From The Andes to The Rockies

After a pit stop in London town, which turned out to be just over a week of running around like a headless chicken (buying Christmas presents, getting a winter wardrobe, trawling through 3 months of post, completing the resulting life admin, trying to see as many people as humanly possible etc etc etc) I was heading off again. This time to the snowy peaks of the British Columbia Coast Mountain Range (nope we are not in the Rockies here), and more specifically Whistler village.
Journey over was pretty standard except the fine folk at my least favourite airline screwed up again and after making me repack 3 times at T5, because they seemingly don't know their own baggage rules, finally broke my case..... Luckily the gaffer tape held, everything arrived in tact, the Canadians let me in, and the driver was waiting on my arrival to whisk me along the "sea to sky" highway to my new home for the next 4 months. Living in a really rather nice townhouse, right by the village, with my friend Claire from Val D'Isere, and 9 others.... we even have our own chalet boy! There is a good mix of people (as well as me and Claire we have 2 Aussie boys, a Belgian guy, 3 British guys, a couple and one other girl) and everyone is getting on well, so far. If the idea for the "Come Dine with Me" house competition comes to fruition though this may well change....... can't resist the urge to show off my competitive streak! Although judging by the state of the meringue I attempted on Sunday we should hold off on a house bake-off for the foreseeable future and I should be content with my status as queen of the monopoly board.
Whistler is nice too, but the village is so different to the ski villages in the European Alps. There are 3 Starbucks, a MaccyDs and a KFC here for a start! What it lacks in charm though it makes up for in functionality, although I would prefer a bit of both to be honest. I have actually been really surprised at how American everything is... it really is a "have a nice day" culture, with drives throughs, big cars and big portions.
Saying that there are some excellent restaurants here and in my first week Claire and I met up with some of my London friends, who were out here on holiday, for dinner at Rim Rock....amazing oysters, fish, wine and desserts, we just need to start saving again for our next visit.
The mountain itself is great, so many trees, I just need to avoid being eaten alive by a tree well. My instructor informed me of the dangers of tree wells last week, within 15 minutes I had head butted a tree, inadvertently hugged a pine, and was left straddling a sappling rather inelegantly after accidently getting air. Mountain mishaps abound and only on Sunday did I almost head down the men's half pipe during the X-games qualifier. My instructors course starts on Monday which will hopefully iron out these little faux pas.
Hopefully by Monday we'll see a rise in temperatures too, last night fell to 34 degrees celsius below, far too chilly, and during the day one sock froze to the inside of my ski boot, maybe a sign to invest in boot heaters.... although I have always maintained that those are for whimps. Plenty of snow though, so shouldn't complain and my new skis (All mountain Fischer Koa 84) are looking good and working well.
I am enjoying "resting", catching up with the old faces from last season and sleeping far too much (can't blame the jet lag anymore though). I think I have almost slowed to the point of going backwards (much to Claire's annoyance!), so next week, once I have got over the lergie I have acquired, I am picking up the pace again. I haven't been totally lazy though and I have managed a few lessons on the mountain so far and a day trip down to Vancouver.
Enjoying the nightlife too; although the après doesn't match up to that of the alps I am quite a fan of the cool 80s music at Tommy Africa's on Mondays.... more on evening entertainment next time as we are about to start our house lesson on how to wax your skis. What fun!

After a lousy start on the weather front to my last five days in Rio, the sun finally came out! Luckily it chose to do so on the day we decided to head up to see Christ the Redeemer - couldn't have asked for a more perfect day for that trip actually. Views from up there were totally stunning. Clare and Nathan flew in from Zurich on the Thursday evening, so it was great to have some old friends from home to share in the last few days of my trip. We had some fun evenings together in Rio, eating the most amazing steak at Porcao (Tom Cruise was in town and ate there the evening before...shame he missed us!), and going to the Samba school rehearsals for the Rio carnaval. I have some great video footage me drunken samba dancing!
Got up Sugar loaf too this time, and Selaron's tiled steps in Lapa, spent a good half day trying to shop for flip flops for my family in the Havaiana store (just what you need in London in winter), and enjoyed a rather civilised afternoon tea at Confeitaria de Colombo, a Rio institution but Claridges still wins.
Have had a wonderful three months away, with lots of happy and funny memories. Looking forward to coming back for a week over Christmas and then heading off to Whistler for snow time!

