I met my parents on the Isle of Man on 24
May, seeing them for the first time since leaving Australia on 30 November
(literally “seeing” them for the first time, since I haven’t been able to get
video skype to work all year).
The Isle of Man
This small island is situated somewhere
between Ireland, Scotland and Wales but maintains a fairly strong independent
identity. IOM is a pleasant and beautiful place, but certainly much less
exciting than Istanbul, my last stop prior to visiting my parents. My parents
had hired the ugliest ever rental car, much to the annoyance of my father who
likes nice cars. In this ugly car we drove to all corners of the Island, seeing
an old mansion in the North and a small fishing village in the West. We also
caught an old steam train down to a town (Port Erin) in the South.
My father next to the IOM steam train
The IOM is known for its annual Tourist
Trophy (TT) race, the winner of which is crowned the King of the Mountain. The
most interesting thing about this race is how dangerous it is: over 200 people
have died since the inaugural race in 1907. There are no speed limits, no
limits to the power of the bikes, no proper fences (just stone walls) and no
banking on sharp turns. One bad mood and a rider can end up bouncing across a
paddock. We were in the IOM during practice week and it was interesting to see
the crowds of motorcycle enthusiasts forming to follow this year’s race. Only 2
people died this year, so it was either a good year, or a boring year,
depending on your perspective.
At the TT practice week
The main road of Douglas
London
From the IOM we flew to London, which was
our original meeting point (I met my parents a few days earlier due to some
amended travel plans). Our accommodation in London was in Maida Vale, which was
where we stayed during our first family trip to London in 1998, and our
favourite place to stay in London. I spent most of my time in London
frantically preparing for South America, including buying some stuff that I
needed for the weather (it will be freezing cold when I get to Bolivia) and
buying hiking gear (although I’d stupidly bought a pair of bulky and heavy
boots 4 weeks earlier and lugged them around Europe). Frustratingly, it was
extremely difficult to buy a ski jacket in London in late May because for some
reason all of the outdoor clothing shops only sell clothes according to the
British seasons, which is stupid because: 1) the English summer is pretty
underwhelming and sometimes you might want to wear a ski jacket in that kind of
weather, 2) people go to outdoor shops to buy clothes for all sorts of reasons,
often travelling, and it is highly likely that people will be travelling to
places not experiencing the same weather as the UK. Rant over.
Our other activities in London included
going to an old surgical theatre that had been boarded up and forgotten for a
100 years before being rediscovered in the 1950s.
The operating theatre taken from the vantage point of where medical students used to stand
The operating table
A "blood box"!!!
We also did a day trip to Oxford for my
father’s birthday. I wanted to show him around the town and the college (New
College) that I did my exchange studies at in 2010.
Mum in New College's cloisters
The Rad Cam
My dad in Maida Vale
On 30 May my father departed the UK as he
had to return to work. On 31 May my mum and I flew to Lisbon, a
stopover on route to South America.
Lisbon
I had no expectations for Lisbon and was
very pleasantly surprised. Lisbon is a planned city with wide Boulevards and a
spectacular location just a short drive from the coast. In 1755 the city was
destroyed by an earthquake, which triggered a tsunami, which in turn caused
widespread fires that destroyed all that remained of the centre of the city.
Accordingly, the city needed to be rebuilt. The city that was rebuilt was done
with much care and consideration to aesthetics and shared public places.
The main square of Lisbon
Some amazing guitar playing in Lisbon
Lisbon has an excellent aquarium where mum
and I decided to spend a couple of hours in the morning as a stop-off on the
terrible hop-on hop-off bus that we’d stupidly decided to do.
A penguin in the aquarium
We also did a day trip out to Sintra with
Trilhos do Sudoeste. This was a great way to spend the afternoon, as we got to
visit the beach resort town of Cascais, go to the most westerly point of
continental Europe, and to top it all off we visited Pena Palace, an old
Moorish-influenced castle which was beautiful.
A pigeon going out for coffee
Pena Palace
Rio
Our first stop in South America was Rio de
Janeiro. We were there just a few days before the World Cup started, which made
the visit more interesting in many respects. One thing that we noticed a lot of
was unfinished construction work – many projects (such as the light and sound
museum on Copacabana beach) had been designed to spiffy up the city to impress
the influx of tourists visiting Brazil for the World Cup.
