Pictures

Pictures from Huaraz and the Santa Cruz trek:

Pictures

Lilya finally had the chance to climb in Huaraz, Peru. The pictures are on line:

Ilha Grande

Ilha Grande is a beautiful forest-covered island, few hours away from Rio. When the sun is shining, it is heaven. When it's raining, Ilha Grande is, well, heaven in the rain. Either way, if you visit the southern hemisphere, make the time to visit there.
In order to get from Rio to Ilha Grande we took a bus to a town on the main land just in front of the island. From there we had a ferry that leaves only once a day to the Island. The bus was supposed to arrive an hour before the ferry, but as most other buses in South America, it didn't get there until an hour after... Fortunately enough, on the same bus with us there was a group of British guys that met one very nice Brazilian girl that knew another way to get to the island. So after 3 buses and a boat, we finally arrived to the island.
The island consists mainly of an Atlantic rain forest and few very small settlments and few beaches. There are practically no cars on the streets, and there are practically no streets either. It seems that the major part of the locals make their living from the tourist industry. There are a lot of restaurants offering tourists menus, and a lot of tourist agencies offering whatever marine activity you might want. Unfortunately, since the high season was over, most of those places were empty and very hungry for tourists. The good thing about that is that the lovely beaches were empty as well.
The most popular beach is called "Lopez Mendez" and there are two ways to get there. You can either take a boat that leaves every hour from the main pier and get there after 20 minutes, or you can walk there through the vast forest, and maybe meet some animals (about 2.5 hours). We decided to walk there and to return by boat. We tried to walk as slowly and as quietly as we could, in order not to scare the animals that were supposed to hide there. We have spotted few small monkeys very far from us and were very excited about that. As we approached to our destination, we saw a couple of tourists feeding all those monkeys from their hands. Apparently, they weren't afraid of us, they just didn't find us interesting without any food in our hands. Although feeding wild animals was against our principals, taking great pictures of them while someone else is feeding them was not.
After about 3 hours we got to the promised beach. The beach was really nice and we spent there about an hour before we caught the boat back. While Lilya was reading a book (together with a dog, as you can see at the pictures), Oren found an amazing scenery. Few Urubus (the big birds) feeding from a dead (but very fresh) sea turtle. His sympathy to the turtles didn't bother Oren while taking enormous amount of pictures.
We wanted to go on a snorkeling tour the next day. The nice guy at tourist agency promised us a sunny day. "Not partly clouded?" Lilya confirmed. "No! Sunny" He promised. The next day started with partly clouded... On this tour we were supposed to visit 3 different snorkeling spots. At the first spot the sun was shining, but the water was quite cold, which made the snorkeling less pleasant. Just when we got to the second spot the sun dissapeared, and all the sky was covered with dark grey clouds. That didn't stop us from getting into the very cool water (after all we were in the Shayetet...). At the third spot we didn't even stop since no one carred about snorkeling anymore.
The next day it was supposed to rain. But we didn't want to waist our time on the beautiful Island, so we decided to hike to the Dois Rios beach on the other side of the island (8.5km each way). This beach was really magnificant. We were the only people on it. The people that said that Lopez Mendez is the most beautiful beach in Brazil, were probably too lazy to go to this one. On the way back it started to rain, but we were prepared to that.
On the fourth day we left the island and started our long and exhousting jorney to Peru. We left Brazil with the feeling that we haven't seen enough of this great and colorful country. Maybe we will be back someday, the football world cup 2014 is there...

Tip 1: Check exactly what are you paying for at the tourist agencies and what does it include, so there won't be any surprises later.
Tip 2: You don't have to order in advance the expansive meal they offer you on the snorkeling tour. Right next to the restaurant they stop at, there is a smaller one with much more decent prices.
Tip 3: A very nice and cheap hostel: Overnativa Hostel. It's located on the main street, 3 bridges from the pier.

