Driving into Rio from the airport you are not treated to particularly nice sights. Rio although a beautiful city is surrounded by dirty, polluted shanty towns and favellas - with every available space taken up with some rubble shack or building (No greenery in sight). Things looked very ominous especially as on landing and getting into the airport it began to rain. (the day before had been sunnywith 43 deg.). Still we managed to find the right bus without any st...

Its been a few days since my Bahia adventure and we have been recouping in Belo Horizonte (well I say recouping - but as usual we are always running around doing things). This past weekend we took a trip to Tiradentes, a small town about 2 hours south and nestled in the Serra de Sao Jose mountain ranges. It is a town that makes all the travel guides for Brazil - and rather uniquely this weekend was the launch of the 13th annual Tiradentes film festival. By happy...

Today we arrived out of the wilderness and entered the sprawling mass of urban hell that is Salvador. Now I really don't mean to be overly harsh when blogging about Salvador described in tour books as 'the Jewel of Bahia' and the proud centre of 'Afro-Brazilianna' however our experiences of the place left few positive memories. First allow me to justify this statement; Salvador is the third largest city in Brazil and home to 2.7 million souls (and apparently 5 ...

Today is the day we escape Isla do Boipeba and transfer to a neighbouring Island Isla de Morro Sau Paulo. Now before I go any further just a quick apology for the photograph situation! I am having a few technical details that are preventing me from uploading images just at the moment. When we get back to Belo Horizonte I will upload all of them.Now where was I? Oh yes - our exodus in search of civillisation again.....and our chariot for this odyssy? A very cool L...

Greetings from 'Isla do Boipeba' It took 12 hours to get here that involved 9 hours overnight on a bus with a mother, baby and 2 annoying children in the seat behind me. 2 hours wait in a deserted bus station at 4am, a 1 hour bus driving at Rally car speed through dirt tracks in the rain forest, a boat for 1 hour, a 40 min walk through the main town carry 5 bags in 40+ sunshine, then a 20 min tractor ride to our hotel in the small village of Morere. You can unde...