The first thing that mum and I did in Rio
was taking the Corcovado tramway up to Christ the Redeemer. I was actually more
impressed with the tram ride (which was heaps fun) than the monument itself. The
view from up there was also spectacular. Here are some photos:
Corcovado tram
My 7th world wonder
View from Christ the Redeemer
That afternoon we met up with Bianca, a
classmate of mine who has also deferred her studies for the year. It was lovely
to see her and hear about her adventures in Peru. We had a drink at the
fanciest hotel in Copacabana (the Copacabana Palace Hotel), which is the sort
of place that I could really get used to hanging out in but can barely even
afford to sit by the pool and drink in.
The following morning was spent walking
along Ipanema and then Copacabana beaches. Ipanema is a lot more low key than
Copacabana, and the differences were more pronounced as the imminent kick off
of the World Cup was making Copacabana pretty crazy (it turns out that the
strange, and kind of unstable looking, structure across the road at the end of
Copacabana beach is the headquarters of the news media reporting on the World
Cup).
After seeing the beaches we took the cable
car up Sugarloaf Mountain, which was stunning. Here are some pictures:
The view coming down from sugarloaf mountain
View down from sugarloaf mountain
That afternoon we visited Santa Marta
Favela. This particular Favela is noteworthy for 2 reasons: 1) it’s where
Michael Jackson filmed the clip for “They Don’t Really Care About Us” in the
mid 1990s, 2) It was the first favela to be “pacified”. Favelas are notoriously
dangerous; they are informal communities, essentially slums on the sides of
hills. Of all the South American countries, Brazil, and especially Rio, have
the most notorious favelas. Until recently favelas have been hotbeds of illicit
activity and violence. In order for MJ to film his video clip the favela had to
enter into a 2 day truce; anecdotally the daily shootings recommenced as soon
as the 2 day truce ended.
Considering my penchant for unusual travel
destinations, I was determined to get some first hand experience of a favela,
however, I do not want to die anytime soon, and I’m even less keen on the idea
of my travel buddy (mum) dying prematurely, so I found a tour in what is now
the safest favela in Rio. As I mentioned earlier, Santa Marta has been
pacified. This means that the drug gangs have been chased out by law
enforcement and now the favela is full of security (cameras, 65 police officers
at any one time) and actually one of the safest parts of town. Indeed, despite
the fact that I brought along a disposal camera from Boots and carried nothing
except for some money tucked into my bra, I was probably being over cautious.
Copacabana Beach at sunset
Ipanema beach at dusk
Our tour in the favela was made more
interesting by a couple of journalists from Reuters who ended up on our tour due
to some sort of administrative mix up. They were in Brazil to cover the World
Cup and were visiting the favela as part of a report on Rio in the lead up to
the World Cup. Considering what I saw in the favela – resentment about the way
that FIFA and the government were managing the World Cup, frustration at the
daily inequalities and injustices of life in the favela etc – I was very
interested to see how this would be received by these particular journalists.
Although these guys were clearly very nice guys, I could tell that they were in
a bit of a jam as they had clearly been instructed to write a “good news story”,
including lots of footage of favela residents beaming enthusiastically into the
camera. The only question that they asked was “how has the world cup benefitted
you?” to which the answer was universally along the lines of the interviewee
disagreeing with the premise of the question. And this was when they could get
people to agree to the interviews. Everybody who they asked for an interview
was unwilling and uncomfortable to be seen on the news talking about the World
Cup. This was pretty understandable considering the mass protests that were
being planned by favela residents to coincide with the kick off of the cup.
Nobody was keen to be the face of a news report so antithetical to the social
movements of the communities in which they lived.
Paraty
We spent a night in the beautiful old
colonial town of Paraty. We travelled there by public bus, which was a pretty
pleasant experience. Paraty used to be a major trading port due to its location
as a midway point between Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paolo, but lost significance
when an inland road was built to connect the two cities. Consequently, it is
remarkably well preserved and free from modernisation. We spent our day in
Paraty wondering the streets taking photos and drinking Amarula by the pool at
our Pousada.