I was in two minds whether to visit Ilha de Santa Caterina or not seeing as I had already reached my departure point of Rio and this meant heading two hours south on a plane to Florianopolis, but so glad I did. I have had an amazing week here, staying right by the lagoon in Lagoa da Conceicao.

Our hostel is the nicest one I have stayed in during my travels around South America (thanks Paola and Giulio at Submarino, I will be back ) and even though the weather hasn't been perfect every day we have still found enough sunshine to enjoy the fabulous beaches and beach side lounge bars, where we have enjoyed post tanning cervejas and excellent seafood. The nightlife here is pretty cool too, and the island attracts big name DJs and well known club nights. We headed to El Divino lounge on Friday and it was jam packed with Brazil's beautiful people - was wishing I had packed a pair of heels for these occasions though rather than having to rely solely on my havaianas! At least I could walk comfortably at the end of the night though Anyone coming to Brazil should really add Florianopolis on to their itinerary, its such a fun place to hang out.

Today I decided to go sea kayaking with a girl that is staying in my hostel - lovely day for it we thought! We paddled away happily for about 45 minutes under blue skies and then as we turned to come back home we noticed the significantly darker skies and the tropical storm heading towards us. Luckily we bought the biscuits we joked! Then the rain started, then the lightening, within seconds our boat started collecting the rain water and my shipmate cheerily commented that our oars were made of metal... panic! We paddled as fast as we could to the shore, but the current was pulling us away from where we were aiming to go. Rather fortunately we got taken to a jetty right on the edge of a private beach. Another beautiful Brazilian lady was there to greet these shipwrecked tourists (I think she initially thought we were burglars casing the joint), and she asked her butler to bring us inside to shelter from the storm. What a lovely lady! She brought out the towels to dry us off and got the butler to prepare some fresh pineapple juice. We rode out the storm in this lovely interior designed mansion, eating homemade cookies and trying to communicate in variety of languages and hand gestures. As soon as the weather cleared up a bit we headed back to our canoe and paddled on back - still raining but much better than before! On arrival at the hostel, we realised we had prompted a full scale search and rescue operation by the Brazilian coastguard - Paula the hostel owner seriously thought we might never be seen again.
Always good to have a bit of an adventure! The last adventures on this trip to South America will take place back in Rio, heading off there tomorrow!

In true Brazilian fashion the 2.5 hour "easy transfer" from Ilha Grande to Rio ended up taking more like 6.5! Luckily I had a brilliant group on the minibus there and time flew by. I expected a lot from Rio and it hasn´t disappointed; totally stunning setting, amazing shops and restaurants, miles of sandy beaches and more happy friendly beautiful people. The food here is particularly good in fact and the Brazilian beef is definitely better than the Argentine so far The only slightly strange thing about the culinary habits of this country is the "pay by kilo" buffet-style restaurants which are everywhere.

Unfortunately I managed to book myself into a total dump of a hostel in Copacabana for the first two nights ~ got put in the overflow apartment block the first night which was more like a squat and stank of urine and mold. Needed to get through about five locked doors just to reach my bed. Luckily some people I have been travelling with had prebooked into a nice hotel down the road, so after our first night out at the Lapa street party they smuggled me back into their hotel.... Convinced I was going to be rumbled by the hotel manager the next morning, but got past undetected! The final three nights have been spent in a much nicer pad round the corner in Ipanema!

Brazilians love to party and if you go out there is not much chance of you getting back before 4am... at the earliest. Together with the street party in Lapa (where there were lots of booty shaking young boys who really want to be girls), one of the best Rio nights out so far was the boat party on Guanabara bay. With a dance floor raised above the main deck and quadruple strength cocktails, I was amazed we didn´t have a few partygoers overboard during the night. The view of Corcovado and Sugar Loaf lit up on the way back into the marina in the early hours was just so cool.

