to go back to our homepage
29th January 21st Century, Saturday
Bikini Central, Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Future investment opportunities in Brazil: YES; waxing, shaving, lycra & dental floss (to hold bikinis together). NO; bras, clothing.
Rio is an eye opening place, the beaches pleasantly so, the rest of the city not so pleasant! There is a definate in look, characterised for girls by a micro g-string bikini barely covering a buffed lithe body with long thick hair, and for guys a six pack, deep tan & low hipster bathing suit. The more extreme guys wear shorts so low that the base of the bedroom flute is just visible! Looks great but after 8 months eating our way around the world, we haven't quite got the bodies! Well, maybe we do deep down, wayyy underneath.... I'm still not sure about walking around almost flashing the wedding tackle. I'll think on it.
Copacabana and Ipanema are dramatic beaches - broad, white sand, huge surf, thousands of people, backed by incredibly dense highrise buildings which make the Gold Coast skyine look anorexic. It's impossible to walk down the prominades without humming a few appaulling songs from the long gone "jetsetter" scene ("at the Copa, Copacobana, music and passion are ..... AAAGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!" "when my baby comes to Rio, Rio de Janeiro..... NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"). It's pretty laid back watching all the beach sport (and people) with a beer in hand - a popular game is beach volleyball where they use every par of their body except the arms and hands. Amazingly skillful - thirsty work watching. Even shopping is fun in Ipanema - there's fantastic places to browse at like the incredibly aptly named Bum Bum Bikini (I'm only looking - not buying!)
Away from the beach, Rio is waayyyyyy third world. There's heaps of homeless people, beggers and general hardcore grime. There's over 40 million malnorished people and 12 million abandoned kids in Brazil, and I think most of them live in Rio. We're still looking for the mythical samba bars and wild partying that Rio's fameous for - so far at night we've mainly found lots of iron bars over everything and exponential numbers of freaky & scary people. Will keep looking... However, we did have a great day / night out for Nika's birthday (29yo!!??!! on the 28th!!) - beer's cheap here!
The natural history muesum here is cool in a creepy way - it's in a deteriorating old palace and is filled with goodies like models of faces eaten away by tropical diseases, meter long tapeworms, giant spiders and a hideous collection of stuffed animals. Gary Larson must have got most of his inspiration here!!
Noone speaks English here - in four days the only English world we've heard is the soccer commentator screaming on television "Ggggggggggooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaalllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!" (this has been substantially shortened - actual duration 100-120 seconds). Soon we're going to be reading the back of our shampoo bottles and toothpaste tubes for language stimulation. Sad puppies.
Lastly, Rio's got a real rap for street crime / robbery etc (tourists are known as "filet mignon"), but the most dangerous thing are the local buses. These guys are seriously psychotic - they aim for pedestrians and other vehicles, driving at 300% of what their vehicle would have been capable of when new (25 years ago!). They don't brake - just rely on other people to get our of the way. Travelling in them it's not unusal to be thrown into the air over bumps or dumped into the aisles when cornering. Scary!
Next stop Boliva on Tuesday - if we survive the Rio buses! Need high altitude and low oxygen levels to recover from the beach!
24th January 21st Century, Monday
San Jose, Costa Rica
I broke my 16 year old vow, and got back on the horse. Literally. After mucho cerveza we decided in a fit of temporary (???) insainity to go to a "nearby" cloud forest area, where we would do exciting back-to-nature things like looking at trees and things. Sounded cool at the time. Honestly. Option A to get there was a 9 hour bus trip across hell, so we took Option B of bus/boat/horse/4WD which took a mere 6 hours.
Within five minutes of getting on my steed, it became very evident that he had a severe case of "first horse" syndrome - he had to lead the pack at any cost. This didn't seem so bad until we came to a raging river (read : serious white water). With all the other ponies sniggering behind, my fearless steed and it's fearfull rider plunged across. The water was surging up to the middle of the horse's body, the bottom was obscured by white water, its hoves were slipping on the rocks, we were both heading downstream at a huge rate of knots. Thanks to my new found religious conversion, gained about halfway across, we survived. The rest of the ride was really neat, chasing pigs, wading through ponds which lapped the bottom of the saddle, checking out the local flora and fauna, and feeling our butts getting progressively more tenderised.