A horse and cart in Paraty
Paraty
Cats in Paraty
Iguassu
We spent 3 days at Iguassu/Iguazu Falls, 2
on the Brazilian side and 1 on the Argentinean side. When we arrived (on the
Brazilian side) it was extremely wet and overcast.
The following morning it was still
extremely wet, but slightly less overcast, so we booked on a Macuco safari,
which is a boat trip where they take you under some of the lesser parts of the
waterfall.
Here are some photos from that morning:
Mum at the very wet falls
Wet wet wet
That afternoon the boat trips were
cancelled (we were one of the last) as the people operating the tours had
decided that it was too dangerous. I am actually surprised that they didn’t
make this call earlier. We spent the afternoon at the bird park just outside of
the national park. It was a pretty cool place, however I am quite scared of
birds so it was challenging for me. I’ve actually had to conquer a few phobias
over the past month, which is a good thing as I have many phobias and probably
need to confront them in order to lead a less fear filled life. I’m now a bit
better around birds, and I can also snorkel (another former phobia) and I even
flew in a small aircraft, although I suspect that might have heightened my fear
of flying. Here’s a small sample from the bird park:
Blue macaws
Scary
The only time we saw the falls looking relatively normal
On our final day at Iguassu falls we were
due to spend the day exploring the Argentinean side of the park. However, the
previous afternoon, unbeknownst to us, the Brazilian government had released
water from a large dam upstream in order to ease some severe and tragic
flooding. This caused the falls to break all previous records, and we were
lucky to see them at their highest level EVER. They didn’t look like falls
anymore, instead they looked like this:
Check out the rainbow!
We crossed over to the Argentinean side of
the falls, but unfortunately couldn’t visit the falls there as the park had
(sensibly) been closed to visitors. We were lucky that we were staying at the
hotel within the park on the Brazilian side, meaning that we got to see this,
as otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to get in. Most of the walkways were
washed away by this flood (I have heard that they have already been restored,
which is impressive, and also reveals how far behind I am in blogging!). Due to
the park closure my mother and I decided to spend the day having massages and
facials. It was great!
Buenos Aires and Colonia (Uruguay)
Our final destination was Buenos Aires,
where we spent 3 days, including a day trip to Colonia in Uruguay.
The first thing that we did on arrival in
Buenos Aires was attempt to get our hands on some Argentinean Pesos, something
which is quite a challenge unless you are the sort of person who enjoys
trusting dodgy strangers who approach you on the street and try to take you to
a dark place to swap money. Luckily, we had connections and managed to get some
pesos at a good rate. The reason that this is that the official rate of
exchange is quite different to the black market rate (about 7 pesos per USD,
versus 11.8, which is what I got on the black market). As such, it is important
to exchange your money on the black market unless you want your trip to
Argentina to be quite expensive!
All up, we had a couple of days in Buenos
Aires, during which time we:
- - Visited the Opera House
- - Visited Recoleta cemetery and wandered around Recoleta
- - Walked around Palermo, where we were staying
- - Walked around San Telmo
- - And the highlight: we had dinner with a friend of mine, Ayelen, at a beautiful steak restaurant. The evening consisted of great conversation and insights into Argentinean life and politics, great food, and my second attempt to get to know red wine (the first was with Spumante in Italy in 2004, needless to say this second occasion was much more successful!)
(^this is what happens to my blog posts
when I’m feeling lazy)
Sunset over BA
Opera House in BA
The final thing that we did during our stay
in Buenos Aires was to take a ferry to Uruguay to visit the charming old town
of Colonia. We booked this on our middle day in Buenos Aires, because I’m not
much of a city girl and thought that it would be nice to escape to somewhere
smaller to break up the big city time (yeah, 3 days is too much for me). Colonia
was great and I thoroughly enjoyed walking around the streets and taking photos
until the WORLD’S BIGGEST THUNDERSTORM arrived and we had to shelter in a
restaurant. Luckily, we found a lovely restaurant in which to spend a couple of
hours and managed to get back to Buenos Aires without being struck by lightning
(I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was actually a pretty close call, as
we ducked into a souvenir shop to escape the rain at one point and whilst we
were inside there was a massive lightning strike directly over the shop.
Here is Colonia:
Next stop
Incredible mountain climbing and
spectacular waterfalls in Venezuela.
