen the importance of education and had left home at the age of 14, against the will of his father who wanted him to continue to be a wood cutter.

Ortiz now spoke a swag of languages, had a much better lifestyle than he would ever had had at home, but he never forgot his roots. Though only on a modest income he still had 8 foster children that he helping to educate back in Paraguay. What a man.

A quick note on how good we have it in Australia. There are just so many poor people in this country and things cost so much more. This is particularly the case in Brazil, where taxes are very high. For example, Ortiz was looking at a new Kia Rio car and because of taxes it cost the equivalent of $36,000 Australian. And I think the average salary of somebody in a good job is likely to be around $500 a week.

Back to the Falls. The Argentinian side is simply staggering. We took a boat ride to the Falls, and if you come this far it really is a must. Whilst the day before had been awe-inspiring, today was simply so much more. you end up right at the base of falls in the boat and the lookouts are literally right over the waterfalls. And there are so many of them and the sight and sound of them just cannot be captured in words. So, I will stop now.

Tomorrow we head towards Bonito and water of a different variety.

Picking up from the last email we awoke in rio, with a tour lined up for the Christ the Redeemer statue and Mount Sugarloaf. We'd had perfect weather in Santiago (not even smog), but this day was overcast. Little didwe know that this cloudy weather would pay the most amazing dividends two days later.

So, our tour took us up to Sugarloaf, from which we did get am awesome view of the city, though the very peak was clouded in. On the upside though, we saw our first monkeys, marmosets. And in the skies around us vultures and frigate birds wheeled. The game of animal bingo had begun.

Next we drove up to Christ the Redeemer. This is a pretty fantastic drive in itself as you wind through rainforest, right in the middle of the city. The statues is as remarkable as it looks, especially for us as we saw it through great banks of fog. So Christ kept disappearing and remerging. It was really quite eerie, though the view was of total cloud. By the end of the day we'd seen more quality cloud up close than you could have possibly dreamed of.

That night we went the whole tourist hog. We bought tickets to a barbecue and dance show. When in brazil you have to have a barbecue at least once. The amount of quality meat was simply outrageous. They kept bringing some for of meat out on skewers the whole time. I'm pretty sure by the end of the evening we'd had every species that didn't move quickly enough. I would be surprised is jaguar was on the menu. And because we were new to the game we'd filled our plates up at the salad bar before hand. Soooo much food and the knowledge of Brazil's challenging toilet system preying on our minds.

Suitably bloated we were bussed off to a dance spectacular, covering 150 years of Brazilian history. It turns out that for nearly all that 150 years women wore clothes that seem to have shrunk down to nothing. And then they'd shake around a lot. I didn't mind that much. They also had some amazing male dancers but mostly they wore more clothes, and they seriously knew how to dance. There was a cool band playing as well. A top night, plenty of drinking,eating, entertaining and scantily clad women - all in the name of culture!!! Woo hoo.

The following morning we arose for another tour of the old city. Things ran and hour late due to the ludicrously bad traffic but he weather was good and the city was remarkable. I actually enjoyed this tour more than the sugarloaf and Christ the Redeemer.

First we saw the classic old buildings and, of course, they were suitably grand and opulent. Nothing like kings, emperors and dictators to make for opulence. The cathedral was an outrageously decorated affair. baroque carvings, high ceilings, stunning pictures, lifesize figures of Christ in glass cabinets. The concept of restraint goes right out the window - which is why Brazil is such a great place to visit.

It is hard to describe rio. It's a riot of buildings, with no apparent building codes, all in different colours and states of decay. And you'll see just about all styles of buildings. We passed native style grass-roofed cottages, palaces, haciendas, a Swiss chalet and what looked like an Indian palace. And through all of this the jungle winds.

Now all the guide books tell you that rio can be a dangerous place and to stick to main roads and don't wander off on your own. Today was the day we would buggerup this completely. In a moment of madness we hopped off our tour and headed off through the streets of the old town. It only took long enou for the tour bus to disappear before we had re-evaluated our decision but by then it was too late. There followed an amusingly stressful period (though we kept smiling those grimaces of pleasure so the other person didn't know how nervous we felt). Ten minutes later having wound our way down the hill and wound our nerves uptight as a drum we reached a street corner where on old man asked us if we'd like a taxi ride.

