Our last week in Rio de Janeiro was as spectacular and luxurious as the first and, as I have become particularly attached to the place and the Wards, I thought I (Em) would steal Alex´s job for a little bit and write about our last week in the beautiful coastal mountainous Rio. Alex was going to punctuate it with his interesting facts so to make it less flowery, but wasn't up to it. So flowery it may be. We returned from Paraty on Sunday night knowing that we h...

We returned from a lovely weekend in Paraty with the Wards today, Sunday 1st June. Yesterday morning we jumped in the family car with the Wards and headed south west along the coast to Paraty. The drive was beautiful, with picturesque beaches and the winding road ribboning its way around the coastline sandwiched between the ocean and the mountains. The drive was dotted with shanty towns, a floating oil platform and even a nuclear reactor that reminds you this is...

Just arrived in Rio de Janeiro, but in bus station and can't really write. I will update more in the next few days about our warm reception by our hosts, the Wards who live in Rio. Sorry. UPDATE: Em and I quickly got an appreciation of just how comfortable a stay in Rio we were going to have, as Roz had a complex matrix of plans ready on our arrival to make our arrival as stress and hassle free as we could possibly hope for. We were taxi-ed to their front do...

We crossed over into Brazil shortly after leaving Puerto Iguazu, but the we had already felt the impacts of the Reai (Brazilian currency) before we boarded the bus, as the bus ride overnight to Florianopolis cost about $90 AUD each. Getting from Puerto Iguazu to Foz do Iguazu (the town on the Brazilian side of the Falls) to catch our bus to Florianopolis was a bit of a challenge. The bus between Puerto Iguazu and Foz do Iguazu just dumps you at the border between...

Iguazu Falls are on right on the border of Brazil and Argentina and not far away from the Paraguayan border also. Puerto Iguazu is the town, on the Argentine side, that has the best proximity to Iguazu Falls, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Puerto Iguazu largely derives all of its tourism from the falls and whilst the town is pleasant enough, it has nothing other than the falls really going for it. I would try and describe the fantastic sight that Iguazu Falls is,...