Posts Tagged With: Brazil

Foz de Iguacu

Posted on September 26, 2023 by julieallen36

After our wonderful stay in the Pantanal, we were sad to be leaving but looking forward to our next stop….Iguacu Falls. Again, it took a bit of travel to get here, basically retracing our steps to Campo Grande for an overnight stay. Well I say overnight, we arrived at about 7pm went straight to sleep and then woke at 1-30am for our pick up to catch our flight to São Paulo at 4-30am. From there we’d have a two hour layover before our next flight to Foz de Iguacu. It sounded hideous but actually it was all really relaxed and worked out fine. Our next guide, Giovanni picked us up and we arrived at our luxury hotel, The Sanma, at about lunchtime and went straight down to the lovely pool area to make the most of the afternoon sunshine. We had lunch down there and a couple of ‘Original Beers’. It was great to have the afternoon off! We ate in the hotel at night but it was a very average spag bol and there was an unfortunate incident with a mosquito in a glass of wine. Luckily the lady waiter was more understanding than the gents!

Anyway…..what did we get up into in Iguacu Falls? Well first let me tell you a little bit about the falls themselves. My info comes courtesy of Google, as whilst Giovanni was a safe driver and generally nice guy, he did not impart much knowledge for this old geographer! He did, however, correct my understanding of ‘Gauchos’ as he IS a gaucho whereas those cowboys in the Pantanal were Pantaneiro.

So, Iguacu Falls are in fact a network of 275 waterfalls spanning an area of 1.8 miles. They were first discovered by Europeans in 1541 when Conquistador, Álvares Nunez Cabeza de Vaca came across them on a stroll. Luckily, they decided to use the local Guarani name for the falls…not the old Conquistador’s as that wouldn’t have been so snappy. ‘Iguacu’ (or Iguazu on the Argentine side) means ‘big water’. Sounds pretty accurate to me.

In 1984 the falls were made a UNESCO heritage site and in 2011 were voted one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. The falls are vastly larger than Niagra and although Victoria Falls have a larger single curtain of water, Iguacu are the biggest overall. This famously led Elenor Roosevelt to declare ‘Poor Niagra’ when she visited the falls herself!

So, what do you actually do, see, hear and feel when you visit Iguacu? Well, I will tell you about this in my next post but what I will say is that whereas I’d expected this to be yet another wild frontier where we’d be hacking our own path through the rainforest to reach the falls, this wasn’t quite the case!

Apart from visiting the falls whilst we were here we did enjoy a bit more of a relaxing time, spending time by the pool and visiting the Bird Park next door which was great, lots of the birds we’d seen in the Pantanal but now up close and personal! Especially the toucans, parrots and Macaw!

After our first night in the hotel we also got a bit more adventurous and went out to dinner. The first night we went to a really nice, family Japanese restaurant where we ordered way too much food! The next night we found a new Italian restaurant full of mod cons where I had pizza and Jane had Strogonoff. Sensible portions for the first time and we even had space for a Dulce de Leche waffle with ice cream! I found it quite incredible that we were in this wild place catching Ubers and eating Italian and gyozas!

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Argentina, Brazil, Iguacu | 3 Comments

Iguacu Falls from all sides

Posted on September 26, 2023 by julieallen36

As we had a few days here we were able to see all sides of the falls. Our first trip with Giovanni was to the Argentinian side. This involved an early pick up and a short drive to the border between Brazil and Argentina. There’s a lot of roadworks going on at the moment because they’re building a new bridge between Brazil and Paraguay which also borders here. To cross the border we first of all had to exit Brazil. We had to go into a border post with our passports where a few mangy dogs lay about. The nice lady stamped our passports and we moved on. We drove a bit further and then had to enter Argentina. Here we stayed in the van whilst Giovanni did the necessary. It’s all quite easy really with the help of a guide. Loads of people gather around the border posts, parked mopeds, shady dealers…goodness knows what was going on.

Iguacu Falls gets over 1 million visitors per year and the infrastructure built on both sides of the border to support this is impressive. However, compared to other ‘Most Visited Tourist Attractions’ this number remains small and nowhere near the top 50 worldwide. Even ‘Poor Niagra’ gets 22.5million visitors and that’s No 5 on the list. Top of the list by the way is the Las Vegas Strip with 39.6 million visitors annually.