Pictures

Pictures from Ilha Grande

Rio de Janeiro

When writing a blog about a long trip, there is always a dilemma when we don't like some place. One the one hand, this is our blog and we want to tell about how we felt at the places we were. On the other hand, we would like to expand the circle of our readers, and hope that these notes might be useful for future travellers. This dilemma becomes strong when the place is Rio de Janeiro.

We didn't like Rio that much, but whatever we thought should not prevent you from going there. You"ll either like it or hate it, but Rio de Janeiro is a city you must taste.

Something didn't work between us and Rio from the first day. We came early in the morning, tired after a night without sleeping and a flight from Salvador. We wanted to sleep, but the check in was only at 2pm, so we went to see the Copacabana beach (The most famous beach in the world), but the weather was cloudy and cold. Cold? In Rio? Well, they will not tell you that in Lonely Planet, but there is no eternal summer in Rio. Winter welcomed us in Rio and stayed there for most of our visit.

It wasn't only the weather that we didn't like. We didn't like our hostel as well. The prices were high (Rio in general is an expansive city), and on the first day we got blankets with warms in them. The common area of the hostel became a pub every night. A pub? More like a cage of drunk peacocks flapping their tails in a grotesque version of a mating dance, while making weird sounds.

Maybe it was all Jesus fault (Jesus being blamed for the suffering of the Jews? That's an historical irony!). The great statue of Jesus was under construction and was mostly covered. Like Paris without the Eiffel tower or Barcelona without Messi, a city cannot live without it's symbol! With Jesus covered with scaffolds, what chance did Rio really had?

We did most of the essentials during our stay in Rio. We went to the beach and saw the surfers. Despite the weather, the view of the famous cliffs with the huge waves was exciting. However, since it was winter, the beautiful ladies of Rio stayed at home instead of catching sunlight in the beach as promised.

We also went to the botanical gardens, which are recommended (if you have the spare time) and did a tour in the Rocinha favela.

A favela is a poor neighborhood built without any order or logic. Every free spot can be used for building a home, even if the free spot is the roof of another house. 20% of Rio population live in favelas. The electricity, the cable TV or the water supply in the favelas are free as well. All you need to do is to dig a small hole in the main pipe or to connect your wires at the right place. In Brazil there are more than 2000 favelas of different sizes. The government doesn't exists in the favelas (they do have the time and money, however, to stick their nose with pleasure into the affairs of the middle east). The favelas are ruled by local gangs, sort of a mafia. Those gangs trade drugs and weapons and make a lot of money (about 40 million a month). Needless to say that this money is not used for the welfare of the favela poor residents. Our guide told us that the leaders of the gangs don't get to live more than 25 years. Just like in the "City of God" movie.

We didn't see any of that. All we saw was plane poverty. It reminded us few of the Arab villages in Israel. We wondered whether the Israeli guys that recommended us this tour have ever visited those places back home.

The money we paid was not wasted, however. Most of it went as a donation to a daycare for kids while their parents are at work, and Oren took some nice pictures. But the most amazing thing happened at the end of the tour. We were about to cross a street where few drug dealers sell their merchandise, so the guide turned around to us and asked us not to buy drugs from them. Then she pointed at Oren and said that she will especially keep her eyes on him (out of all the group of tourists). She said that after few years of working in the favelas, she knows how to spot potential drug consumers. At the beginning we were pretty shocked but eventually Oren was happy that he finally lost the cloud of geekness that surrounding him ever since the fourth grade.

At night we went out to the hottest neighborhood in Rio - Lappa. The whole neighborhood is flooded with people and countless pubs and clubs. The other part of the main street becomes a market with stands that sell food and all the versions of Capirinha you can think of. We wondered around but didn't entered any of the pubs. Maybe we are getting old, or maybe this place is really sleazy, but none of those places appealed to us. As we were about to leave, we found a small parking lot that was converted to a Lambada dance floor. Couples of Brazilians crowded in the small place and danced. It was really fun to watch. Their moves were so sleek and so coordinated with the music that it was a true eye candy. We stayed there for some time before returning to our hostel.