This seemed like a good idea, though a minute later we were re-evaluating our decision but it was too late. He had no English and we had no Portuguese of any note. On top of this we had no idea where we going. Remember also, that rip is the kidnap capital of the world.

We tried naming a few places and pointing on maps and the old fellow said a place name with confidence. We shrugged and nodded in agreement.

A few minutes later we were re-evaluating our decision. We now found ourselves in a totally new area. Couple this with the fact that we had limited money on us (the guidebooks had said we shouldn't carry much money and we hadn't, but then we hadn't counted on a random taxi ride either) and we were a little concerned. Kate said to the driver "Bank de Brazil", meaning somewhere we could get cash out. At this point we think the taxi driver got concerned that maybe we didn't have enough money so I pulled out my wallet to show that I probably had enough to cover the fare. He stared at me a very politely pushed the. Wallet back in my pocket and though I couldn't understand a word he said the meaning was clear - put the money away you goose,you're in rio and you don't flash money around. Aaaauuuggghhhh. I'd been hiding money for days and carrying it around in small lots and just once, under extreme circumstances, I'd shown off a pittance, really to satisfy his concerns, and been told off.

Anyway, there followed a further lengthy taxi ride, deeper into the unknown before we arrived at a bank. We paid the driver, withdrew some money and tried to remember why on earth we'd got off the tour drive in the first place. We gave up, wandered around until we found a subway, figured out how to use it and staggered home. If we'd stayed on he tour we'd have been there already.

And that will do for now. Tomorrow would hold Iguassu Falls and we simply didn't realise what an experience this would be.

I can't even come close to doing justice to our experiences in the last week in this space but I'll do my best and you'll have to imagine the superlatives yourselves.
 
we began in Santiago, which is a city in two parts -the old and the new.  This really sums up so much of Santiago.  It is a city with a history of strife.  wars and the military abounded and it is rocked by a major earthquake every two decades.  Buildings are often in four parts and our guide was proud of one building that had stood for over 100 years.
 
As for wars, South America is riddled with them, often driven usually by foreign powers and dictators.  Imagine a war that kills 80% of the male population of a country?  That happened to Paraguay.
 
Santiago is filled with statues to famous generals and as they've had so much strife there's hardly a street corner in the old town that doesn't sport some general on a horse.
 
The next day we headed to Rio and found ourselves staying in a really cool area of the city, just back of Copacabana Beach.  Our apartment was an old establishment, with little in the way of facilities but rich with character.  Mind you, when you were having your third cold shower you could have swapped some character for comfort.
 
We were just across the road from a wonderful park and the Brazilians used it night and day, to relax in, play soccer, walk dogs, play cards etc.  I mean literally night and day.  The first night they were playing soccer until 1.30 am and they were setting up a market by 4.30 am that morning.
 
The city traffic was utter bedlam.  Apparently, this is pretty normal, but while we there the bedlam reach targeting new heights.  Brazil was hosting a major climate conference (I think Julia Gillard attended) and they shut down whole sections of roads for dignitaries.  I've never seen more men in suits standing around doing feckall.
 
I know this email is getting long already so I'm going to end it soon, but I might as well do it on an amusing note.  Using the toilet facilities in brazil to do anything serious, is a major challenge.  The pipes are now and water pressure low so you're not supposed to flush toilet paper and waste together.  Can you see the problem? You can throw the paper in a bin besides the toilet but this is not something I could ever warm too. To help alleviate this they provide you with a hose beside the loo to squirt yourself clean.  Maybe if you've grown up with this it all works beautifully but for a beginner all you end up doing is spraying the ceiling and creating an unpleasant stinging sensation in parts unmentionable.  and another thing.  You have to go regularly, otherwise, toilet paper or not, you're guaranteed to have a rather horrifying toilet experience.