Santerem

Took a break from crawling up the Amazon and stopped in a small city called Santerem, the streets were flooded and everyone had to walk on makeshift boardwalks above the stagnant pools of green and the divebombing bats,
Cailín shoves me and says "TAKE A PHOTO, its like the Crystal Maze"

Having dinner when Cailín looks out over the harbour and see's this boat called Señor Jesus II,
"There were two Jesus', haha, I can't believe I'm twenty five and I didn't know about the second Jesus"
"You didn't know about the second Jesus!!, what sis they teach you in that proddy school of yours"

alter de chau

From Santerem went to nearby Alter de Chau where there is the most beautiful white sand beach, right along the banks of the Amazon,

Unfortunately the beach wa under 6ft of water, the Amazon was flooding to a record level, nice one!,




Did get to have a dip in the Amazon though,
Cailín wouldn't get in because I told her she was not to pee while she was swimming because there is a parasite that can swim up into your bladder, so she says "then whats the point in going for a swim!", nice one.

Those pyramid things on the backround are the roofs beach bars that have been flooded, was seriously temoted to go snorkeling for vodka bottles,

Amazon Boat

Got a boat upstream on the Amazon from Belem to Santerem, it was three days and we meet some brilliant people, none of whom spoke english and we didn't speak portugese, hilarity ensued. We ended up learning loads of portugese and having a great laugh,



Slept in hammocks for the three days, I slept like a baby, except I kept waking up and both my feet would be numb because they were above my head.



Typical view for the three days, pretty sweet.This was our nieghbour in the hammocks, his name iss Izack and he was really great to us, he kept an eye on our gringo asses.
He would keep taking out his wallet showing us his bus pass and telling us about the discouts he could get with it, and his bank cards telling us that he was a millionaire, apparently he had won 1.5reais on the lotto but liked to travel by boat cause you got to meet people and see the Amazon.
He had a huge bag of clothes which he would throw to children who paddled out from the houses/huts which are dotted along the Amazon.
A legend.

These two chaps took a big interest in us. We were talking to them one day and they asked us if we believed in God, when we told them no I think we broke their hearts, the guy on the left looked so upset that we quickly pretended we had misunderstood the question and that we did indeed believe in God just so he wouldn't cry or start praying for our souls. I'm sure I would go to hell for that if I believed in that.
They told us that all catholics in South America give 10% of their monthly earnings to the church even though they are mostly dirt poor with very little prospect of further education and no hope of ever traveling, even around theeir own continent.
No wonder the pope shits in a gold toilet, wears silk pyjamas, and has his own country.



an example of this poverty is the small canoes that would paddle out to us then with an expert mix of powerful paddling and accurate hook throwing would latch onto our much faster boat and climb aboard to try sell us fish they had caught and palm hearts.
What makes this feat even more amazing is that it was accomplished not by burly men but CHILDREN!, young girls for the most part.
the boat in the picture infact was paddled,hooked and then dragged close to our boat in suchh a was that the bow was about four feet from the water by a child of no more that 5years while her sister of about 3years climbed aboard and sold her wares.




Cailín tries shrimp for the first time.

was lazily looking out one night when I saw a boat just like this go by in the opposite direction at full speed, tearing along, and I hear someone scream WOOHOO!!! from the wheel house, the boat hit our bow wave and I swear he caught a little bit of air, then the boat slams down the other side and the whole thing was rolling from side to side, water rolling over the sides, the lights were even flashing on and off as the engine stutter for a second, I don't know much but I know that guy is a legend.
It wa cosy with all the hammocks





Saw lots of rainforest,
here's some more rainforest,
and more rainforest,

and more rainforest
and some more rainforest,

Belem

After much discussion Belem gets a.....

....wait for it....

....thumbs up from the judges!!



Cailín says these photos make it look better than it really is

Went to a bird sanctuary to take photos of depressed birds
and oblivious butterflies
tried to take a photo of this iguana that was wandering around looking for birds to eat. Turns out the best way to get a close up photo of a wild animal is not to run after it trying to suprise it, or throw sticks at it trying to injure it and thus slow it down.

Sunset on the Amazon

san franscisco

Bus broke down in San francisco, now no one can say I haven't been to San Francisco


Ok so its was Sao Francisco but lets not get caught up in details

Forteleza

Got Sunburnt

This city was a bit doggy so we didn't bring any cameras around with us, not much to see though, just "ladies of the night" or "Friends of the road" to all you truckers out there, and a great Italian resturant, the best food I've had so far in Brazil,
The food is really bad over here, they are apparently allergic to taste. Everything is so bland it doesn't matter what meat you are eating it all tastes the same, and they don't even cook their plain food well, Had plain white rice twice that has given me the shits.

macieo

Maceio

just stopped for a night to break up a bus journey (our adverage bus journeys are around twenty hours, I will never again complain about driving to Donegal)


We stayed with a crackpot old lady who riped us off on the price buut we were too embarrased to beat her down on the price. She had a rat dog that i had to stop myself from ggrinding into a paste with my nice new boots.


It rained full monsoon all day which did lots for both moral...and sanity.


Mom the poncho you gave me is proving very useful, I now have my costume for halloween already, I'm going as Big Bird

Praia do Forte

Praia do Forte

Its some kind of "Eco Village" i.e. tourist trap, but the beaches as you will see make it worth it.


got dropped off by a bus at the side of the "motorway" (read dirt track) with three signs for Praia do Forte, each pointing in different directions, helpful.
Was sick for a day and then it rained for a day solid,

Went to a turtle sanctuary, this turtle had a touch of the mad polar bear from that old ad, about mad bears, wasn't a fan of this place.


Did get to touch a sea slug though,

and see some baby turtles, they were learning important life skills by swimming round and round an empty puddle.
Cailín decided to play with what is clearly a toy meant for the under fives,

As I said the beaches healed all wounds,

Salvidor- Let the staring begin

Arrived in

Arrived in Salvidor
Everyone stares at us, bit weird but we'll live.
Guy is swimming near me on the beach and starts having a chat with me, Cailín immediately assumes he is coming on to me, even though he tells me he is married with kids. This freaked me out am I being stalked by sexual predators?!.....
Check out the boay on this, look at his perfect white legs and chest, if I was a sexual predator I would be rummaging through his rubbish just to sniff his pizza crust.

Don't go to Salvidor everyone is lazy, the place is dirty and they are the rudest thing I have experienced since that Chuck Berry song about him playing with his penis.

Rio de Janeiro Fun Town

Rio de Janeiro=Fun Town

After the now obligatory few days of being sick we got out of bed and did the only thing we really shouldn't have done, we went drinking....

only on or two though....

Convinced Chap called Rafael who worked in the hostel to bring us out drunking with him,

Went with a lovely scot called Mark who you can tell immediately loved me,

When to a club but stayed outside on the street knacker drinkin all night, there was a small cubby hole called "Joes Lunchette" selling cheap beer so we stayed there with a load of underage kids and crazy locals who wanted to marry Cailín, until she started taking photos...... Cailín took a hundred photos and before taking each one Cailín screamed "HELLO FROM BUENOS AIRES!". Here is a tip for you, if your looking for the best way to insult someone from Brazil, call them Argentinian, works like a charm,

we were forced to shun her or face the wrath of the drunken rabble, I deverted attention by getting naked in the beer queue which lead to a meeting with a fellow Kiss fan Cailín developed a scabby arm rash which I had to cover with a bandage cause it kept making me sick, Went to see the jesus, queue shenanigans.... Jesus got a kiss...
a lick......

I'll let you name this activity, the only name I can think of will get me hate mail. I wanted Cailín to kiss Jesus's ass but she wouldn't on the basis that "Its not much of an ass", can't argue with that,



What was interesting about Jesus's ass was that it had a small church in it which you weren't allowed to take photo's of (I had to distract the guard then run the other way around Jesus to get this photo) because it sold t-shirts!!!, a church that sells t-shirts!!! maybe the chursch's cut of the hefty entrance fee to get to the Jesus wasn't enough for the ould Catholic church,



We then went to see another church, look at its beauty, money well spent!
Looks like a nuclear bunker,


Look its got its own radio station, and just as i was leaving I saw this, another opertunity to buy church t-shirts and other God gear, all this crap and not one jesus watch where his arms move to tell the time, maybe they thought that would be in poor taste.

This is for all the people in Cailín's old school that called her Pelé sarcastically, now no one can say Cailín didn't break into Pelé's house and steal his cement slippers and a plaque with his name on it



Cailín rented a "Carnival" costume for two euro's, best money ever spent, look at the pure unadulterated joy on her face, I have a video of her beingn helped put it on and its the funniest thing I've ever seen, its like she is five and playing dress up.

Guy on the far right is from Dublin and did computer science, if anyone knows him feel free to point and laugh, and then email every girl he knows. What am I talking about he did computer science, he doesn't know any girls.

This kid asked me to take her photo, then her mates saw she was getting her photo taken and literally sprinted over to get their photo taken, you can see them in the backround of the first one,




Rio de Janeiro at night from thhe top of a mountain they call the Sugar Loaf, its got a cable car going to the top of it, ours is still better though.
On the tour up there they said that they built the cable car because it was very popular for locals to climb up it on the weekends, now i don't have a photo of it but it is shear rock faces on every side, so these locals of olden days must have been some kind of hardcore Hulk like feckers to get up it just for a Sunday picnic.




Got bitten by some evil fucking insect in the night, right on the forehead, it swelled right up so it looked like Cailín had been beating me again. Cailín wasn't too fazed by this, for three days whenever a conversation went abit stale, be it with a waiter or someone we actually knew she would point and laugh at my forehead saying "look it looks like he was hit in the head!" To celebrate we went to Lapa, a poorer neighbourhood where there is a brilliant street party every weekend.
We got there in a minibus taxi thingy that you pick up on the street and our Brazilian mate bargained them down to 50cent a person, that good eating


The played heavy trance music all the way to Lapa, best taxi ever (except maybe the taxi me and foyser got in Dublin where the driver played Crazy by Gnarls Barkley ten times in a row on the way to town as loud as it would go with the windows down, even the Gardai in the car beside us were getting into it by the end)


everyone was very happy we made it there alive,


We brought the most steriotypical Icelandic guy we could find with us

and MR.Austrailia 2007,
he's actually a brilliant chap called Harry and he's a beef farmer which just brings up images of cowboys in my head.


Cailín drinking tequila in a petrol station in lapa

she then becomes a blur for the rest of the night

even the guy selling her the tequila thinks she is nuts
We head home to the hostel where I take this photo which i shall in the future show to our kids when they ask why they can't have a drink
I then climb into my mosquito net in a vain attempt to not get bitten on the head again, much to the amusment of the Brazilians who actually woke me up to laugh at me. In other news the back of my neck looks like ass cheeks when I read my book on the beach.