Carnival!!!

So we arrive to our wonderful little apartment with AIR CON  Ben, Dan and vokda whoop whoop! The first night we just chilled out preparing ourselves for the first day of carnival...

So after another money freak out - as the pin for my card STILL hadnt arrived - the 4 of us spent the day trying to change travellers cheques and getting emergency cash from HSBC - always a delight. This time we managed to get some but only because someone thought the paperwork katie had filled out had been returned from Sao Paulo - which it hadnt - but we certainly werent going to say anything.

After a reasonably successful money run we had to hit the supermarket as apparently everything was going to shut for the whole week. Everyone in the whole of our area had the same idea so we ended up queueing for about 6hrs to purcahse our weekly grub - which ended up consisting of a ridiculous amount of ham and cheese toasties (I never want to eat another one in my life por favor).

After paying someone to trolly our huge amount of food up the hill to our apt we had a visit from a lady who worked with Dan - the guy we rented the apt off. She was telling us that we could get a really cheap t-shirt (you dont get tickets, you get t-shirts for whichever event your doing at the carnival) for the camarote (balcony) where Fat Boy Slim would be DJing. HELLO! She told us she would take us to the black market (scary) where we could buy them for 250R ($100) for girls and 300R ($125) for boys when usually they were 800R (cant convert anymore). BOOM (as Ben would say). So off we trotted to this supposed black market... never having been to a black market before I wasnt sure what to expect but really I thought the whole thing was rather laid back. Well - this is Brazil after all.

The girl who was meant  to be helping us turned out to be as useful as a dead rat. We got scammed by her friend - leaving us with two girls t-shirts at 300R each and nada for the boys. After plodding around for like half an our, the girl turns to us and says either we sell the shirts we have bought or go without the boys. So... we try and sell the shirts. Noone would pay more than 250R for them and we didnt want to loose out on any money. What to do? Useful girl buggers off and leaves K and I having to explain the situation to Ben (who by this point has run to and from the apt 200 times to get more money) and Dan that basically we cant sell our shirts for even the same money we bought them. Very sweetly they tell us to go without them and that they´d do something else. NOT A CHANCE. Katie and I were on a mission, there was no way we were going without them, not after everything they had done for us. So in a whirlwind it seemed like we were on the final task of the apprentice or something, running around bargaining in Spanish with random brazilian men for rank blue t-shirts (you couldnt really make this stuff up) and finally managed to locate two male t-shirts 200R or something cheaper than were told we would get them. GET IN! We were all going to party on down with fat boy and we were excited...

Back to the apt to get ready and put on our terrible blue t-shirts!

And we are off.... but where the hell is the camarote? Only at the other end of the carnival stretch. So its an hour long crowd push and we arrive everyone intact... just!
Our prior minimal knowledge of a camarote was that they were balconies that looked over the carnival. Basically they have Blocos which are huge trucks that have people playing on them and huge ropes surrounding them which people dance in. So the idea behind the balcony is that you are in one place and get to watch all the Blocos drive past. But we were mistaken. This camarote was the COOLEST thing you have ever seen. FREE everything. I hate to try and describe it as it just wont give it justice but il give it a bash...

At the front you have the balcony over looking the carnival where you can get your hair and make up done for FREE... to the left were the (always clean?!) toilets (amazing) next to them you could have your t-shirt pimped (for FREE) next to that was the biggest FREE food hall you have ever seen, apparently all the best restaurants have a stand there... the food was amazing! Behind that was a huge chill out area where you could get a massage for.... FREE which overlooked the sea and then in the corner was the BIGGEST tent/building thing you have ever seen where fat boy would be playing. For the first few hours we just wandered around looking at everything. All the while there are FREE drinks being handed out left right and centre. And all this for a hundred pounds... bit of a bargain really. The best venue ive ever been too (not particularly hard but shusssssh).

We spent most of the night in the "club" (which you could def call it that as it was enormous) dancing! Every now and then we would pop to the balcony to watch the Blocos go by but to be honest we were having too much fun doing everything else. Fat Boy was amazing and ive not danced that hard since... Christmas Eve! AMAZING!!!! Not quite sure how we were going to top that night...

