Morro de Sao Paulo

So the island hopping begins in this beautiful place with sandy streets and absoloutly no cars. Our first night here, there was a free beach party with cocktail and crepe stands lining the beach. The music was a kind of brazillian hip-hop to which all the locals shook their stuff like crazy.

Most of our days were lazy beach days, but occassionally we would walk up an down the beach selling jewellery we made. There is a really cool chill out area we went to one evening to watch the sunset, it has the best view and is covered in bean bags and hammocks. We went horse riding on our second to last day and I galloped for my first time- woop wooo! On this island its really easy to get to know people, one night our friend said that we could have a free drink each just for sitting in the outside bar- excellent!

We managed to arrange staying with a local so really felt like we were part of a family and even got in free to an open air club party. It was really nice to take it in turns cooking and all share meals, staying at a locals is such a different experience to in a hostel filled eith tourists. The last day me, Leggra and our spanish friend all went to the fourth beach (the most beautiful) and our friend tried to give us and some little kids a capoira class. Later we watched him at his actual caporira class- they begin by playing traditional music (everyone joins in) and then have a gruelling work out, before making a capoira circle and taking it in turns to fight. That night, our spanish friend came over and she cooked us all a spanish tortilla which we had with vino tinto before heading out to another beach party. The beach party was the perfect way to say goodbye to the island, we stayed up till sunrise which we watched sat on the second beach.

Salvador

Salvador is a beautifully vibrant city with music constantly playing. Groups of people will gather on the street playing drums to which two people perform capoeira- a type of martial arts dance. We stayed in a really cool hostel just outside the pelorinho (the cool place to be) and most days caught a bus to Barra the closest beach, soaked up the sun and drank from coco nuts .

We got some advice on jewellery making from an artesan who took us shopping for wire, beads and thread and taught us how to make different things. Our shopping trip lasted 8 hours and then we sat in our friends workshop for a few more hours getting creative. Back at the hostel we sold a few braclets and a necklace too.

Tuesday night is the big night in Salvador- the streets thrive with people and all over the pelorinho there are live samba bands which hundreds of people gether to watch and dance. Muito Bem! We also for some reason ended up spending some of the night outside our artesan friend´s shop playing chequers and eating fried fish.

El Pantanal

A 16 hour train ride and several buses later we arrived in Corumba and from there booked our trip to the Pantanal, Brazil´s grass lands. As we´d spent a while faffing around, we missed the bus and had to be driven by the boss instead, which actually ended up being a much more comfy mode of transport. When we got to the lodge we were showed to our hammocks where we were to sleep for the next 3 nights- they were so cosy.

That night 17 of us were loaded into the jungle truck, we sat on the roof and off we went for our night time safari. I held up my torch and saw all of the aligators glowing red eyes as we passed the rivers. We even saw a pair of tocans snuggling in a tree together. After a few minutes of driving the truck stopped and the guide signaled for us to climb down as it was time for the nights walk. We scrambled under some wire and suddenly were surrounded by aligators resting by the waters edge- humans apparently don´t bother them. The guide found an aligator (reasonably sized) and grabbed it before picking it up in order to show us different parts of its body including its stomach and jaws! So it wouldn´t attack when the guide placed the aligator back on the ground, he rubbed its tummy with a plant and bit by bit the aligator went into a trance and just fell asleep.

The next day we got into canoes and had a boat trip to this beautiful little town, went swimming in the river, did a bit of fishing (I caught a pirahna- YAY) and had lunch. Though it was fun lazing in the sun, there were problems with our transport back to the lodge so we didn´t get back for dinner until 10pm.

Day 3 day was by far the best!! Of course the 2hour jungle walk in the morning in the rain, didn´t leave me in the best mood as i got swarmed by visicous mossies and cut up by brambles, however after lunch it brightened up and we went horse riding for 2 and a half hours!

The next morning we had an unsuccsesful time trying to fish for pirahnas so chilled in the hammocks mostly and got henna tattoos from an artist working at the camp. Soon after lunch we reaturned to civilisation and are now staying in Campo Grande.

Sucre

Sucre is also known as La Cuidad Blanca due to its beautiful wash white buildings. It´s so much cleaner than the rest of Bolivia and seems alot richer too. Our hostel was right opposite el mercado central where we ate practically all of our meals (so yummy and cheap) - for breakfast we usually had a big fruit salad with yoghurt, nuts, cream and coconut and a strong black coffee. The market was such a big bustley place- people literally yell at you as you pass, almost pleading that you eat at their stall.

On New Years we met some locals who took us to Sucre´s mirador which is stunning. From there, there´s a walk up to the mountains passing seven catholic statues- we were sat in the mountains till sunset, watching the beautiful view and looking at one of the locals artesan work. To celebrate new year, we went to a local hangout where there was free champagne at midnight and then on to a street party.

We spent another day relaxing in the mirador with strawberry milkshake, chatting to yet another artesan when we met some people who said they would take us to a nearby town Yotala where there was a typical bar selling Chicha (a corn beer) and another mirador up in the mountains. After that we arranged to meet the next day and together drove to the seven waterfalls, only 30minutes from the city. We bought a packed lunch and sat on the rocks and swam in the waterfalls- we only climbed to the third waterfall, but all of the ones that we passed were gorgeous and wonderfully secluded.