It's where the nuts come from

It was with sadness that we headed out of Rio, in actual fact we nearly didn’t head out of Rio, Copacabana is separated from the centre of the city and the North beyond by a series of tunnels. These tunnels help to restrict heavy vehicle access to the narrow streets of the centre. No trucks, only buses. So of course this was one of the times that Ithaca became a bus. However the police didn’t see it like that, about 200m away from the tunnel we were flagged down and Simon proceeded to get involved in a ‘no camion - autobus’ conversation. The policeman wasn’t sure until we got everyone to stick their heads out the windows and yell ‘BUS’ at him, then we were waved through! It hasn’t done much to help Emma and Simon’s constant battle to get the whole group calling it a truck, but at least we managed to leave Rio.

So in to the hills. We drove on some beautiful winding roads higher and higher away from the ocean bringing with them some much needed breeze and coolness. The hills around Rio are beautiful and have been the refuge of Rio’s wealthy population since the Portugese first arrived here. We spent a couple of hours in Petropolis admiring the old buildings and beautiful architecture

Petropolis

Then we headed on to our camp in Teresopolis (Brazil loves its dramatic Greek-sounding names!) to celebrate a slightly belated joint birthday for Ann, Le and Maddie. This camp came armed with a huge swimming pool and some raucous neighbours, however it was also to mark the end of our time battling the Brazilian high season and Christmas hordes as we headed away from the more densely populated South.

Triple birthday - Ann, Maddie & Le

This was the case in our next camp in Ouro Preto where we were the only occupants of the camp (except a few chickens and dogs.) Ouro Preto is a town built from the proceeds of the gold in the surrounding hills, its winding, crooked, impossibly steep streets make for some good exercise and the stunning churches exercise the soul and mind. Some people also explored the gold museums and old mining tunnels.

Ouro Preto

Ouro Preto market

Maddie relaxing in camp

We bushcamped one night at a little place which will be referred to as ‘Mini Grand Canyon camp’ henceforth (we like naming our bushcamps... see ‘termite camp’ below) a pretty little spot with some strange rock formations.

Bushcamp

Mini Grand Canyon

Dinner by the Grand Canyon

Team wifi enroute to Brasilia

Le finds a lady making doll houses in the back of a service station!  Brazil is full of surprises

We were winding our way from one of Brazil’s oldest cities to its newest, our next stop was Brasilia, the country’s capital and an incredible feat of modernist architecture. Built in the 50s and 60s as almost a social experiment in town planning it is a strange place to explore and hard to navigate and understand. Luckily we called in the help of Billy, aka Mr Brasilia, who we took out in Ithaca to show us around his city. We got to explore the weird and wonderful system of blocks and superblocks, all zoned for different uses. Brasilia looks like a strange mix of a communist city (the chief architect Oscar Niemeyer was a communist) and a leafy suburb. It feels very different from the rest of the Brazil, it is very clean and organised, people even stop for pedestrians at zebra crossings! But in amongst all the

modernist architecture are moments of real beauty, the Metropolitan Cathedral’s huge domed roof has angel statues hanging from the ceiling and walls which send echoes around to anyone listening on the other side. But the crowning glory has to be the Santuario Dom Bosco, a church whose walls are made of 7500 pieces of glass and has to be seen to be believed.

The group in Brasilia

Ithaca in Brasilia

Bartley & Triona 

Mr Brasilia - our guide

Simon, Tee & Wayne photograph the cathedral

Angels in Brasilia

Hannah tries out the whispering walls that transmit sound

Ready for the World Cup final

Sanctuario Dom Bosco

Hannah & Mike - it's not all architecture in Brasilia

Our time in Brasilia was topped off by the Odyssey Quiz Night, organised and written by our resident expert and all round genius Toby. Coupled with Maddie’s makeshift punch it was a very competitive night and an awful lot of fun!

Then it was time to head West in the direction of Jaciara and the Chapada Dos Guimaraes National Park. En route we stopped in a forest to bush camp, it was to be our first real taste of rain since the beginning of the trip, as we headed towards the Amazon basin the rainy season kicked in in style! A late arrival meant a bit of late night cooking in the drizzle but a tasty meal was made nonetheless (as always!) It would have been an uneventful, if soggy, night except for Johnny’s termite adventure. Johnny woke up at 2am to find that termites had eaten their way in to his tent (the Odyssey canvas tents held back the termite hoards but Johnny’s synthetic one was obviously a tasty alternative) and they were happily making their home in his bag and up his nose. Suitably freaked out he grabbed his stuff and abandoned the tent to the termites only to be rescued by Eamon who found him standing on his own in the dark looking rather traumatised by the whole experience.