Get back to the apt at about 7am I reckon, after walking the whole carnival circuit home watching everyone clean up for the next days antics. The next night some aussies that the boys had met before we had arrived
and an English couple that were renting an apt in the same block joined us in the apt and we all drank together, and then made our way out. We spent the night watching the Blocos go by, which was more of an authentic experience than the night before, I wouldnt say equally good fun, but good fun all the same. Its all a bit of a blur now but im pretty sure we did the same thing the next night...

We then went to another camarote which was an experience getting hold of tshirts for. We went back to the black market but nothing to be found, then went to the front of the camarote to see if they were selling them there, no joy. So a girl that Dan had met helped us buy tshirts of people that were leaving the camarote so we bagged ourselves a bargain. The camarote was as we had imagined them to be at the beginning, basically a balcony playing music that overlooked the carnival. It was great fun but not quite the same experience. Katie was watching the Blocos go by when she spotted a few of the boys that we had met in Pipa, thats it.... you have never seen us run so fast out the camarote right into the mix pushing and shoving our way through trying to get their attention. Lucikly we managed to dance with them for a bit in their bloco despite not having a tshirt and managed to say hi to pretty much most of them. Made our way back to the camarote and carried on dancing. Then I decided to watch the Blocos go by and you´ll never guess... I saw some of the boys id met in Bariloche (argentina) dancing behind a bloco. Crowd barge numero dos. We had the most amazing night catching up, drinking, dancing. I thought I would never seen any of them again but I managed to see all 8 of them! AMAZING! And I cant believe that we had managed to spot both groups that night. Perfect.

On our last night we went in a Bloco that had Will i am djying in which was bloody good fun. The only way to descibe a bloco is mental. Hundreds and hundreds of people dancing and jumping around. Totally insanse but amazing. At times there is a serious crush which can be a little daunting but you just have to go with it. Couldnt really think of a much better place to be crushed to death!

Again not particularly authentic but a bloody good night. I loved it! We were dancing the whole carnival strip for like 5 hours to English music not samba... I dont think samba much. We bumped into the boys from Pipa again who were in the same bloco which was a hoot and basically the night could not have gone any better.

Its quite difficult to explain without you being there but all I can say is that week was one of the best ever. Thanks to katie obviously, Dan,Ben, the Israeli boys from Pipa and the Israeli boys from Bariloche, fat boy and will i am oh and the aussies. BLOODY BRILLIANT!

Olinda - Pipa - Sao Paulo - Paraty - Rio - Salvador

Sorry Sorry Sorry... no excuses im sure you have all (3 of you that is) have given up on my blog. What has it been... 2 months? All I can say is that Brazil has had some sort of crazy effect on me where I have become the laziest most horizontal person ever and the thought of sitting at a computer typing and thinking seemed too much like hard work which is a terrible excuse but better late than never I hope...

Get the kettle on I have a feeling this may be a long one...

So after travelling solo and nearly dying on a plane I checked myself into a hotel in Recife in the North of Brazil to await the arrival of Katie. The hotel was rather nice with a pool, a double ac room and a balcony with a hammock. Thank you very much... il stay here 2 nights. Slightly hammered my bank balance but some R´n´R was much needed after BA.

I then made my way to a nice hostel in Olinda (near Recife) where I made myself comfortable with my terribly cheesy Nicholas Sparks book in a hammock feeling very laid back, when I heard "WHAT A CLICHE" yelled from the other side of the hostel... Katie had arrived! We spent nearly a week in Olinda, a dinky little colonial village by the sea dipping in and out of our hostel pool as well as cute cafes and very yocal brazillian bars. In hindisght Olinda didnt have all that much to do but we happily mooched about watching various pre-carnival rehersals and meeting random brazilianos. EVENTUALLY we managed to get off our asses and made our way to a small beach town called Pipa, recommended to us by an English bloke we´d met in our hostel, called Nick. Well Nick all I can say is THANK YOU. Pipa Pipa Pipa... noone has heard us speak about much else since we have been there.

We bundled into a bus that comfortably sat 6 but somehow they´d managed to squeeze in 12 (later we have discovered this is the brazilian way). I found myself on the laps of two strangers... nothing like getting involved straight away! And after a 45min bus ride we found ourselves in paradise. As soon as we walked down the main strip we both looked at each other and said "I like it here already" and we were right... having decided to spend 3 nights it was a slight shock to realise at the end we had actually spent TWO WEEKS there. And what fun those two weeks were. We met some amazing people, sunbathed on beautiful beaches with dolphins bobbing up and down in the water and spent many-a-night dancing away in the 3 bars Pipa had to offer. After a couple of days it felt like home.