The day before the epic multi-vehicle adventure, we went caving in some of the mountains behind the (active) volcano. We were underground for 3 hours, and it was awesome! Armed with nothing more than flashlights, helmets and gumboots, our tico guides lead us through the most amazing labarith of hidden passages, huge cathedral rooms, long constricting tunnels with chest deep raging water, and a 3 meter blind drops into waist deep water. Neat! My favourite was a section we named "the rebirth". This started with two three meter blind decents which came out into an area about half the size of a telephone box on its side. The only way out from here was to worm on our backs through a meter long tunnel which was about 2/3 as large as a manhole. I could only move millimeters at a time! Being waaayyy underground, soaked in water, gripped on all sides by rock (and being in an earthquake zone) really isn't recommended for caustrophobics. There's a different perspective on safety in 3rd world countries.....
In Santa Elana, the cloud forest area, we had a more sedate time - going early to the forests, seeing amazingly dense foliage, bird watching (not really us!), and soaking up nature. It's different - a bit low adrenalin for my taste. We also saw heaps of furry animals, including a two toed sloth - this animal really lives up to it's name. It's like a sleeping fur ball way up in a tree, which, well sleeps all the time. Wow? Also saw toucans (a la Sam Toucan of Kellogg's Frosties fame) - way colourful, they'd make great pets except for the fact that their calls sound like sick frogs mating. We also stroked a Hercules beatle - the strongest insect in the world - 10cm of mean, black, polished killer beatle! It can pick up five pound loads and crush human finger bones in its jaw! It would be a great nut cracker!
Tomorrow we fly to Rio via Carracus - a relaxing 22 hour journey. We just LOVE airports! That's why we spend so much time in them!
20th January 21st Century, Thursday
La Fortuna, Central Costa Rica
Spent a few more cool days in Tamarindo hanging out with a Canadian couple we met, Shane ("right on") and Carmen. Created mahem on scooters - learnt that they don't handle anywhere as well as mountain bikes - amazingly collectively no blood. Mustn't have been trying hard enough! However, got tired of the masses, so headed 20km's down a dirt track to a tiny "town" Avenallas (population 20?). Itīs so small that it doesnīt even show up on the local maps, let alone guide books. This place has a huge superwhite almost tropical beach, great surf, a super cool outdoor pub with palms in the sand and not much else appart from huge iguanas wandering around checking out everything. These cool creatures find a warm spot, and then just sit there and nod their heads for a few minutes - primative dance at itīs best! We spent three unreal days here, swimming, lying on the sand and periodically wandering up to the bar to laze under the palms, cold beer in hand, listening to soul jazz and gauzing at the beach. So relaxing itīs sinful (weīre qualified!). The bar is owned by some guy who made his money as a model in NY, and now spends all day surfing, listening to cool music and cooking for his friends at night. I always suspected places like this exsisted somewhere on earth, but itīs surreal to actually come across one!
Had to leave Avenallas, or we would have turned out like the Italian Rastafarian guy we were staying with - he was a great guy, used to work in a chemical plant in Northern Italy, converted to a Rasta, came to CR and contently lives in the middle of nowhere building a few cabins, cooking with his wife and soaking up the "pure life". Neat! It literally doesnīt rain on the coast for five months a year - everthingīs still really green from the numerous rivers, and everyday is blue sky and 30-35"c - day & nite.
We're now in Fortuna, a town at the base of Costa Rica's most active volcano Arenal - it errupts several times a day, throwing ash and lava. It errupted yesterday as we arrived but unfortunately covered in cloud ("imagine if you will, a firey volcano...." etc etc). So instead of watching the EOTWAWKI**, we went to the worlds BEST hot pools at Balneario Tabacon with two girls from Alabama we had met and grown to know on the 6 hour torturous bus trip in to here. These pools are awsome!! Torrents of hot water are diverted from the volcano over a waterfall which we sat under (think hyper-super-deep-oooohhhhgwadddd-yyeesssss-massage!) and thereīs a cave behind the falls - hot and mysterious! Thereīs also a series of a dozen or more "natural" black rock pools which the water cascades down, complete with stationary waves, mini falls - just brillant! To top it all off, thereīs an awesome pool bar where we got hammered on lethal but great concoctions like "Red Arenals" and "Blue Tabacons" - don't know what was in these, but they did the business!.