The sun came out on the last day and Rio finally smiled at us. We got up to the Sugar Loaf mountain (Pao de asucar). We went up by foot (it is no more than 25 minutes and it saved us the cost of the first cable car) and took the second cable car to the top. The view from there is absolutely amazing. If you are in Rio, it is very recommended. The small Marmoset monkeys also liked the view (or, more likely, the tourists throwing food at them) and filled the floor in front of the cafeteria. We said goodbye to Rio, and on the next day left to Ilha Garnde.

Pictures

Pictures from Rio de Janiero:

Itacare

Travelling around the world is both fun and exhausting. The constant routine of packing, moving, looking for a place that will be a home for a day and unpacking can be a hard work indeed (see also what Ohad had to say about it). We've been travelling for 3 months now and we became quite tired, so we needed a break from our vacation. We needed to lay down on a beach, worrying only about where would the next fruit shake come from. Itacare was the best place to do that!

Itacare is a very small and easy going town with easy going people. It lays on the coast, about 4 hours drive south from Salvador. It has a long main street full of shops, restaurants and tourist agencies and our hostel. Although it wasn't cheap, didn't have breakfast and charged extra for the Internet access, we loved it. Mostly because of the atmosphere.

The town is surrounded by few very nice beaches. Only one of them was calm, while the rest had plenty of waves, which made them ideal for surfers. Since we were out of season, there weren't many people at those beaches or anywhere else, which was nice.

After spending one afternoon staring at the surfers, Lilya decided that its time for her to learn how to do it, so she booked 3 surfing lessons starting the next day. Because of the low season, those lessons turned out to be private. Lilya turned out to be quite good at those lessons, and by the third lesson she caught most of the waves and really enjoyed herself. Oren, spend the time doing some surfing himself, on the web, of course. Unfortunately, those lessons were given at a beach that could only be reached by swimming, so Oren couldn't take pictures of her surfing. On the last day we rented a surfing board, so Lilya could surf and Oren could picture her. Sadly, Lilya didn't catch any waves that day because the surfboard and the waves turned out to be too small (and the water were too cold/warm/blue/wet and the floor was not straight enough...). Only in Australia it will be found out if Lilya's stories are true or pure legend.

During our trip in Brazil we have met few people that came to learn from the best teachers in the world. Ohad wants to learn a specific kind of martial art in Rio, we met an Argentinian girl that came to learn African dancing in Salvador and a Finnish girl who came to learn Capuera. We came to learn laziness from the masters: The great sloths. The first mission was to find them, and that was not an easy task at all. We spent two days wondering around the Atlantic rain forest near the coast with no success. All we got was a pain in the neck and lots of mosquito bites. But even without seeing them, we learned something from the great sloths: if you want to be lazy, sit around and do nothing all day long, find yourself a place that no one else will spot, or else they will find you something to do...

We spent the rest of the time resting, eating and taking care of the important stuff in life like this blog, and after one week we decided that it is time to move on to Rio de Janeiro.

Tip 1: We really liked our hostel: O' Pharol on the historical center.

Tip 2: At Nelson's, on the main street, you can find delicious sandwiches for less than 3 dollars. You don't have to eat expansive in Itacare.

Tip 3: If you are interested in surfing lessons, Caruso is the guy for you. You can find him in an agency by the name: "Brazil Trip Tour" on the main street (3 lessons for about 100 US$) . He's really nice and funny (and he is the only person that knows how good Lilya really was at surfing). If you don't want to spend your money on lessons, you can always try to learn by yourself. But the success rate is limited.

