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So it's 02.16am and 5 long, bitter hours of ruthless packing wars have just ensued. Let's get ready to ruuuuumble.
The games began with a, frankly pitiful attempt from Jodes to veto Tay's Mr Motivator-inspired bumbag, which failed miserably. Meanwhile Tay managed to persuade Jodes to cut her elaborate and overly plentiful supply of granny panties in half, a valid first victory. Jodes got her own back however when her negotiating skills saw Tay's back-up lipgloss being thrown out of court. Things really began to heat up when Tay's toiletry supplies took a real hit, and her second deodorant hit the deck. A check mate situation arose and saw an end to the Battle when neither girl was willing to surrender their ridiculously greedy supplies of vitamin E body moisturiser.
After 1 box of maltesers, 6 glasses of Champagne, 5 slices of marmite on toast, 8 bag re-packs and 1 missing ipod panic, we are ready to head to the airport. And neither of us even had to sit on our backpacks to get them closed.
Smell ya later!
xx
To cool off when we got back we made a beeline for Ipanema Beach. En route to the beach we stopped off for frozen yoghurt which proved to be a massive error as it lead to an unhealthily obsessive relationship with Yogofresh, and it doesn´t come cheap. Ipánema is an amazing beach with incredible views of the mountains and water warmer than the hostel shower. The waves however, were not so relaxing and we were wiped out on several occassions and lost various parts of our bikinis. One observation we couldn´t help but make is that the men of Brazil are seriously buff. So buff in fact, that they make Vin Diesel look like Joe McElderry. We also couldn´t help but notice that we were the only females on the beach without a dental floss thong bikini jammed up our bum cracks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oai1V7kaFBk
We had heard a lot of hype about Brazilian all-you-can-eat buffets and we felt confident we could do one justice. For 15 pound a head you can fill your plate with salad, fresh meat, delicious seafood and the piece de resistance, chicken nuggets with cheese sauce. The meat sweats were a low point, but it was definately worth it.
We had intended to trek up the coast to Buzios but after a frantic high-pitched internet session we realised everywhere was fully-booked so we hopped on a bus to Paraty instead. At this point Jodes would like to inform Mummy Cooper that the buses are damn fine and there is not a chicken in sight. In fact they easily shit all over Iberia airlines.
We arrived at our guest house Pousada Aquilara (as in Christina) overjoyed to find it was a mini paradise that resembled a tropical Sandals getaway, complete with pool, air conditioning and private rooms. As if these luxuries weren´t jammy enough, we were soon introduced to the resident baby, Felippe and the two pet sausage dogs, Teca and Preta. The hostel was run by a permanently stoned Brazilian called Emerson who loves a good chat but unfortunately takes ten minutes per sentence to get anything out- which is great unless you have a bus or boat to catch. He also enjoyed translating everything he said in each of the 5 languages that he speaks, so you can imagine the repetition involved. That said we completely fell in love with his stoner charms.
Next stop....Iguazu Falls, Argentina
We boarded our bus at Sao Paulo bus station which was to take 16 hours to reach Iguacu, the Brazilian side of the Falls. The bus was barely comfortable had really loud films badly dubbed in Portugese. As you can imagine this made sleep difficult. But what made sleep even more difficult however, was the discovery of a snake on our bus. Jodes spotted a slight commotion 2 seats behind and watched as 3 people peered into an open tupperware box. She then witnessed one of the box gang dipping their hand into the tupperware and fondling what appeared to be a black and red snake. We watched in horror as the 3 of them cooed over the creature of death and weren´t exactly filled with confidence when the lid was replaced and the box was `secured` with a tiny piece of red ribbon. Oh don´t worry, there´s a bright red, potentially poisonous snake at large on the bus....but at least its not going anywhere with that flimsy ribbon holding it in. Yeah, no way its escaping that impenetrable fortress of security. However hard we tried to sleep after that we couldn´t help but think ´is it on me, is it on me, its on me, its on my leg´. Those actors and actresses from box office flop ´Snakes on a Plane` didn´t have to put up with this shit...and they had Samuel L Jackson to protect them.
It was an arduous border crossing into Puerto Iguazu, Argentina- which saw us boarding 3 separate buses, bumping our total up to 5 buses in 32 hours. Luckily for us our hostel was a bit of a dream, kitted out with a lovely pool, spacious communal area and a games room. The only downside was our tiny sweatbox of a room which we had to share with 2 Israeli guys who had sensibly shot gunned the two bottom bunks. We considered moving our mattresses to the floor to be close to the air conditioning unit, but we thought it might be an invasion of their personal space especially considering due to the heat we couldn´t bring ourselves to wear much to bed and they had already got an eyeful the night before when they came in late, greeted by our sprawled near naked forms.
Speak to you in Buenos Aires! x
Perito Moreno Galcier was seriously impressive and we were lucky enough to visit on a warmish day which meant he was very ´active´. We watched in silence (well, in reality some loud swearing) as huge sheets of ice fell into the sea below with huge thunderous booms.
El Chalten was possibly even more beautiful than El Calafate, a quaint little mountain town sprinkled with toy houses set against the dramatic views of Mount Fitz Roy and other snow capped mountains. Unfortunately it looks as though the town won´t be small for long as there were lots of hotels being built so get there quick before it turns into a Mountainside Vegas. We trekked for roughly three hours to Lake Capri, which turned out to be a tranquil oasis of calm after a lot of sweaty uphill climbing. Buns of steel.
Instead of just waffling on with a load of facts that we´ve stolen from the internet, or anecdotes from our adventures, we thought we would let the pretty pictures speak for themselves........
We are flying on to Bariloche today where we plan to spend a week playing by the lakes, riding bikes and eating fondue. From there we might have to rethink our next step as we had planned to head to Chile but with the recent earthquake that will be a no go...
x
Options for the next day were either kayaking or horse-riding and considering the ache in our nether regions we opted for the former. What we hadn`t considered however was the effect of going with Roberto aka the man who sucks the fun out of all remotely competitive physical activities. With it being a really windy day we were given various cautions about not heading to far into the exposed middle part of the lake, which we of course ignored. We spent the whole time laughing uncontrollably as we drifted helplessly against the wind, and Robbi spent the whole time being generally angry and Italian and shouting at us to "stop tickling the water!" with our oars. Outdoorsy activity numero dos? Done.
On the whole Mendoza was a lot of fun, but not a particularly nice city so we weren`t too sad to leave.
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