Karl and Kara in South America

Kara says: Gringos came to stay, yay! By some miracle of coordination we managed to get Jas from Brisbane and Nath & Ali from London to Uruguay at the appointed date. Then having worn out the partying options in Montevideo after two nights (not so hard to do) we headed for the coast. See photo of Nath, with the first in a series of understated shirts, beside his boat in Punta del Este. Next stop was a little fishing village on the northeast coast - Punta del Diablo. We quickly realised it was not the sort of place where you find a row of taxis waiting at the bus stop (see photo of slightly damp bus stop) so it was a good job Nath and Ali brought their 4-wheel drive cases for the walk to the house - see photo. We had a house with a view of the coast, a balcony, a fireplace, a parilla and a collection of DVDs of questionable standard so were all set for a week of doing nothing. Our busy days consisted of getting up (often pretty tough), walking to town, having lunch somewhere (as we

Kara says: Rio. Ipanema (do do do do, do do do-do the girl from ipanema comes walking, do do do do do do do do do do do doooooo), Copacobana (at the co pa, co pa co ban a), though still not north of habana. Rio is fantastic, fabulous, wonderful, warm and sunny, friendly people, beaches, spectacular scenery, views from hills and we haven't even been mugged or killed. The city centre was a real surprise, lots of really impressive colonial buildings, big theatres, presidential palaces, rows of cute little shops, cobbled streets, little bars with tables spilling out onto said cobbles streets. It's a shame the city is overwhelmed by its amazing location - anywhere else in the world and it would be known for it's lovely city centre. No photos due to wanting camera to remain in our posession (actually there was one photo but Karl accidently deleted it with his superior software skills). Took the train up to the statue of Cristo Redentor, beautiful views of the city and the bay, be

Kara says: Sao Paulo. Huge city, HUGE, 17 million people and every single one of them were downtown the day were went there. Lots of pedestrianed streets in the centre and all completely packed full of people. Some fantastic architecture, high rises from the 20s and 30s (Sao Paulo's heyday apparently), leafy plazas, but also lots of modern buildings abandoned and graffitied, and then lots of shiny glass skyscrapers too. Some very dodgy parts of town but then also suburbs like where we stayed full of the beautiful big houses of 19th and early 20th century Italian immigrants. Lots of churches too, churches that were open! (Take that, spanish-speaking countries). Lack of photos due mainly to risk that exposing camera would lead to never seeing camera again. Photos of market in plaza in front of cathdral. And other stuff.

Kara says: Brasil, new country, wahoo! Portuguese, new language, boo. Have now realised portuguese is not actually a different language, it's just spanish with a speech impediment. So we can sort-of understand what people are saying to us. But it's incredibly frustrating when they claim not to be able to understand our spanish in return, it's the same language!!! Curitiba. Came by bus from Puerto Iguazu, lots of green fields, cows, rolling hills. Curitiba is a pleasant city of about a million people, some nice colonial architecture and cobbled streets, students (and therefore bars), microbrewed beer and German sausages. Therefore Karl = pig in muck. There's quite a German influence in Brasil, have to google the history of immigrants. Photos of the town. The only thing to do in Curitiba, apart from wandering around, is take the train through the hills to small town somewhere down the track. It passes through some very hilly/mountainous countryside covered in rainforest.