Whilst we were there we invested (and you can call it that because they cost a small fortune) in a 3 day surf course. For some reason I have always had an inkling that surfing was going to be my thing, ever since I was 10 and found my first quicksilver t-shirt I knew it was def going to be for me. Oh how wrong could I be?

After a quick chat about waves and all that jazz we grabbed our foam long boards (technical term I may add) and lay on the beach for humiliation round one. So the key is to learn how to stand on sand before water... makes sense... how hard can it be? Well apparently very easy for Katie and the hardest thing in the world for me! CRINGE. I was so special that they had to teach me the spastic way of standing up as I just couldnt manage the "normal" way... I think secretly they were hoping id pick up the normal way in no time at all.... apparently not.

After shaking off the slight embarrasment of my standing up technique we were ready to hit the water. And ill tell you... you would have been impressed - we were standing within about 20mins and I knew my inner surfgirl was coming out. YES... despíte the spastic standing I was def looking pro already.

After the lesson katie and I were both on a high and already planning our proffessional careers... as you do. Plans to go to cornwall and many other surf holidays - how this was going to change our lives. Day 2 the enthusiasm wasnt exactly at an all time high as I think the realisation that our inner surfers werent quite as pro as we thought had hit us. There was a lot of punching the waves and the boards (which is not recommended because you cant really hurt the sea but you can certainly hurt your hand!) and little surfer strops were coming from our direction. But we were not to be defeated and by Day 3 we were ready to hit those waves again. Day 3 was probably the best we were standing up and turning AND apparently catching the waves ourselves. So obviously feeling very confident a couple of days later we were ready to go solo.

So off we went to our surf school to rent some boards and hit the water. After 2 hours of not even being able to balance on the board and a lot of tantrums later - enough was enough. Katie left her board on the sand and went out to sea with me to push me into the waves, as the surf instructors had been doing... FINALLY I catch a wave... oh yes here we go can I stand... oop nearly... one foot forward and OH SHIT fall down and somehow manage to get the fin in my HEAD. Yes my HEAD. Please dont ask for details all I can say was the wave was GIGANTIC (naturally) and VERY STRONG and not only was I in a lot of pain but a rather fit instructor had witnessed the whole show and was laughing hysterically at me. Damn it. SOD the surfing. I hate it and its certainly NOT COOL. I think its time to go back to the hostel, get drunk and forget about the fact that my professional surfing career dreams had been dashed in one swift blow (to the head).

That night we party away and I wake up in the morning and show off my surfing head injury... at which point everyone started to panic and carted me off to hospital... they all thought I was going to have stitches. Luckily I didnt but for a brief moment I nearly panicked. A couple of days later everyone had been telling me to get back into the water... so I took up their advice rented a board within 10 mins of being in the water I got hit on the HEAD AGAIN. I wont repeat what I said... put it this way its going to take more than a fit surf instructor to get me back on a board!

Other than a rather short but sweet surfing lover affair we had such an amazing time in Pipa that as some of you know we extended our trip to go back there. Its hard to describe why it was so perfect but we both had the most enjoyable relaxing time most of which was spent on the beach, in a hammock or in a bar. What more could you want? But after two weeks and Carnival fast approaching we thought it best to move on... 

So we set off for Sao Paulo... didnt like that much. We had one good night where we went to some bars. When we realised we didnt have enough money for more drink (said like the old man in father ted who always sits in the sofa) I asked if I could pay by card, which of course we were told would be fine. Erm... not so fine when your card isnt BRAZILIAN. Hello do I not look like a gringa to you? So we had a rather eventuful evening being driven back to our hostel by two of the waiters from the bar to collect the money that we owed. Thanks, that just saved us a $60 cab ride! Love Brazil!

After that experencia we moved from there to Paraty which we were hoping would be another Pipa... not a chance. The only memory I have of Paraty was that I lost the one card we had between us there. Little did we know this was just the beginning of our financial nightmares. So that tainted my opinion of Paraty somewhat, but luckily I had enough dollars to exchange to pay our hostel and get us on a bus to Rio. How exciting... we are in RIO BABY YEH... oh but hang on... with about $30 between us and its the weekend and the bloody banks dont open on a weekend. Bugger. Luckily we met two English boys (ben and dan) from Landan that let us transfer some money into their account which they withdrew for us. Then we were ready to party on down. (Little did they know that they were going to spend the rest of their 3 week holiday having to do this for us... sorry boys!).