Soon we were entering the park and our first stop was the Garganta do Diablo or Devils Throat. We had to get on a little train which took us closer to the falls. The park was very, very crowded and after the train we then walked about 1km across a metal walkway which wound its way over the flat but bulging river. When you arrive at the falls there are various viewpoints above the mists and falls of the Diablo. It’s very loud and in places you get very wet! We’d brought our ponchos all the way from the UK but hadn’t packed them today. Idiots! Cameras etc were all getting wet but it was great fun.

The second part of the visit here is another metal walkway which goes right along the cliff top of the falls for about 2km. Here you walk across bridges right next to where the individual falls go over the cliffs. The volume of water is incredible. Jane and I both loved our visit but agreed that it was very difficult to capture it on camera. Still, on the walk back she started taking photos of the beautiful butterflies whilst I chatted to Giovanni about Peaky Blinders and Sopranos!

We were due to visit the Brazilian side of the falls on Saturday but there was a marathon taking place (in this heat? It’s been 37 degrees! ) and Giovanni got stuck in heavy traffic as he’d predicted would happen. So we postponed our visit to today (Monday) before we fly on to Buenos Aires.

The Brazilian side is a lot more relaxed and being Monday less busy. The walk starts at the Pink Hotel (Belmond Iguacu Falls). We didn’t even try to use their loo today! Here there is a single walkway that goes for about a mile gradually going down into the gorge and getting closer to the falls. The views from here are awesome as you get to see the full panorama in front of you. The water is a beautiful jade green colour in parts. At the ‘bottom’ the metal walkway stretches right out over the water to a viewpoint head on into the Devils Throat. Again, you get very wet walking to it but it’s a jaw dropping sight. We caught the ‘not very scenic lift’ back up and Giovanni was waiting there to take us to our final part of the day.

We got dropped a little further back along the river and taken in a series of extended golf carts down to the gorge floor where we were to catch our boat! We got a locker and left everything in it, boarding the boat in our swimming gear! No cameras, no nothing for this thrill ride.

We boarded the rib with about 20 other suckers and off we went, slowly at first. But then as we approached the falls and the river got more exciting, we sped up and twisted and turned into the rapids. Along the way we passed small beaches, wonderful forests, a mass of yellow butterflies and huge fallen rocks. This was all very nice but the highlight of the trip is when you really speed up and he charges the boat at part of the waterfalls themselves. Under the falling water you go, sideways, then head on! The noise and feel of the water is, I confess, a bit scary. You get absolutely soaked and I could hardly look because I was in fear of losing my contact lenses!! Meanwhile, the girl from London next to me is screaming ‘Look at it, Look at it, Look at it’. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant but assumed she was looking up at the water coming down! Crazy lady! Crazy ride!

Soon it was over (I’m not sure if I was sorry or relieved) and we headed back to base. Obviously, we took no pictures of all this but we did purchase the video evidence on a widget. On this Jane looks like she’s having a whale of a time, whilst I just look rather harassed. My favourite bit is when Jane was sitting twisted in her seat and I tell her to turn round and sit straight! Health and Safety! Health and Safety!

We declared the Brazilian side the winners and headed back to the hotel still dripping wet! Then we finished our packing, went back through the borders with Giovanni and caught our evening flight to Buenos Aires. Roll on the next few days and last stage of this amazing trip.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Argentina, Brazil, Iguacu | 5 Comments

Birds of the Pantanal

Posted on September 24, 2023 by julieallen36

The other thing that the Pantanal is famous for is the fabulous bird life. There are some 463 species of bird but I’m sorry to tell you we only spotted 47! Jane thinks we may have to go back after this poor effort🤓

Joking aside, the bird life was spectacular…better than anywhere I’ve ever been. We were constantly spotting so many different sightings. The main thing I learned was: Macaws are the big boys (and girls) and have a large area of bare skin around their eye. Parrots are midsize and have a short tail whereas Parakeets are generally the smallest and have long tails. Very useful.

Here is our complete list with apologies for spelling errors!