** End Of The World As We Know It
Today the girls are off rafting and I'm biking (iguana chasing) - if they survive (record river levels at the moment) we're off to a 60m waterfall this afternoon, prior to cervesa o'clock. The girls are getting us interested in horse trekking into some remote town - still thinking about it, given my personal vow never to get on anything without handlebars / steering wheel again....
14th January 21st Century, Friday
Tamarindo, NW Costa Rica
Awesome to be back on the beach - this place is a really laid back village / resort / backpacker nirvana which is in the process of being "discovered" by the masses.
The beach is amazing - about 10kms of pure white sand, with the town being a collection of hotels, cafes and beachfrount bars. It's perpetually around 30"c, with really deep blue skies and clear nites - easy place to get absorbed in. My sister has lived here for some two years - unfortunately she's doin' time back in NZ at the moment, no doubt saving to come back here. Nights are wandering from one bar to the next in a pair of shorts.
Food's great - amazing how many different ways beans, rice & eggs can be served (I've counted six so far). Went to a great restuarant called Bar El Pescador - amazing rice with seafood - and a pool table literally on the sand! Neat! Obscenely cheap too!
Must go - there is a hammock down at one of the beachfrount bars and a beer with my name on it - ideal viewing spot for tropical sunsets (cliched but way cool) and watching the late afternoon game of beach soccer - this is the only time we've seen the locals move faster than lazy lizards!
11th January 21st Century, Tuesday
San Jose, Costa Rica
I just love 3rd world countries - endless lines, staggering bureaucracy, belching pollution, zero customer service - but they are fascinating! The people are really friendly (or we think they are - we speak zippo Spainish), everthing's an adventure and there's a complete absence of the plastic consumerist "have a nice day" syndrome.
Prior to heading down south, we bussed back to New York (American long distance bus travel - now there's an adventure - anyone who possibly can drives everywhere - a lot of places don't actually have footpaths, and drivers who see us walking by the side of the road look at us as if we're trainee serial killers - the movie stereotype of long distance bus tavel is pretty close to the mark!).
Back in NY, stayed with Mary Liz in a real NY apparment - any second we were expecting Kramer to walk in from the next room. It even had the large kitchen window looking down into 3rd Ave below. Cool! To finish off NY in style, we finally caught up with Gary (whose place we had been staying in at the country club, but hadn't actually managed to catch up with him) and went out and got literally trashed for the first time this centry with some web-design friends of his. Fantastic NY Italian / modern restaurant - hate to think what the bill would have been - definately enough to finance a few revolutions in a few 3rd world countries - awesome night. Great way to leave NY!
Next stop Washington DC - or it should be called Washington MC for Muesum Central. Spent ("invested") over 6 hours in the Air & Space muesum and still didn't see it all. They have everything from the Apollo 11 capsule, the Wright flyer, a X119, ICBMs, Soviet moon suits, to a "sister" SkyLab space station which never flew. Also checked out the Hirschorn gallery, Natural History, Hollucaust muesum (ouch!!! should be compulsory viewing), Vietnam memorial, Lincon's tomb and wandered through the White House. Bill wasn't actually in that day (out walking Buddy), but we made ourselves at home. Managed to avoid all the interns, and politely declined the cigars.
Arrived in San Jose at 2am, without a hotel room, or really knowning where we should start! No problem - taxi drivers sprung from the asphalt and with 20mins we were asleep in some hotel in the middle of we still don't know where! Just love 3rd world countries - this is true customer service (and only for a US$2 taxi fare). We're escaping from San Jose at 6am tomorrow morning, going to a surf beach area that my sister lived in for ages - it should be awesome. The weather here is perfect - high 20's, deep blue skies and everything is really lush and green. Roll on - we need the sun and sand after the North American winter. Well, winter there wasn't that bad - it actually was quite fun - the cold was a novelty, and we only saw snow for literally 2 minutes when we first landed in NY.
Only bummer is that it looks like we're not going to have time to go to Cuba - there's just too many enticing things to do here. We've heard about a volcano that literally errupts almost every day - got to see this!!