So we hung out in Rio for a few days which involved spending the day doing touristy things like going to see big jesus and things, only to find that when we got to the top it was SO cloudy we couldnt actually see anything, well maybe Jesus' feet.. What a waste of time! BUT we did see the famous tiled steps to a favela that Snoop and Pharell filmed their music vid to beautiful girl to... infact sod writing about that day just watch the vid and you will see what we were meant to see (minus the clouds and the famous people)

Click to see vid! CLICK TO SEE VID

Other than that we had a couple of nights out in Lapa (which sounds like some sort of chav holiday destination) and we had a GREAT night out with a girl who was from Rio that we had met in Pipa, who took us out for a much more authentic brazillian night. Which was great... we met all her really nice friends and spent the night in a gringo-free-zone. Parfet. Our last day we spent the whole day in HSBC trying to withdraw emergency funds from Katies account which is not exactly how we wanted to spend the last day but admin and stuff isnt really Brazils strong point and when we got told at 5pm (after having arrived at 11am) that we werent going to be getting any money and we would have to come back tomorrow... we nearly cried. The poor guy that had been looking after us all day had no idea what to do and ended up giving us 500R of HIS OWN MONEY?!?! beacuse he felt so bad. What a babe! 

From there we made our way to Salvador to meet Ben and Dan who we had decided to rent an appartment with them for Carnival! What a good idea... it would have been AWFUL staying in some rank smelly hostel crammed packed with drunk people. Carnival was AMAZING but I have def run out of energy to write about it... soooooooooooooooooooooorry but this has been the most strenuous exercise I have done since getting battered in the head by a fin!

CLICK TO SEE FIN WOUND

To be continued....

20 questions

BA Uncut...

I'm going to mix this post up a bit and do 20 questions which I hope will provide some entertainment. I'm afraid that whilst travelling sola I didn't actually travel at all but effectively moved into a hostel and made people be my friends - the most important thing to do when a loner!

So I'm sure you are all dying to know how life changing travelling or rather sitting around on my own was!

In no particular order:

1.) Favourite Day: was in fact my last day in BA. I went to Tigre for the day with my adopted family (Corisa, Brian, Brightman and Carlin). It made a nice change from being in the city. We had lunch and then went on a boat ride down the river finished off with a 65m drop (some crazy ride in a theme park) which was about as close to a sky dive I've ever been. Adrenaline rush or what! Brian was on hilarious form and was making us laugh all day until 5 mins from home we saw the most hysterical man running who either looked mental or desperate for the toilet and that was it - Corisa and I were off, I laughed solidly for 30 mins to the point where I cried and couldn't breathe. Doesn't sound funny at all but it really got to us. After 10 hardcore belly giggles I had another 10 with Carlin in a bar and didn't end up getting to bed till 5am. Just one of those days where you would never have known when you woke up what fun was going to be instore. Brilliant!

2.) If you told yourself 3 weeks ago you'd be doing X and you wouldn't believe it. What would X be? Going on a gay pub crawl and ending up in a club with a tranny show TWICE.

3.) Favourite night: Carlin, dills, Sara and Becky (2 really sweet American girls Corisa introduced me to) and I all went to a famous steak restaurant called La Cabrera... I know what your thinking - but you hate steak! No worries - I still do... But It was such fun and the sides were scrummy! Another night filled with endless belly giggles. It was one of those nights that you wish could go on forever. And it reminded me of why I enjoyed living with dills so much in second year... Love ya babe!

4.) Favourite person: too many to say but melvin, Kyle and bazza would have to be the top 3 oh and the random strawberry sweetish guy - god you made me laugh!

5.) Best touristy thing: well it would have to be casa rosada with carlin and dills. God that was weird. So it's the presidential home/palace which is about as grand as my downstairs toilet! And there was 2 really strange people on our tour, a very overly sweaty argentine guy with a disturbingly large bottom showing around a rather unbothered looking Lithuanian girl who sounded like Hitler when she spoke! We did get to see the presidents actual office which was pretty crazy but not sure is the best idea for national security or whatever you call it, but hey it's Argentina there are a lot of things that can't be explained! And finally they have a guest book and if you ever gbarbers check out the messages dills and I wrote... We wondered if the president (whatever her name is) chills out in the bath at the weekend reading her visitor book?!