Roadside Hawk

Laughing Falcon

Rhea

Black Faced Ibis

Grey Cowled Woodrail

Hyacinth Macaw

Jabaru

Wattled Jacana

Caracara

Great Black Hawk

Red Legged Seriem

Little Nightjar

Rufescent Tiger Heron

Yellow Billed Cardinal

Southern Lapwing

Burrowing Owl

Blue Fronted Parrot

Vermillion Flycatcher

White winged Swallow

Bare Faced Curacao

Red and Green Macaw

Turquoise Fronted Amazon Parrot

Scaled Dove

Rufus Hornero

Capped Heron

Toco Toucan

Savannah Hawk

Peach Fronted Parakeet

Black Vulture

Wood Stork

Roseate Spoonbill

Blue-Black Grassquit

Black Capped DonaCobius

Rusty Marginned Flycatcher

Grey Breasted Martin

Nantay Parakeet

Keira Cuckoo

Blue Crowned Parakeet

Crested HoraPendulam

Smooth Billed Ani

Pale Crested Woodpecker

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: birds, Brazil, Pantanal | 4 Comments

Pantanal – The Big 5

Posted on September 23, 2023 by julieallen36

Just like Africa, the Pantanal has it’s own Big 5 in terms of animals to spot. I’m very pleased to report that, by the end of our stay, we’d seen all 5 which was very exciting.

The easiest to find were the cute Capybaras as they lived just outside the lodge gates by the ‘pond’. They’re very docile and could be found each morning with birds on their backs or occasionally sitting in the muddy water.

The Marsh Deer were actually quite hard to find. We saw lots of Pampas deer but the Marsh deer are bigger and have huge ears. To be honest, we didn’t get very excited about spotting deer…I mean Dave and Jayne get deer on their property in Scotland all the time!

The next easiest to find, bizarrely, we’re Jaguars!!! Now this is what we’d really come here to see and we definitely were not disappointed. In total we spotted 9 different Jaguars whilst we were there. My favourite sightings were:

1) The first night. We were following 1 Jaguar when it started to walk through to another area where there were 2 other male Jaguars playing together. It was dark and incredibly exciting as the guides all said how rare this was and they thought it might all kick off. It didn’t but instead Jafar and Scar played nicely whilst Mango kept a distance.

2) On our last night we came across Surya, a female Jaguar, lying sleeping in the grass in plain sight. We watched her for a while and then went to see her cub, Juba, who was hiding in a thicket nearby. Juba is actually 8 months old and she was very well hidden. We were about to move on when all of a sudden Surya came walking along. She looked as if she was going to walk past when Juba appeared out of the thicket. There was a flurry of movement as Surya flew at the cub and snarled angrily bearing her teeth as if to say ‘Don’t you dare get out of that bush’. We watched from within 15 metres of this completely open mouthed. But the action didn’t stop there. We proceeded to follow Surya across the track and to her kill from yesterday (a cow). Juba tried to follow but again got snarled at and held back. We watched this scene unfold for about an hour as it got dark. Mum tucked into the carcass as Juba watched patiently but every now and then edged towards the feast. Finally, when Mum had just about had enough, Juba was allowed to join in. It was an amazing thing to watch.

3) On our last morning, when it was just Jane and me in the van with our guides as everyone had left, we had one more treat. As we were driving back for breakfast all of a sudden by the track and right beside us, a HUGE Jaguar bounded out of one of the drainage pipes under the road where it had been sheltering. We’d been staring at a bird and just moved on and so I think we gave the waking Jaguar a fright. The power of this beast was awesome and we’d just met out 9th Jaguar, a big male called Caira. What a final treat!

The fourth of the Big 5 is the Giant Anteater. We had a couple of sightings of these strange looking beasts with their long nose for eating 35000 termites and other insects a day! They’re mostly nocturnal when the weather is hot and use their bushy tails to keep them warm when sleeping.

Finally, we had one more of the Big 5 to find, the Tapir. Another unusual creature with a nose like a mini trunk! They’re nocturnal too and we’d been told at the very beginning by Carol, that they were the most difficult to find. So, on our last night this was the mission for our truck, find the Tapir! We’d had no luck all afternoon but after the lamp lit dinner, Carol suggested we go and take a final look up Mango Alley. We could not believe our luck when there it was – our lovely, weird Tapir. He was only there for a fleeting couple of minutes before he mooched back into the field and was hidden in the long grass.

Fantastic…the Big 5……tick!

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Brazil, Jaguar, Pantanal | 4 Comments

Life in the Pantanal

Posted on September 22, 2023 by julieallen36

I’m writing this as we fly onto our next stop and after four and a half days in the Pantanal. We’ve been so busy that I’ve not had time really to post Blogs!! And I think this was supposed to be the relaxing part of the trip!