Termite camp

Then on to the little town of Jaciara where we were the biggest attraction in town, the local population found us fascinating and most of the group were approached by friendly people wanting to practice their English or find out what on earth we were doing there! What we were doing there was visiting a secret little waterfall, so unknown that it’s not even in the Lonely Planet! We found a lovely simple little camp with 2 beautiful swimming pools and a series of natural pools divided by waterfalls. Just down the road was a rafting centre where some of the group went rapelling down the Cachoeira Fumaca (smoky waterfall) which was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone including the spectators (and Johnny who, having faced his fear of bugs, decided to take on his vertigo.)

Jaciara camp

Natural pools

Waterfalls and Maddie

Glenn makes use of the pools

Ken found an abandoned toy rabbit - became something of a soggy truck mascot!

The camp's resident owl...

...who did a wonderful job of killing the bugs for us! 

Mike & Maddie rapelling

Kelly & Hannah

Team Rappelant

Ann celebrates being on the ground!

A very relaxing couple of days was followed by some relaxing time in our next destination Chapada Dos Guimaraes, interrupted only by a bit of stress for Emma and Simon who had to navigate their way through the city of Cuiaba, possibly the worst town in the world to drive through having simultaneously shut most of the major routes in, out and around the city and failed to put any signs up to help the poor lost motorists.

Chapada Dos Guimaraes is a national park almost unheard of by most. But it is a very beautiful spot, accessible only with a guide and containing all kinds of walks, waterfalls, and weird and wonderful animals and plants. Most of the group headed off on the waterfalls circuit and visited and swam in some of the pretty pools, then in the afternoon headed up to the Ciudade de Pedra (stone city) a beautiful look out over the national park and the towering rock formations that give the spot its name. The following day the hardcore contingent headed off to Sao Jeronimo Hill to marvel at the views some more, all accompanied by our knowledgeable guides.

Bridal veil waterfall

City of Stone lookout point

Hannah & Ann risk life and limb for the perfect photo

Chapada macaws

Spectacular views

Setting off to San Jeronimo

Toby on the San Jeronimo walk

Wayne

Hardcore scramblers

Triona admires the weird and wonderful rocks

Views from San Jeronimo

The weather veered from hot and humid to chilly and rainy but the walks and views were stunning. Simon and Emma also had fun digging poor old Ithaca out when she got stuck in the very soft sand at Ciudade de Pedra, throughly covered in red sand by the end they were just happy to get on the road again!

The group returned and found Si and Emma looking like this!

Then just because we felt like we were still too much on the beaten track we headed to the little settlement of Bom Jardim to camp for a couple of nights, the rain put paid to any ideas about snorkelling in the crystal clear waters but it did allow everyone a bit of fun towing Ithaca out again (the rain was beginning to take its toll on the dirt roads!) But we did discover a wonderful lake, Lagoa Araras (Macaw Lake) we headed down at sunset to see the beautiful buruiti palm trees growing out the water and watch the parrots circle in huge flocks creating a cacophony of noise and colour and to catch glimpses of the huge blue and yellow macaws as they settled in to nest for the night.

Rain, rain, rain!

Glenn helping to extract Ithaca from the mud

Glenn needed a bit of assistance

Together Everyone Achieves More!

AJ at Lagoa Araras

Parrots circle the lake

At this point, back at camp, Emma and Simon gathered the group together to talk about the situation in Venezuela, the tour’s next destination. The political situation had deteriorated and the FCO were suggesting that travel to the border with Colombia was a very bad idea indeed. Now with a huge rainforest in the way and no roads to speak of going much further North would have been a very big, extended dead end so Odyssey HQ had made the difficult decision to drop Venezuela, change the route and itinerary and instead of heading up the Madeira River on the ferry we would instead travel across the South of the Amazon basin in Ithaca on the new Transoceanic Highway, a recently finished road that joins the Brazil to Peru and therefore the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Packing up in the rain at Bom Jardim

Rain again!  Anyone would think we were near the world's most famous rainforest

So our next stop was to be a new adventure for Odyssey heading down to the little settlement of Vila Bela, a community descended from runaway slaves from the days of slavery in Brazil. A long drive took us down to the quirky, colourful little town aided by Leen, our guide from Chapada, who was an expert on this area. More intense, tropical rain and a late arrival in the dark (the sun is setting frighteningly quickly this close to the equator!) meant we mostly ditched the tents for the night and piled in to a little guest house before heading to a dinner of local fish and meat cooked by residents of Vila Bela for us and served in an old traditional house in the town. Also being Glenn’s birthday it was another chance to eat cake and celebrate.

Setting off in Vila Bela

Dinner in Vila Bela

Cake for Glenn's birthday

The next day we had a fantastic time out exploring the Guapore river in local fishing boats seeing all kinds of new and exciting birds, turtles and even the illusive pink river dolphins, incredibly exciting for everyone but also officially the hardest animal to photograph ever!