6.) Hardest thing that happened? When talking to henry on skype (which was great) he had his video on merrily chatting away WITH A POT OF TEA right in front of him... And eating a hot cross bun! Torture or what!!

7.) Strangest person you met? Oliver the 47 year old english aristocrat who looked like he'd had a very fun life (a polite way of saying he looked 80) who was a bit crusty round the edges. Stupidly when he asked if I had any toe nail clippers I looked at his toe nails... Blurgh! He said himself- when I pointed out what looked liked normal toe nail clippers in the Chinese supermarket - "they'll break on my nails" can you imagine? Sure you don't want to!

8.) What do you hate the most about BA? They give you 100 peso bills out the atm but never have any f-ing change?! Sort it out.

9.) What do you love most about BA? that it's a city that I'd like to live in despite being a county bumkin.

10.) Are you glad you went back and if so why? Yes yes yes! Because I got to see the touristy stuff I didn't before, got to see the lovely dills again and bumped into someone I'd previously met and wasn't sure id ever see again!

11.) Something you regret not doing? Going to colonia for the day in Uruguay but il be back to do that!

12.) Something you regret doing? Getting in a taxi to the mall before checking the address of my hostel... Oops!

13.) What will you never forget? Eating pizza in the biggest junction in BA and possibly in the world!

14.) What song will remind you of this part of the trip?  - The gossip - four letter word

15.) Best museum - the malba art galley... didn't make any museums.

16.) Coolest thing you did? Went to a drum show called la bomba in a knocked down warehouse in a dodgy part of town. It was amazing, like a massive drum/percussion circle.

17.) If you could change anything what would it be? -I would have spent less money.

18.) Most interesting thing you learnt?  The history of israel and Palestine in a Irish pub... As you do.

19.) Best quote: "I can't believe everyone is going to brazil for the carnival?" no duh where else would they go?!

20.) What have you learnt about yourself? I don't enjoy my own company for too long. That I'm a pretty happy person and able to turn a new and potentially difficult situation into a good one. That I can make new friends when I have to and finally that  although I had a brilliant time, I like to have someone around to experience everything with me. Oh and I get really bad hangover giggles!!!

I made it alive...

I think I've over done the cliffhanger wait but it's so hot here I can't be bothered to do anything even typing is a mission.

So basically my flight was the worst imaginable. It was an hour and a half plane ride and the second half was the most horrific turbulence ever. My bum came out the seat every 5 mins!!! People were screaming, vomiting, crying and praying. There was a time where the plane was on it's side for what seemed like 5 mins and all I could see was water. I even got the emergency menu out as I was definite we were going to land on the water.  People were shouting in Spanish and Portuguese and I was like WHAT'S GOING ON?!? 

It's really hard to explain what it was like and I'm not sure people understand until it happens to you but I genuinely thought I was going to die. It was horrific.

The first attempt at landing took 30mins longer than it was meant too but the conditions were so bad the pilot couldn't land the plane. So we had to land in an airport out of town. Once we landed most people just broke down. I was fighting back the tears waiting for the first moment I could call dad when the pilot said that the airport we had landed at weren't prepared to let us off and we were going to have to fly back?!? Nooooo way... Everyone freaked out and I just burst into tears. It was awful awful awful. 

It was that haunting that i was planning on how I'd get back from SA by bus!! And the other day I had to book a flight to Recife where I'm meeting Katie and I broke out in a cold sweat! I can officially say I'm now a nervous flyer. 

But I'm safe and sound in BA!! 

Chapter 2: Flying Solo

Sorry that my last blog wasn´t in the least bit entertaning and more a school diary type of entry as Daisy so kindly put it (tongue out). It is hard to keep writing and make it interesting, but I hope I havent bored everyone to death. I don´t want people to feel obliged to read...

Anyway... so as I said hard to say goodbye but now on my own and ready for a new experience. Submarino hostel looked after me very well on my first few days alone. The Paraguians took me to the beach one day which was nice and then this really cool Sweedish girl came and I spent the day with her on the beach the day after.