However, in answer to the question at the end of my last post ‘Was it worth all of that travel?’ the answer is most definitely YES!

The Pantanal is right in the centre of Brazil and is a huge area of 210,000km2 expanding into both Bolivia and Paraguay. It is a UNESCO World Heritage biome and 78% of the vegetation is still natural. It’s famous for it’s different seasons….the wet season running from Jan to March when vast areas become wetlands , perhaps what you think of when you picture the Pantanal. However, we were visiting in the dry season (Jul to Sept) when the land has drained and animals are easiest to find as they have to come out of hiding to find water.

Our lodge was Caiman Lodge a 53,000 hectares ‘farm’ owned by a rich Brazilian Businessman, Roberto Klabin. He has developed ecotourism here which means that cattle ranching works alongside the expanding tourism business. It’s a beautiful luxury lodge employing 120 local people and supporting several different conservation projects. We had one day with the NGO Oncafari Team whose specialist subject is Jaguars! Their ability to track the Jaguar (using remote cameras and collars that transmit VHF and GPS signals, is part of the reason for the success of tourism here. It has meant that the local ranchers realise that they don’t have to kill these beautiful animals , which do sometimes eat their cows, but can live in harmony as tourism provides so many other advantages (schools, healthcare) and income. Part of the deal is that the farmers are compensated if they lose more than 3% of their herd in a year…but so far since Oncafari began in 2012 , this has never happened.

Safaris, under the expert guidance of Carol and local driver ‘Giovanni with the Smiley eyes‘ take place in the early morning (5-30 to 9) and then in the late afternoon (4- 7-30pm). They’re exactly the same as an African safari and we had a wonderful time. There are so many different areas to explore with beautiful trees, waterholes, a vast permanent lake, grasslands, forested areas. Some of our favourite areas were ‘Mango Alley’ (look out here for tapir), Anteater orchard full of termite mounds, Bat Bridge (where at night we’d drive through so many insects attracted by spotter lamp and which in turn meant we had bats flying all around us) and ‘The Armadillo Garden’.

In between game drives we ate wonderful meals and rested up. It was so hot (a stifling 37degrees) outside during the day that we hid in our room mostly with the air con on! However, once we were feeling better we did really enjoy swimming in the lovely pool and had it all to ourselves.

We made new friends on our safari trips , Julie and Suki, who were from Tring, near London! Very similar in age and outlook to us so it made our whole time very sociable and fun.

There were two ‘secret’ special evening meals whilst we were there. The first was held at a ranch where we ate traditional Brazilian cowboy food including steak carved off a great big stick and very rare but tasty. This was Jane’s birthday and we were serenaded by a couple of the old gauchos too. It’s a little uncomfortable as it remains very hot, you’re still dressed in all your smelly safari gear and covered in Deet to fight off the mosquitos but boy the beers (or ‘Chop’) tasted good that night!

The next night we were taken in the safari vehicles, to an open area in the bush which had been lit up with about 200 lanterns and looked absolutely magical. We sat at long tables chatting with fellow guests, several Brits, including a very posh couple in their 80s who were having a ‘super’ adventure all around Brazil! We were also joined by a very nice American couple from Texas and a lovely young Brazilian lady who was accompanying her very elderly aunt.

It is truly a special place, as I’ll try to show you over the next couple of posts, where I’ll focus (or Jane and her camera will)on what we saw. We were not disappointed!!

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Brazil, Pantanal | Leave a comment

Marius Restaurant or a Pirate’s Den?

Posted on September 20, 2023 by julieallen36

Guest blogger- Jane

When I was looking for somewhere a little different to eat for our last night I found restaurant “Marius Degustare”, which was on Avenida Atlantico at the far end where we had walked that day and it was rated 5 stars and 16,969 reviews can’t be wrong.

I knew from the elaborate entrance of bright blue lit palm trees and camp gold covered figurines at the entrance, that I had made the right choice! Inside was a “Pirates Cave” full of quirky lights, lots more figurines, the walls were covered with plates or painted in gold and covered in mirrors. And guess what?…. there were pirates everywhere (they were the waiters) and I should add at this point they were not the jolly sort but were quite surly, some may say grumpy and we thought highly amusing.

We were shown to our table and they explained what happens next. They asked us our nationality and then planted a flag with your country on your table.