Out on the river

There's a pink dolphin

Did I mention how hard they are to photograph?  Definitely best seen in person!

Birds on the river trip

Leen, our guide, tells us about the wildlife

Ann demonstrates the size of the pink dolphins

Then we headed over to Billy’s (one of our fisherman guides) mum’s house for lunch! Their family live in a small parcel of land by the river with cows, chickens, guinea fowl and all kinds of wonderful fruit and veg growing around their home. They welcomed us with open arms and put on a brilliant spread of local beans, meat, rice, cassava, and wonderful local cherry juice. It was a real highlight being able to spend time with such genuine friendly people and the food was absolutely amazing!

Our lovely hosts at Billy's Mum's house

Bartley & Maddie get outplayed at football by little girls in pink dresses 

Football team

Toby tries out his dance moves with our hosts

Stop.  It's Hammock Time

Cooking dinner

We then had a big drive North towards Porto Velho, stopping en route at a lovely hotel in the town of Jaru, before veering off itinerary in to unchartered territory for Odyssey towards Peru.

Joanna and AJ stock up at Brazil's amazing supermarkets in Porto Velho

It was to be 3 long days of driving before we were to get to Peru however, we were now officially in the Amazon basin, all our years of learning about deforestation in this area were brought to life as we saw the jungle in the distance turning quickly in to empty green fields dotted with Brazil nut trees and white Brahmin cows. A huge amount of the Amazon has been turned in to farmland over the last 50 years, the fight continues to protect it but with a strong economy and a future vision of itself as a wealthy world player the environmentalists are going to have a battle on their hands taking on the Brazilian government.

Jungle in the background, farmland by the road

This was brought to life when we reached our next destination. After a night in Rio Branco sheltering from the continuing torrential downpours we headed down the Transoceanic Highway including a ferry across the Rio Madeira.

Standard toilet queue in Rio Branco

Joanna, AJ and Johnny make the most of our surprise hotel stop in Rio Branco

Ithaca blends in to the trucks waiting for the ferry

Squished onto the barge

On the ferry

Transoceanic Highway not quite finished yet...

Then we reached the little rubber-tapping community of Xapuri. A sleepy little community who make their money from the ‘white gold’ tapped from the Amazon’s trees and the associated Natex condom factory (the largest condom factory in the world!) Xapuri was thrust on to the world stage by one of its favourite sons Chico Mendes. In the 70s and 80s he fought to protect the rights of rubber tappers as the jungle, the source of their income, began to disappear. He found common ground with the environmentalists who were looking to protect the vast array of plants and animals found in the jungle and successfully managed to protect large tracts of his native Acre state. However he upset some very important people in the process and was murdered in 1988 in his own home. Xapuri is Chico Mendes town, his house is still there and a foundation has been set up to promote his life and work. That night we headed off to stay at a pousada where Chico Mendes used to work as a rubber tapper, an area he had been fighting to turn in to a reserve when he was killed.

Xapuri

Chico Mendes' house

We were to have our own fight just getting to the lodge, after days and days of rain that was slowly bringing huge parts of the Amazon Basin to its knees (very muddy knees by this time) we turned off the main road to find what used to be a road, now more a river, complete with what Emma classed ‘grade 3 rapids’ to drive through. Simon being an expert off-roader reckoned Ithaca was up to the challenge and we set off on a very bumpy, wet, and exhilarating drive down 16km of mud and water. But of course we made it, why? Because of Simon’s fantastic driving skills and because Ithaca is a truck, not a bus, and this is no coach tour, this is overlanding!

Once a road, now a river

Driving through the jungle

It was worth the adventure as when we arrived we found a fantastic jungle lodge, and despite wading through a couple of inches of water to get inside everyone agreed it was a fantastic place to spend our last night in Brazil. Eventually the rain eased off and we could hear the weird and wonderful noises of the jungle as we played cards and helped ourselves to the Brazil nuts that had fallen off the local trees, an appropriate end to our time here.

Ann with Brazil nuts

The taste of Brazil!

Cards in the lodge

Passing time in the jungle

All many of us knew about Brazil was football, the big Christ statue and well, it’s where the nuts come from. As our time in Brazil drew to a close it was a good chance to look back and come to terms with what a fantastic country we had traversed. Just dripping with life, in every sense, from the friendly, warm people, as fascinated with us as we were with them, to the billions of bugs and colourful toucans, macaws, and thousands of other unique bird species, to the pumas, caiman, capybaras, giant otters, tarantulas, anteaters, armadillos. Brazil is brilliant and we have been privileged to spend over a month exploring it, getting bitten by its smallest occupants and basking in its intensity of heat, humidity, colour and life.

Onwards to Peru

Muito Obregado!