Wowza... brazil really have their own bikini style. I have never seen so many bottoms of all shapes, sizes and ages hanging out on the beach. People were looking at me strangely as my bum wasn´t out?! I saw womens bottoms within the age range of 2-102. Wobbly, skinny, wrinkly, smooth - some as big as your head. They really have no shame. As for swimming costumes they are exactly the same! Bizzare... a little part of me wants to join in, how cool to have a brown bum? Not sure how my bum would feel about that, having never been seen the sun in it´s 22 years of existence.

So I spent the last few nights in Floripa in the hostel, there was always someone to talk to and most people did their pre-drinking till 1am or so in the hostel which was good fun. They had a table tennis table (is that what you would call it?) so I got pretty good at that - once the champ (flo) had left. The brazillians did a BBQ everynight and there was always plenty to feed me to. I really started to feel at home there, but not speaking any Portuguese was really starting to grate on me. Plus the weather was really unpredictable and it was pretty stormy so I decided it was time to go back... not always a good idea when you are travelling - going back that is, but I thought it best to go somewhere I could communicate and if I was in trouble I would know people nearby. So BA it was. Yes, kind of obsessed with the place. So booked my ticket (small fortune) and made my way out of Floripa on 16th.

(Sidenote, anyone aware of the awful flooding near Rio? 560 or so people have died. Terrible)

So 7am on the 16th I make my way to the airport... little did I know that this would turn out to be one of the worst days of my life...

Here ends Chapter 1

Back to BA on the 22hr bus to pick up our bags, quick change around and off to San telmo to a lovely French brasserie for lunch and to the airport to fly to Iguazu.

We arrived in Iguazu booked tickets to Floripa for the next night and found a (pongy) hostel and to bed!

Early rise and off to the falls. For those that don't know the bible informs me that the "falls" as I call them,
consists of 275 waterfalls and can be seem from Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay! Absolutely incredible... People go and stay there for a few days but Flom and I managed to do what we wanted in a few hours.

Back to the hostel quick dip in the teeny warm pool and then bus to the border, argentine stamp and back on bus. Off bus for Brazilian stamp. Flo goes through just fine... I on the other hand had a different experience. Hand over my passport and the woman types in my details. Long long pause and more typing... she starts blabbing away to me in Portuguese ahhhhh you what? Finally she manages to locate an English speaker who asked if I'd been to Brazil before?!? NO never... More Portuguese blabbing, a policeman is called over, takes my passport away. After what felt like half an hour, she merrily sent me on my way with a stamp? What was all that about? Il never know but there is obviously some maniac Rebecca smith out there...

We then go back to the bus stop to wait for the next bus to take us to the bus terminal. After half an hour it still hadn't arrived so - panicking about making our bus to Florianopolis, we ask another bus if it goes to the terminal - yes- boom! Thank you very much...

As we approach what appears to be the city, a guy on the bus asks where we are going - flora - well you are on the wrong bus. Instant panic. BUT YOU SAID THIS BUS WENT TO THE TERMINAL flo shouts out... Yes the terminal but not the one you want - he then jumps off the bus. Shit. Another man hears the commotion and tells us we need to get a taxi as we only have 20mins to catch our bus. A lot of English Spanish and Portuguese (all mixed together) was spoken and we eventually got to the right terminal just in time for our 14hr bus to Floripa!

Relief. About 30 mins into our 14hr journey flo and I are fast asleep. We slept pretty much solidly the whole way, we were so knackered from the past few days.

Arrive in Floripa and make our way to Submarino - the hostel where Al was staying. The next two days we just hung out at the hostel as the weather wasn't very good-savouring our last hours together. Rather excitingly Alice and flo both got tattoos whilst there!! Al had three stars behind her ear and Flo a star on her wrist. So we all have stars now!

On the 13th Flo and Al left me behind in Floripa to go to Maui to see their cousins. As you can imagine it was rather emotional! Not only was I leaving my travel buddy (who was the BEST you could get) but I was also going to be alone for 2 weeks. But onwards and upwards...

I cannot believe how quickly the past 3 months flew and the amount of amazing adventures we had. Someone said to me the other day "when you travel it's not fun all the time" well that could not have been further from the truth for me. Everyday there was a giggle...

The past 3months have been the best of my life so far and I have Florence to thank for that. I think we made a great team (which was pointed out to us by someone we met right at the beginning).
Wishing you the best for your onwards trips Flom, I miss you and I love you!