Brazilians also love football. We were lucky enough to get tickets on Sunday to the last game of the season between Vasco da Gama and Flamengo (two of Rio´s biggest teams) at the Engenhao stadium, which was total madness. The world famous Maracana stadium usually hosts these games apparently but it is currently being renovated in preparation for the World Cup 2014 (...just thought I would add that in for all you football fans out there).

The highlight of the last four days was the tour of the Rocinha favella. I wasn´t sure how "correct" a tick and click tour of a slum would be (lots of photos of me smiling next to extreme poverty seems so wrong), but it was just fascinating to see how so many Brazilians actually live, and as 70% or so of the tour cost goes back into care projects for the kids I felt my visit was at least benefiting the community in some way.
We got taken into Rocinha on the back of motorbikes, which was one of the most frightening moments on my travels so far. The bike was whizzing along at what felt like about 100mph and we were continuously weaving in and out of the various obstacles / vehicles on the narrow streets. How I didn´t come off with a serious head injury I don´t know.
It was a particularly interesting time to visit this favella as it was pacified just a few weeks ago by the BOPE (watch the Brazilian film Elite Squad if you haven´t already!). As a result the "boss" of the favella was captured and an array of weapons were recovered, including machine guns and rocket launchers. Rocinha seems a suprisingly well ordered yet crazy place.... one guy we heard about has managed two grandchildren at just 28!!

Unfortunately I seem to have developed an addiction for Pao de Queijo (cheese bread) and Bob´s Ovalmaltine milkshakes in the last few days .... not good when the beach in Florianopolis (where the most beautiful Brazilians live!) is calling. At least I have now purchased a bikini that actually covers the bits I would expect it to.... although you seemingly have to pay considerably more for that priviledge!

Leave early tomorrow but looking forward to coming back to Rio again in a week!

The Brazilians could learn a lot from the Argentinians when it comes to bus travel. 16 hours with no loo or food on board....... and no sleep courtesy of an air con system capable of recreating the harshest of Siberian winters! On the positive side no sleep meant I didn´t miss one of the most amazing electrical storms I have ever seen.... the lightening was absolutely incredible. Suffice to say I arrived in Sao Paulo (a massive ugly city from what I saw of it) totally knackered, but thankfully the connection onto Paraty ran really smoothly and I arrived just in time for dinner. Quite a miracle as I´m quickly learning that timekeeping isn´t a Brazilian strongpoint!
The drive to Paraty took us along the Costa Verde; such spectacular scenery with jungle clad mountains stretching right to the edge of the sea. Paraty itself is a small and really pretty coastal town and its cobbled historic centre is totally charming. The harbour is packed with brightly coloured wooden boats - all very picture perfect - and we got to charter one for the day to cruise the islands.... free caipirinhas thrown in! Seafood here was pretty tip top too. Shared a hostel room here with two psycho rude Brazilian girls... was very happy when the top bunk one of them was sleeping in collapsed onto the friend below.... watching her struggle out from under the matress was quite a sight
After two nights in Paraty we moved on (via bus and boat) to Ihla Grande - another stunning location! Brazil is absolutely beautiful and so (in general!) are the people... they might even beat the Chileans for my affections at this rate. Being on a tropical island I decided to blow the budget and booked a lovely private wooden chalet for 3 nights at Pousada Mata Nativa. A bit of a treat at £65 a night....I have been averaging about £20 a night here in Brazil. Ecuador was $5 USD a night so things have gotten a lot more pricey! The beaches here are just perfect and we had a great sunny day on Lopes Mendes (accessible via boat and a short hike) playing "Pelota Palata" (or Batty Bally ), surfing (or trying to) and topping up the tan. Brazilian Churrasco with more caipirinhas finished that day off nicely.....pity the mossies here seem to love me! Had a really lovely three days here though chilling out, playing cards, eating ice cream and pootling around the little boutiques. Just a pity it pissed it down on the last day really. I was on a mission to find a new bikini here but seeing as all the bottom halves are thongs (the Brazilian girls love to have their arses hanging out no matter how big they are), I have wisely decided to wait to shop in Rio That´s the next stop!