So after realising that carnival was officially over we started the next leg of the tour with a whole load of new people, there were 3 english blokes, 2 danish girls (possibly lesbians), an english chick, a german gal and a very rude Chinese couple. Chris was still allong so we made our way by bus and by boat to the beautiful island of Ilha Grande, it was spectacular, so lush and green, no cars no banks, only a few beach shacks and posadas. We headed straight to the beach for some afternoon caiparihnas and got a little carried away. We found a really nice little beach shack away from the tourists and busyness of the town and stayed there for the whole night. We spent the next few days just literally chilling on the beach recovering from carnival, like everyone else that seemed to be there. Our next destination was Paraty, a really pretty colonial style town, with white washed buildings, coobled streets and old churches, we spent our time there just strolling around, found some good places to eat and a nice little capairihna soveneir store to drink in. It was lovely, the man taught me how to make these special passion fruit caparihnas with spiced cuchasa and we spent some time talking to a lovely family from Rio. We watched a an excellent coperia display on our last night, and then we got some rest for our big travel day tomorrow.

We had to catch a bus from Paraty to Soa Paulo..6 hours and then take a night bus from there another 18hours....eek! It was so long, but we were on a luxury bus with seats that resembled huge arm chairs. The bus ride was fun though and the sunset heading out fo Soa Paulo was awesome. We arrived in Iguassu at around 8am and got settled into out hotel, have breakfast and then head to the falls. I have never seen anything so beautiful...it was the most breath taking natural wonder i had ever seen. Over 200 waterfalls in one place. We took a bus to the airport..the only place around which was serving beer and sat there, chilled out and watched the sunset before taking a bus back into Foz. The next day was just awful, it was the day Chris had to fly back to South Africa, by this point we had been seeing each other allong the way in places from Venezuela to Brazil and had travelled together for 6 weeks so it was really really hard saying goodbye. Waved him off at the airport and was just in tears for hours, had a really s***ty day but at least mom was there to make me happy. We took a bus to Argentina and borded a night bus to Uruguay only to stop half way as the bus caught on fire! black smoked filled the bus and we were told that the air con system blew so spent the night on a muggy, hot, smoke filled bus! wonderful but it was pretty funny. We got to the Urugauyan border on the 16th Febuary and it was nice to have a new change of scenery and everything was very different to Brazil