End of chapter 1

Bariloche

So we had a 22hr bus to Bariloche... it was the most amazing bus ever - especially after such buses in Bolivia! The seats reclined to beds (in bus terms) and we were right at the front infront of the TV which played ENGLISH films (amazing) and we had a waiter. Flo and I couldn't believe our luck. We had lunch after about 30mins after setting off then a snack later on, some sort of alcoholic drink with a pastry, wine, dinner, pudding, coffee with sweet pastries and then a Tia Maria to top it all off! Everytime he bought soemthing new we would get way over excited.

We arrived in Bariloche about 11am. We made our way on a bus into town to locate our Hostel which Al had very kindly booked us on hostelworld.com. We had left our big bags in BA with Corisa and only took our little bags... Mine consisted of a few t-shirts, a dress and the clothes I was wearing (shorts hoodie and flip flops). It was quite cold... hence the coffee to warm up.

Then we saw an activity shop and decided to find out what we could do in this place. Rather a lot it turns out: paragliding, rafting, riding - you name it they do it. So after feeling excited about what was on offer we took the guy in the shops instructions to go and buy me some shoes - as flip flops wouldnt cut it. Eventually we found a supermarket with dodgy blue cheaps shoes which were perfect.

Upon leaving the supermercado we hopped in a taxi and gave the guy the hostel address. I asked if it was close and he said it was a 45min drive away... YOU WHAT? So we quickly hopped out the taxi and made a plan. If we didnt rock up to the hostel they would charge Al's card so we needed to get in touch to cancel it. So we made our way back into town to locate a hostel which we successfully did. The very kind owner allowed us to use the internet to get the hostel tel no. and then let us call to cancel it. Engaged. Try again. Engaged. Again? Engaged. Wow this must be a busy hostel...

We made the executive decision to go there oursleves check it out, stay a night perhaps and move the next night. So we called a taxi and off we went... we got further and further out of town. At first it seemed great. We were close to the lake, it was amazing countryside and all seemed to be improving. After another 20mins it was starting to feel like we were in the middle of nowhere and it was quite concerning when the taxi driver could not find the hostel for the life of him. What seemed like hours later we had arrived. The Hostel looked OK but I didn't start to panic until the door creaked open and we were greeted by a very hairy looking hippie who had a creepy femal sounding voice and asked if we were Florence and Becky. He looked like the type that could easily have a machete/chain saw under his bed.
I got a bad feeling... this is def how horror movies start!

He showed us to our room which was very basic, bland and with little light. That was when we realised we were the only people staying in the hostel! If we were to scream I could not guarentee anyone would hear us. We were pretty sure that this was not the place for us. So we had to explain to creepmeister that infact we wanted to stay a little closer to town and as much as we loved his hostel we wanted to move. He took it better than expected but it was a little awkward when we discovered we didnt have any money to pay him the cancellation fee. So we had to walk 1km to the local supermarket in the blistering heat to get some cash out. By this point we were seriously tired, hot and hungry. We made it back alive - Just, to pay and leave.

We had been told that it was very common for people to hitchhike into town so as we walked to the bus stop we very gingerly put out our thumbs just incase someone might stop (which we found very entertaning). That was until a few seconds later and the third car that has passed pulled in! WOW has he stopped for us? Run Florence, Run! Yes - it's for us. So we hopped in the back of the truck and off we went... Things had certainly started to look up. (We got the most amazing views of the lake from the back of the truck.)
We were dropped into town and made our way to the internet cafe to find a hostel to stay in.

We had been given a map at the bus st. and there was a hostel on there called freedom, so I gave them a call, and luckily they had 2 beds but not in the same room. Doesnt matter, we'll take them! We were lucky to find anywhere in high season - Perfect! We went back to book the activities we wanted to do to find out that paragliding was all booked up. Bummer. So we booked Canopy for tomorrow and riding the next day.

As we opened the door to the hostel, EVERYONE turned to stare at us... it took the manager a second or two to realise that we were the people that had just booked the room and jumped to attention. Whilst everyone continued to stare I explained that I had just called etc and he took us to room 12 which would be my room and then right out into the back to this small castle looking thing to the next room where Flo would be sleeping. What a long day and what an unfriendly hostel! Great... we dropped our bags and decided to go out for an early dinner.

