Sun sea sand and mosquitoes!!
Hi
As Internet access in Brazil seems to be sparser than everywhere else I've visited so far, I thought I'd do a brief update now I've reached Salvador.
Rio was a disappointment as far as weather goes. All the time I was there it seemed to be overcast and rained. Actually, that's not quite true. A couple of times when visiting key viewpoints - Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf (for the second time) the weather cleared enough to get 'the shots', for the rest of the stay it was grey and overcast. Because of that my babe watching excursions were abandoned and I never got to see scantily clad women on Copocabana beach (a real downer that!)
Anyway putting that aside we joined up with the new members of our expedition and set forth to explore Brazil to the full. Well, we will in the next day or so. As fate would have it we left Rio on a glorious sunny day and its remained glorious and sunny ever since. The weather is hot and sticky but bearable. From Rio we went to a mining town called Ouro Preto. This was one of arounnd 50 towns that mined gold and other minerals in the Minas Gerais province. Only two of them still have working mines. The amazing thing about these places is that they all competed with each other to show off who had more mines and faith and between them they have around a 1000 churches. I visited some of them 'cos it was the thing to do.
From Ouro Preto we moved onwards in a North Easterly direction and soon arrived at the first of our five beach resorts (Itanaus, Barra, Caraiva and Porto Seguro). Given that we took pretty much two weeks to get to Porto Segura and this was only a day from Salvador you can see we did some serious chilling on the way to Salvador.
Off to see the Candomblé (Afro-Brazilian religion) Temples and get a feel for the african culture in Brazil (hope I don't have to bite the head off a chicken!). We leave Salvador saturday and start our journey inland to see more of the rain forest, jungle and other cities in particular Brasilia, Bonito and Manaus so I will write more when I can. Until then take care.
Thinking of you always (NOT!)
Matt somewhere in South America !!!
Telephone: switched off