4th January 21st Century, Tuesday
Nantucket, Somewhere off US mainland
After getting up dreadfully early (necessary evil to escape the Boston Boredom) we battled through cold, dark, fog, highwinds, mice infested subways, freeway mayhem, satanic bus station attendants, 2 1/2 hour wild ferry ride and Dunkin Donuts 'cawfee and cholesterol' to arrive at Nantucket. We love it here - totally worth the journey. Really cute old island town, with cobblestown roads and groovey old wooden houses.
The town's almost totally shutdown (winter) but it's having a freak heatwave - the mercury is almost 20"c - so all the locals are out & about. We were quietly enoying Pattie's chilli-dogs in a drugstore diner, talking with Pattie about the origins of the millienium calander and other lightweight topics, when - wait for this - Elvis walked in, sat down beside us, ordered the omnipresent cawfee, turned and said to us "Dus wull be da happust dawy of yur luves". It was The King!
Evidence;
1) the sideburns!
2) the dark glasses
3) the jet black dyed hair (with the grey roots starting to show - proof of correct age!)
4) the black suede jacket with puffy white shirt
5) impecable manners - "thank you thank you very much now thank you"
6) IQ of pregant rabbit
7) he had just flown in from Louisanna
8) he has found God which explains the motivation for his faked death and low profile over the last few decades
9) he actually has been riding snowmobiles up in Northern Alaska for the last 20 odd years!
10) he was in town "takin' care of business"
Cool! The Kings advice to us - "Wake up evury dawy and luke at da huppinass surrund'n yu brudhur". Profound! Life changing? Maybe not...
3rd January Y2K, Monday
Boston, New England, USA
Merry Christmas, happy New Year - we've survived the 'end of the world' and we feel fine!
After leaving Atlanta at some ungodly early hour (we slept in, just to provide an extra adrenalin rush in getting to the airport) we rocked into The Big Apple and it started to snow. Literally way cool! New York was (and still is) a fascinating place!! We didn't know that ambulances have 15 different siren sounds - necessary to cut through the background noise clutter. The city is really clean, and the natives are surprisingly polite and friendly (given the fearsome f-you reputation of the locals). We scaled the Empire State building (via elevator - too cold to re-enact the King Kong thing), went to even greater heights at the top of the World Trade Center, didn't get mugged in Central Park, oohh & arrhhhed at all the Christmas displays and lights and have eaten hundreds of thousands of calories worth of donuts. This is a super high cal city - every meal is a marathon - every plate a mountain. We're becoming Diner conisseurs - experts at ordering "cawfee" and "two over eazy". Viewer discretion is advised when watching the grill man slop on the grease!
We spent New Years eve in Times Square with our closest 2,499,998 friends - it was a zoo, but incredibly well organised by the police. There were over 10,000 uniformed cops on duty - and only 14 arrests the whole night. Almost an anticlimax, as everyone was expecting some sort of maniac to have a go. Also, no alcohol was allowed - this must be the first sober New Years eve we've had in 15 years!!! Wierd not having any antifreeze in the body standing out in -3"c temperatures.
We went to the finals of the College basketball at Madison Square Gardens - slam dunks, big black guys, cheerleaders being thrown 10m into the air, redneck sitting next to us with a hidden revolver ... lucky his team won. Great spectacle though.
New York accomodation was luxurious - we camped out in the (very exclusive) West Chester Country Club, courtesy of Gary one of Nika's old colleauges from Arnotts. Very wealthy, very exclusive, filled with 'fur coat monsters' and we had to sneak in & out wearing our jeans. Let's just say we didn't eat in the formal dining room!!
Had a great breakfast with John & Mary-Liz from our boat trip in Turkey - decided we needed a button that could instantly teleport us back to the deck of the boat whenever the need arose (this would occur very frequently!). Really neat to catch up with them both.
Went to one of the coolest muesums on the trip - the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid - which was filled with WWII and beyond aircraft, including such gems as a SR-71. If you're into this - it's outstanding! Set aside the whole day for this!!!!
We're now in Boston, which is actually a bit boring post the excitement of NY - Americans are intensely proud of their 300 year heritage, but it doesn't quite have the depth of Europe... (this is being very "kind") - we can say this objectively coming from a land of convicts. It's 4pm and dark now - must run and hunt down more calories (in reality, they find us...).
Next stops are cruising around the New England countryside, then Washington DC, then San Jose, Cuba, Rio, Bolivia and Peru - prior to getting back to the States.
to go back to our homepage