We had a 3hour long dinner and by the end had become friends with the waiters! I think we were procrastinating as we didnt want to go back to the hostel. So after that we went online for a hour and slowly made our way back. By this point it was freezing so we went to our prospecive (is that right?) rooms to put more layers on. When I got to my room it was filled with girls getting ready to go out. They were really friendly and introduced themselves. They were all from Israel and they made me feel comfortable straight away. Phew. Then Flom came over and said we should go hang out in her little castle...

When we got into the castle there were 10 boys all sitting around chatting in a funny language... overwhelming or what? They all told us to sit down and join them. Turns out they were all from Israel too! We had been told about this by fellow travellers. Israelis travel in big groups and they take over hostels. So here were were right in the middle of an all Israeli hostel. It all started to make sense. That was why they were all staring at us, they were thinking what are these foreigners doing here?! But we had had NO idea. Hilarious.

So they were all really friendly but it was a rather bizarre situation. F and I with 10 Israelis - who would have thought. Most of the time we had no idea what was going on. Some were more interested in talking to us than others but it was more enjoyable than being hacked to death by a chainsaw! So eventually we decided to go to bed, I tucked Flo in along with her fellow 9 boys and went back to my room.

We had a lie in and then made our way to our first booked activity - Canopy, whilst the boys made their way to the 7 lakes. Canopy was funny. It was basically 9 zip lines around the forest. It turned out that it was probably more an activity for school kids, but we had a laugh all the same and at least I got to wear my new sexy blue shoes! There was one really long zip which was the length of 2 blocks (230m or something) and another which had the most amazing view of the lake. But probably not something I would do again. It didnt really get my blood pumping - unlike the zip I did may years ago off a cliff into a lake which was amazing.

So we made our way back to the hostel and just hung out. The boys came back and told us to join them. They were going out that evening so we sat around had some food and they started drinking. We were unsure as we had riding the next day but when they offered us a drink it was a bit rude to decline. We had an absolute ball, they taught us some really good games and when it turned 1.30am we were def ready to go dancing! So there we were with our new family: Yuval, Dan, Guy, Nitska, Shaggy, Silvan and Roy off to the club. They were so sweet and looked after us so well. Turns out the club was full of Israelis too!

When we got back at 6am we realised that in 3hrs we were meant to be going riding. Erm.... no thanks! So I left as message in my interesting attempt at spanish with reception to cancel it for us.

The next day we just hung out... sunbathing and writing our journals. When you walked around the hostel EVERYONE was on their i-phones/i-pods. It wasn't until our family invited us for supper and explained about friday nights that we got what was going on. Apparently in Israel friday night is really important, where all the family get together for dinner. So all day everyone had been skyping their families as it was the perfect time to speak to everyone.

It was amazing. The boys went to the supermarket and bought all the food for dinner. I cant explain how small the kitchen was and there were 6 of them running around doing various things and an hour later they had created the most delicious dinner for all 9 of us. They even made the sitting room look nice (which was hard). Before we sat down for dinner they did a prayer and blessed the wine which was then passed around.

That night we played more games... we taught them ring of fire - which went down a treat! It was possibly the funniest i've played. I think the rules that went down the best were no names and pick a mate. They found it hilarious when one person said a name and one person would have to drink, but then so would their mates! Brilliant. There was A LOT of laughing and woooooooooooooooowing going on. Later on we went back to the same club.

It was so much fun and I can't explain how friendly everyone was to us, not just our new family but everyone in the hostel. In general hostels are quite friendly but here, everyone wanted to talk to us, ask where we were from, invited us out with them - it was great! The other thing that was great was that they really tried to speak in English as much as they could, or would translate for us to keep us involved.

It was also really interesting to learn about another culture... they were telling us what it was like to be in the army. Everyone has to go into the army there when they leave school, the boys for 3 years and the girls 2. They all then go travelling when they finish - mainly in SAmerica. Learning about what they feel about those that dont go to the army, why they all have long hair because they have to shave while in the army and all kinds of things I found very interesting. The most interesting was that they only really meet other Israelis when they travel as they all stay in the same hostels and go to the same places. We were the first non-Israeli people they had met (other than the odd Brazilian). Which was crazy to me!

It was sad to say goodbye but F only had 5 or so days left and there was so much more to do... we had a total blast with the boys and we miss them but there is a small possibility that I may see some of them in Brasil and if not we are def going to Israel at some point!