Julie did not recognise the flag of the couple sitting nearest to us but could not ask the nice lady where they were from as the whole night she had her iPhone in front of her face taking photos for Instagram. Instead, Julie asked the burly chap who said in a rather gruff manner “Brazil Regional”. We thought he might be auditioning to be a pirate!

This was an all you can eat steak and seafood restaurant where the not so jolly pirates, each came round with trays of meat/fish that had just been prepared or in the case of the steaks were still on a hot stone so you could have it the way you liked it. You did not get the whole steak you got small pieces of meat and then more meat and then more and so on.

These are some of the ones that we were offered that I remember:

Tenderloin, Tomahawk, T-Bone, Porterhouse, Fillet, Ribeye and Sirloin.

The fish platters had these that I remember:

Lobster Tails, Oysters, Squid, Octopus; King Prawns, Sea Bass.

Woe betide you if you were vegetarian, as your list was limited to a grilled mushroom.

This wasn’t everything, oh no, they had an all you can eat and loosely titled salad bar too, on which we found:

Giant mussels, oxtail stew, seafood paella, plus lattice crisps, smoked salmon and asparagus (for the vegetarians) and so much more but can’t possible name it all.

We could have ordered a bottle of wine off their extensive wine list for around £200 but we had a Portuguese red for £35. It was very nice.

As we were eating someone moved around the room and started swinging all the lights and then a bell clanged at that point people started clapping. We had no idea why but being British we joined in.

To get to the loo you had to go up an elaborate staircase at which we noticed couples posing in front of a huge mirror for a selfie so we tried that but the photo had the iPhone in it so I must have been doing something wrong.🤦‍♀️

If it was your birthday four surly pirates surrounded you, clapping and singing happy birthday (yes we all joined in of course) they however finished as quickly as they could so they could back to serving meat and fish without a smile passing their lips!

Then every now and then a man in full pirate gear but wearing white wellies came out with a mop and cleaned up any spillages.

Before we got the bill and prepared to leave I decided to go to the loo. When I got there, I felt something odd underfoot. It was crunchy and smelt of coffee. That’s because it was coffee, coffee beans to be precise, yes honestly, fresh coffee beans strewn all over the floor of a gaudy pink ladies which had a massive pair of pink lips above the toilet.

Well this is new I thought and I ordered an Uber for us to get back to our hotel. We possibly did not do justice to the all you can eat menu but we had a wonderful time and laughed a lot – it was fab!

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Brazil, Rio | 5 Comments

Samba at the Rio Scenarium

Posted on September 16, 2023 by julieallen36

Of course we didn’t cancel!!! Hurrah. Strangely, it was me that was more up for this big night out than Jane. So off we went with Raquel (I’ve mistakenly been calling her Rachel up until now) and Raphael. We drove through the rain over to Lapa and a really cool cobbled street full of bars and nightclubs. This area was quite run down until an enterprising chap converted the old mansion into a three-floor nightclub, full of quirky antique collections. It had a capacity to hold 2000 people and the check in procedures are quite elaborate. You get given a card in which your drinks and food orders are recorded and then you settle up on exit.

Once in, Raquel took us to a table right at the front near the live band which she said was very lucky but I think that once again she’d worked her magic with the staff. She knows everyone! We ordered our drinks and while they came we shuffled off to have a good look round. The place was starting to fill up and as we looked at the other party people we began to feel a bit more comfortable. The crowd was like a mix between a wedding, an office Christmas party and a rather tame hen night for someone who’s done it all before. What I’m getting at there is that this was not an uber-cool crowd but rather older people letting their hair down.

After our little walk round we sat down and enjoyed the first band. This is samba music so lots of drums and beats and the singer looked like the guy out of Fine Young Cannibals. People were dancing and swaying but we sat drinking our mild Caipirinhas which was our new favourite cocktails made with cachaca (rum?), sugar and lime. It’s the National drink of Brazil. Poor Raquel tried to encourage us to dance but we held back. This could be a long night!

However, once the band had finished the wedding disco started up…with ABBA’s Dancing Queen, Michael Jackson and ‘Don’t Stop til you get Enough’ and I finally gave in and got up and danced with the crowd to The Bee Gees and ‘Staying Alive!’. Jane was having none of this forced-fun and held out until finally, she could no longer resist when Mambo No 5 came on. Now we were in the swing of it and sang out loud to Shania Twain (Man, I feel like a Woman) and the Macarena.