Pictures

Pictures from Itacare:

Salvador - the musical

Salvador welcomed us with love and said goodbye with love, and we loved it back. After two months of mostly cold weather, the hot and humid air felt like home. The driver that was sent by our hostel stood in the waiting hall with a sign with our names on it. Not only that Salvador was greeting us, it treated us as celebrities. But the falling in love started, as it is often does, with the music. We were just coming out from the cab when a wave of African-Brazilian drumming attacked us from all sides. The old city of Salvador, where we spent most of our time, is a dense maze of small colorful streets, so the music coming from one roof bounces back from all the houses, placing you at the center, no matter where you are. The most famous band of Salvador, Olodum, was performing on the roof of the house right in front of our hostel. This band, and the city itself, where the stars of the Michael Jackson clip "They don't really care about us" and the city is full of reminders for this glorious past.

We were escorted into the hostel by two amazing dogs, one big and a bit stupid great Dane and the other a smaller and an adorable Boxer. The hostel itself had a large part in the great time that we had. It is owned by an South-Africa born, Mozambique raised and Brazilian resident guy who also had a pub with the greatest fruit Caipirinha. The pub was named Zulu, after the huge Dane dog, which you can also see as part of the African soul of this city.

During the days we mostly walked around Pelourinho, the old city of Salvador. The historical part is full with single colored churches, multi colored houses and colorful people . In the north of Brazil, the people comes in all colors. Most of them are black but you can see people with the full range of human skin color wearing clothes in the full range of the visible colors. A United Colors of Benetton catalog comes to life.

We didn't leave Pelo (Pelourinho) except for a quick visit at the market near the sea, Mercado Modelo. Since Pelo is built on a hill there is an elevator that takes you down. The market itself looks like a Turkish market with a lot of booths that sell clothes and souvenirs.

One of the main annoyances of Pelo is all the people that want your money. Some of them want to sell you something (food, hammocks, stupid bracelets) while the others, the beggars, will sell you some moments of silence for your money. The happy carnival atmosphere can sometimes make you forget that bellow the colors there is a lot of poverty in Salvador. The begging kids are there to remind you that. On the other hand, whenever you walk, there will always be a person that will be happy to offer you free Caipirinha if you just enter the restaurant behind him. We had a long relationship with one of them. He made us keep promising that we'll come later, and was always so disappointed when we didn't.

Salvador is all about the music. We when you walk through the streets you can hear it from everywhere. From drumming clubs, from Capuera schools or coming from the bars and restaurants. If there is a quiet corner, someone will fill it with music somehow. We were sitting in the Zulu pub and on the next street, without a particular reason, there were some boys and girls dancing. They were dancing not for the tourists but for the soul. A boy meets a girl and asks her to dance. The girl is hard to get at first. She doesn't trust this boy. But at the end he conquers her heart and they dance together to the applause of their friends, and to our wondering eyes .

It was the music that kept us there for another day. Every Tuesday Salvador celebrates life. The celebration starts with Capurera shows at the main square, followed by live Samba music party. The people of Salvador dance in the streets to the rythem of the Samba. Their dance was so minor but so passionate. Among the dancers we saw some crippled people that seemed to forget their disability. When one of them tried to convince Lilya to join her on the dance floor, she didn't know how to tell her that at this moment, Lilya is the disabled one, not able to dance like that.

But these are only the appetizers. The main event starts later, when the drummers from the drumming schools in Salvador goes out to the streets and start marching, followed by a long tale of tourists and locals dancing in lines. Every few minutes the rhythm is changed and so does the dance. We booked a late night bus to Itacare that night but it turned out that we had to leave as the fun was just starting. Like being the kid that has to come back home early from the party and misses all the fun. With great sadness we left this city when the drumming escorts us on our way. The city waved us goodbye and went back to party.

Tip 1: The hostel we were in, Galleria 13, is great.

Tip 2: Eat at the Cubana hamburger joint. They have great hamburgers and really great shakes for a very small price.

Tip 3: Don't miss Tuesday night, it is really special.

Pictures

Picture from Salvador de Bahia: