okay, so im sorry to all the oldies that get offended by that heading, but there is no other thing that i could possibly put. This was one of the many 'trip phrases' that we heard over and over again over the 10 days of bliss that i was away! some others include, 'obrigado viu', kevin 'WOOH!' and HOTSPRING!!!! (dont even ask. lol)
So the depressing thing is that i am no longer in Bonito :( i am unfortunatly back here in belo horizonte, in a new family (which is a non depressing part about being here, as tehy are awesome!!!) and im heading back to school again tomorrow :/ iich.
so im just going to do a day by day account of the trip again so that you can know everything about the trip and be really jealous and everything!
24th of October- Belo Horizonte to Araçatuba
So we left nice and early at 8am on a sunday morning, spent the whole day on the bus, which is fun, but not so fun at the same time. At least the on bus toilet didnt smell on the first day!
Picked up people in a few cities as we were going, and arrived in Araçatuba for the night. there was a lovely big cockroach in the bathroom when i was taking a shower, and it rather startled me... i screamed.
went to the other girls room and watched some movies in portugese on the cool hotel TV. probably not the smartest thing to do when we were leaving the hotel at 6:30am the next day, but meh!
25th of October- Araçatuba to Pantanal
breakfast at 6, left by half past; everyone slept the first 4 hours of this day on the bus lol. We watched the DVD from the south trip this year, which is super cool! brought back a lot of good memories :)
played some guitar, and finally got to pantanal, where we had to change from our big bus to a small buss that could go on the dirt road that would take us to where we were staying. did i mention that it was really hot and the little bus didnt have air con? oh well, we were only on it for an hour and a half lol
got to the pousada arara azul, had dinner and took a shower- this time there was a frog in the bathroom which i thought was much nicer than a cockroach.
There was an amazing hamock pavillion circle thingy with like 10 hamocks, so we hung out there until curfew playing guitar and relaxing.
26th of October- Pantanal
breakfast then trip briefing, and free time until lunchtime at 12:30. every day the activities didnt start until 3:30pm because that way we could avoid the majority of the afternoon heat. So after lunch, it was back to the hamocks, which is where a lot of us spent the majority of our free time if we wernt in the pool.
After lunch i had my first activity, which was fishing :) we went to one of the lakes and the people from the pousada gave us bamboo rods with fishing line attatched to them, and threaded meat onto the hooks.
what were we fishing for??? Piranhas :D
It was so funny, because your hook was literally in thewater for 5 seconds, and you would feel it bite, and if you werent quick enough, they would get all your meat and leave no fishy for you.
I felt sorry for the boys who were constantly putting more and more meat on all of our hooks!
i caught 10 piranhas and 1 big fish, which i forget the name of, but it was the biggest catch of the day :D
there were lots of Jacare (aligators) and the guys thought it would be hilarious to 'fish' for them. They actually hooked a few which was quite scarey.
here is a video of the fishing.
we went back to the pousada,fed our fish to the jacare, and then pretty much everyone decided it was pool time. We mucked around in the pool until dinner, and then after dinner, back to the hamocks.
i went to my room to get my guitar, and there was a great big icky tarantula sitting on the floor next to my bag!!!! ... screamed... again.
third night in a row with some sort of creature in my room! what is this people!!!!
27th of October- Pantanal
7am wakeup for the first of our morning activities. My group was unlucky enough to be the ones who had the walk and safari in the same day, with the walking being in the afternoon.
So we went on the safari in the morning where we went on this thing pulled by a tractor, and they took us around a bit, then we got out and walked around in the forrest a bit.
Was nice, but we didnt see much wildlife.
back to the pousada, chilled in the hamocks before and after lunch again. as i was in the hamocks, i saw one of the people who worked at the pousada going over to the mango tree near the hamocks to get some mangos. i went over and asked him nicely if i could have one and he gave me one!!! it was the most delicious thing ever!!! i literally just cut the skin with my fingernail, and peeled it off, eating it all as i went; it was soo sweet and juicy! amazing!!!!
the caminhada (walk) in the afternoon was so exhausting! an hour and a half pretty much all with the sun beating down on us was not to pleasant at all. but we did see some interesting things. We saw a giant tuiuiu nest, and all the cute little green lorikeets make their little nests in the tuiuiu nest because it is so big and safe.
Spent the afternoon in the pool, then went and got ready for our party that we were having as it was our last night in pantanal.
for dinner there was a bonfire, and a firepit with typical Pantanal 'churrasco' (BBQ) which was amazing, as well as other typical food from the region.
danced and danced and danced after dinner to all types of music, had fun teaching everyone how to dance forro, and we all danced a bit of brasilian funk, and just messed around for the rest of the time.
Yes, that is a photo of us pointing at our shoes and spinning round in circles really really fast... dont ask... lol
it was a great night.
28th of October- Pantanal- Bonito!!
So we woke up early this morning to get ready to do our last activity in pantanal before moving on to Bonito! my groups last activity (saved the best till last) was Horse riding, which was SOOOO much fun!
We were cantering around going crazy in the wildernes of pantanal, and it was just such an amazing day for it!
This is a little video of us riding, you get a bit of a comentary and you can see how beautiful it was!
when our horse riding adventure was at an end, we headed back to the pousada, packed up our bags, had an early lunch and were back on the road again by midday.
when we got to bonito, we had free time in the city to eat and shop.
afterwards we went to our hotel, which was amazing! In the bus on the way there i was saying 'dang i wish the new place has hamocks like the last place' (thinking that this was unlikely) and then we got there, and we literally sprinted towards the big hamock rotunda that was outside when we saw it!
A well as the hamocks, there was a really cool swiming pool, voleyball and futebol fields, and sauna! a little piece of heaven, and we were staying there for another 4 days :D
29th of October- Bonito
so this day was pretty much one of the most fantastic days of the trip.
We got up nice and early at 6am, and we went to a place on the river Sucuri (word for anaconda in portuguese) and went snorkeling.
It was FANTASTIC
we got into these ridiculous looking wetsuits, took some awesomely sexy photos in them of course, and went to the river. The amazing thing about snorkeling there, was that the river just carried you down stream, there was no need to swim, just float.
we spent an hour in the crystaline water, just floating, looking at the different coloured fish and underwater life.
I loved the fact that with your head under water, it looked like you were in the sea, but then you lifted up your head and were in the middle of a rainforest once more.
it was one of the most breathtaking experiences of the trip.
absolutly brilliant.
So then after snorkelling, we went back to the hotel at about 1pm and had free time, in which we spent lounging around in the sun by the pool, in the pool, and some of us even getting active and playing a bit of volleyball.
At night, we went into town again for some free time. I got pizza with some of the girlies, was veryyy yummy, and we got a chocolate pizza for desert.
pretty much the most amazing type of pizza you can get. definatly making it when i get home to aus :D
ummm, yersh, that would be a rubber chicken in a spotted bikini that i am holding in my hand...
Pablo in a sexy hat :D
30th of October- Bonito
okay, so i did say that yesterday was awesome and everything, but today, we had an absolute ball.
in the morning we went to Parque das Cachoeiras (waterfall park) where there were 7 waterfalls we walked to and swam at. It was so beautiful and the water was so nice!
there was one with a flying fox that you could go down and then drop into the water, which was so much fun. there was some pretty impressive airwork, that much i will say lol.
at lunch time it started pouring, and since we were already wet, korinn, sarah and i went and danced and span around like 5 year olds in the rain :) it was the most amazing fun :)
After lunch we hopped on the bus for a short amount of time, and headed off to where we were doing water rafting!
we split into groups of about 10, jumped in a raft with one of the guide people in it, and raced down the river, passing other peoples boats, splashing water on the other teams, and going down a few rapids and mini waterfalls while we were at it!
it started pouring rain at the end which was really cool as we jumped in the water and were all swimming around in the river as it was pouring! was amazing fun :) oh, and my raft won :D
it rained for the rest of the afternoon, and through the night too, but it couldnt dampen any spirits :)
31st of October- Bonito
Last day in bonito, and unfortunatly we couldnt go to the blue lagoon grotto because of the amount of rain that we had over night.
Instead we headed off to another grotto thingie, which didnt contain water but still was pretty interesting with lots of stalectites and stalegmites and owls and bats and stuff.
It was still pretty cool :)
there were red macaws there, and we got to get right up close to them as they were eating.
they were sooo beautiful!
a quick lunch stop in town, then headed back to the hotel for some free time and to get ready for the tallent show and end of trip dinner.
Us aussies grouped together and did a rather... strange combination of 'i am australian' (me on guitar) whilst the other were wrapped in bedsheets and aussie flags, red lipstick ceremonial paint, being aboriginals.
was rather funny to watch. even harder to play and sing that song whilst watching them all being tools infront of me. haha
there were a few guys who decided to do a bit of a strip tease (yes there were rotarians in the room, but they all took it as good sport) and there were various songs in german, french and spanish too. Kate did some ballet for us which was amazing, and it was a good fun night.
after this, we danced a lot and just had a lot of fun together for the last night :(
1st of November- Bonito-Araçatuba
so this morning was pretty sad, saying goodbye to the good friends i had made on the trip, knowing that for a lot of them, i wont see them again for a long time, if ever.
it was a miracle that i wasnt the one who started crying, but as soon as someone comes up to me crying because it soo sad, thats the end of me, and i spent the rest of the morning crying whenever someone else left and started up the waterworks. it was not so cool.
We pretty much spent the whole day once again on the bus, sleeping mostly, as our curfew had been 4am the night before, and we had all stayed up till then or later. lol
Got to Araçatuba around 9, and what was left of the group (about 10 people) headed off to mcdonalds for dinner. So we decided to make it fun and go through the drive through.
watch here to see the results:
had a pretty cruzy night, with practically no curfew (but we were so tired that we all were in bed by 12 anyway) and apart from a mexican jumping bean and her friend from holland coming in and jumping on everyones beds at 2am, it was a pretty quiet night.
2nd of November- Araçatuba- Belo Horizonte
so last day of the trip,after another day on the bus, cruzing along, dancing, bus surfing, watching movies, and general bus antics, we finally stopped at our final destination, in Belo Horizonte. And although one adventure was over, another one was there to pick me up :)
but thats another story for a few days time. I will start writing about it now :D