We took our seats and listened to the next band. A regular lady singer who sang all about the perils of love. Everyone seemed to know the words which Raquel explained compared love to a pain in your elbow. The songs seemed to be extremely long and we drank another couple of Caipirinhas. I made friends with the group of girls on the next table. They were sitting beneath the sign that had the Guardian article on it declaring this to be one of the top 10 bars in the world. I got up to take a closer look and ended up making friends. They explained that they were all from somewhere in the south of Brazil and they were very elegant and friendly.

The Guardian article was quite appropriate as it described the bar as somewhere where ‘Even awkward English girls with no sense of rhythm end up dancing’. How very rude.

After the second band finished we decided it was time to leave. Lovely Raphael was waiting for us in the car and we all laughed together about the evening as we drove back to our hotel. What a fun night it had turned out to be and I’d highly recommend it to anyone visiting this vibrant city. It was about 11 o’clock when we left and high time these OAPs were in bed.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Brazil, Rio | 6 Comments

Rio’s Botanical Gardens

Posted on September 15, 2023 by julieallen36

This was to be a day of two halves. In the daytime we’d be a couple of OAPs, claiming our Senior’s discounts to get into the Botanical Gardens. By night, we’d be going back to our youth and nightclubbing in one of The Guardian’s Top 10 Bars in the world!!

At breakfast we met a nice man from São Paulo, who told us he was good friends with Richard Branson. He was in Rio to visit the arts festival here ArtRIO and was keen that we should attend. However, we had other plans for our day on our own…making our way to the Botanical Gardens in an UBER. It all worked really well and I must say Jane is an absolute genius at sorting all of that out as I haven’t got a clue!

Today the weather was due to go off and rain was forecast for later on. However, it started swelteringly hot and the gardens are pretty big. We had a list of the top things to see here but I struggled to get to grips with the map and scale of the place. This meant we went up some random paths just to see what we could find.

First up, the very hot Cactus Garden where the fuchsia pink dragonflies really caught out eye but we’re hard to photo.

Next up was ‘Monkey Alley’ (our name) where suddenly one, then more and more, small Capuchin Monkeys appeared amongst the foliage. They’re very cute and come quite close as they try to cross the pathways. This wasn’t even on the top list of things to see!!

We walked a bit further among the 8000 different species of trees and our next spot was 2 Toucan’s. They were quite hidden but the flash of yellow is unmistakeable! Rachel had told us that she’d only ever seen one here in all her time of visiting so it did seem quite a privilege! They’re smaller than I expected but absolutely beautiful.

One of the best things to see is the Orchidarium which is home to some of the world’s most rare orchids and there are over 1000 orchids cultivated and preserved here. There was a tiny Japanese lady taking care of them and it looked as if this magnificent display was her life’s work. Bless.

By now we were starting to flag in the heat so we were glad that we found the cafe next to ‘Monkey River’ (real name) and cooled off with an iced tea and a sub-standard Natas! We did feel totally revived and went on to find the huge ‘Avenue of Palms’ which is lined with 40ft tall imperial palms and really impressive. We found the large and beautifully reflective lake surrounded by lush vegetation but must admit we were a little disappointed by the famous Giant Amazonian Water Lilies. There weren’t many of them and in my opinion, they weren’t that giant. However, the fish in the lake were absolutely huge so they made up for it!

As we continued our walk around we saw lots of beautiful flowers (on trees) but sadly none of the promised Humming Birds. Maybe it’s not the season as it is actually Winter here. We did however, find a Marmoset Tree. Now these really are cute little things with their fluffy ears and striped tails -like a lemur.

Jane also managed to capture on film several of the beautiful species of bird we found around the garden including a Tyrant Flycatcher and the tiny yellow Saffron Finch. She had a nice chat with a fellow photographer from Rio – although how they managed I don’t know- as he spoke no English and our Portuguese remains limited to ‘Ola’ and ‘Obrigado’.

So after all of this excitement we got another UBER back to the hotel. We were totally exhausted and the day had now clouded over. However, tonight we had our big Rio Night Out booked, so after a bit of a rest we headed out for tea just up the road and in the rain! We crept back to the hotel and remained less than enthusiastic about going out at 8pm…..should we cancel? It was very tempting…..