By now I'm in Salvador de Bahia, a town claiming to have the best carnival in the world. I don't need to comment this further, the only thing which happened in Bahia's capital was half of our group getting robbed and threatend with knives. Bad costumes guys, and not funny at all. Somehow I was able to avoid this threat aswell, the only way my skin gets cut, is by being smashed on the sand by huge waves.

Buenos Aires would deserve a blog entry for itself, being the most beautiful city in South America. We eat steaks, we didn't even dare to immagine back home, we went out at night: tango shows, clubs, casino. Daytime was spent on street performances in La Boca, at San Telmo or in Palermo. We even visited Eva Peron's Tomb, the building next to the Duarte is for sale...
We learnt the amaizing fan songs from the boca fans, as we witnessed Boca Juniors' first season loss - in the opening match played against the team from Mendoza, Godoy Cruz.
We organized a short trip to Uruguay by boat - crossing the Rio de la Prata. Uruguay - at least it's capital Montevideo - is stuck in the 60's. Which is, concerning the buildings, a benediction.
After BA it was a hard piece of work getting on the truck again. Luckily we had amaizing targets: Foz do Iguazu and Puerto Iguazu, the Pantanal and finally Rio.

The Iguazu Falls were spectacular, we drove with a speedboat underneath them on the argentinian side, whereas we took a helicopter on the brazilian side allowing us to see the entire scenery. Elevated pathways lead directly under the falls, drying up from being soaked took me around 7min. - at the 34 C warm air. Looking up to the masses of water smashing on your head felt like staying somewhere next to the earth, and the entire world dropping down on you.

The Pantanal offered nature to it's purest status. Capibaras, frogs, owls, snakes and mostly mosquitos escorted us to bed.
We could fish pirañas by using raw meat as bait, and as things got boring (they didn't bite us even though we were standing shoulded deep in their lake) we used the fished pirañas as bait for caimans. We'll do that again in a couple of weeks in the amazons, someone fancy a piraña-wig? Back at the lodge our pirañas were fried and after coming back from our super dangerous horseride - our horses didn't get our portuguese orders - and resting our injured limbs in the hammocks, we could finally eat our prey.

We stayed a couple of days in Paraty just ouside Rio, where we spent the four day of non-stop-raining by doing boat cruises and jumping down waterfalls such as the tobogan (smooth stones to slide on) and the tarzan (no need for an explaination of this one).

We made it to Rio on the last non-holiday day. After this very fist one not one sinfle useful shop was open - foodcourts and stands. But we still had Copacabana, Ipanema, Pao de Azucár, Cristo Redentor and Sambadromo.. which wasn't nothing. I lost my camera on the first day, so all my pictures are gone, but thanks to a friend going home I have a new one by now.
We stood up early, went to the beach, played soccer or drank some coconut-water in the shell to get us in the mood of "el carretão" - THE all u can eat buffet in Rio. Serve yourself at the salad bar and wait for the dozen of waiters to exit the kitchen with their sword, loaded with all sorts of meat. And they wouldn't stop resting their tired arms holding the juicy swords on your dish...
The actual highlight, after knowing Christ's omnipresent protection up the Corcovado hill, was the first of the two final nights at the Sambadromo. Costumes, Wagons, Music and Atmosphere - how can an innocent tourist deal with all this??
The winning team - Beija Flor - rallied with 3500 masqued people on Monday morning from 6-7:30 through the Sambadromo. I went to bed at 3, after collecting a kangaroo from the costume-area, where the participants drop their heavy costumes as soon as they get out of the judges sight. We were sitting at dinner in a restaurant in Lapa - where the street parties would continue until 6 a.m. - as I saw the União de Islas team on the big screen showing off their animal theme. I had to have the main prize: i ran all the way to the back entrance of the Sambadromo and got the only entire kangaroo. 1 out of only 10 taking part at the parade. It was harder to defend it from being stolen, than to carry the 20kg heavy and 3m big hollow marsupial on my head back to my hotel room and get him into the elevator.
The team coming second - União de Tijuca - was my personal favourite. They danced through the track on sunday night (the one we were inside the stadium) between 3-4:30. Their theme was movies, they had an Indiana Jones wagon with him flying away from a rolling rock in a tunnel, while gorillas were swinging on ropes on and off the moving vehicle. Simply amazing.

Now we're travelling along the coast from colonial town to beach, and from beach to colonial town.
I'm eating carrots and getting some tan until we disappear into the amazonas on our ferry from Belem to Manaus.

I'm slowly looking forward coming back home and see you all.
Until then: huge hugs and kisses!!

meo