Southern Brazil 4^th April - 19^th May 2004

São Paulo, Brazil 4^th April - 4^th May 2004

Its amazing how time flies when you are doing almost nothing (as opposed to absolutely nothing when it really can drag). In one month I have been on my bike twice. Once to take it to the BMW garage, and then to bring it back to the flat. After the somewhat gruelling schedule I had set myself to get here, I was in need of a good break. Its a funny thing that when I tell people here how long I have been travelling for (six months now) they seem amazed by how long it has been. Tell another overlander the same story – and most seem amazed at how fast I have gone. Its true that there are places where I would like to have lingered a while longer, but sacrificed that for my goal of reaching Ushuaia before winter set in. I know if I hadn't achieved that I would have more regrets.

So for the first few days here I did almost nothing but eat, drink, sleep and read my first book that wasn't a travel guide in over four months (Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, if you're interested). On the Thursday night before Easter we all (thats Steve, Vanessa, their two boys Alex and Cris, plus Steve's mum Lynda, and me of course) got into two cars to drive down to Guarujá for the weekend. We were staying with Renaldo and Rosa, plus down the road were Flavio and Tais, all with a broad range of family members with them, most of whom live in the same apartment complex as Steve and Vanessa.

The whole weekend mostly involved sitting on the beach, drinking caipirinhas, body surfing and eating as much as possible, though not necessarily in that order. On Saturday we had a BBQ (or churrasco to give it its Portuguese name) to celebrate my birthday and Cris'. It was mine that day and Cris' (5^th) during the following week. If the Argentinians produce the best beef, then the Brazilians it seems are best at cooking it. I have never had better beef than a Brazilian picanha from a Brazilian churrasco. I will happily admit that a good English summer bbq will have a greater variety of flavours and dishes, but we really don't know how to bbq our meat properly.

Guaruja on my birthday.

Later in the evening a few of us went to a club, with a mixture of the usual clubbing music and a couple of live Brazilian bands. The first band was mostly samba oriented and were pretty good. The second played a fast, jumpy kind of style called Axe (pronounced ashay) and were truly terrible, even drunk as I was. At one point it poured with rain and the roof over the stage was clearly not up to much as it was coming down reasonably heavy on the band as well. It didn't stop them or the rest of the party though. We left sometime after three am with the club looking like it would be packed out at least until dawn.

The main event of the following week was Cris' real birthday party on the Wednesday (14^th). Vanessa's mother and grandmother flew down from Vittoria for that and stayed for a week. This made the apartment extremely full for a few days, although as this is often the case with Steve and Vanessa, there were just enough sofa-beds to go round.

Then for the following two weeks I was having Portuguese lessons. There are lots of English language schools in this part of the city, and after visiting a few with Vanessa we found some that could also provide a Portuguese teacher. I went with the cheapest option but also I think got the most experienced teacher, Angela, who had spent many years teaching Portuguese in the US. It was a one to one class, two hours every morning, with lots of practice material to take home with me. I really enjoyed it and I think as a result learned pretty quickly, although the Spanish I had picked up during the trip helped a lot and Angela was an excellent teacher. For the first time in several years I found myself very eager to learn something new. As a result after two weeks I feel that my Portuguese is better than the Spanish I picked up, I can pick up a reasonable amount in conversation if I concentrate, and can even follow some of what goes on in the TV novelas that are a daily viewing addiction here (an addict is called a novelero).

Steve and Vanessa do a lot of dancing, Vanessa is very good and teaches some, while Steve just learns. Last Saturday night we went to a dance evening put on by the school they go to. Vanessa was doing a presentation dance which was excellent, plus there were a whole load of others from both teachers and pupils. I even got up and joined in a line dance to Shania Twain (oh the horror of it) which Steve had insisted that I learn the steps for earlier that afternoon.

Then on Sunday we went out into the countryside to see some friends. I had been in the city for so long that I had almost forgotten what it was like to be in the mountains surrounded by jungle. We even got to see, at very close hand, a troop of about 8 monkeys, totally wild, sitting in the trees by the roadside where the kids where playing. There was one bigger one, presumably the alpha male, who just sat there watching us the whole time while the others , including at least one that could not have been more than a few weeks old, wandered around the branches playing and eating. Even the people who lived there said they had not seen so many up so close before. It was very cool.

Today is Tuesday and I am getting ready to head out tomorrow for a few days, to get my travel legs back. Its been a great month, relaxing and fun, but I am now ready to get back in the saddle.

Late night backgammon, the guy in the middle is Germano, an old friend who used to live in London.

We were all quite drunk.

In the end Vanessa couldn't stand the pace.

5^th May. Presidente Prudente. 365 miles, passed 25,000 trip miles.

It felt good to be back on the road again today. I left early but it still took the best part of an hour to get out of the city proper and another before I really felt in the country. The road varied a lot in quality from new dual carriageway to single track through the centre of towns, even though it was the same route number all day, heading west through São Paulo state. I had a brush with the law almost identical to one in Peru. I was pulled over for overtaking a lorry going up a hill in a no overtaking zone, and there he was right at the top. The policeman examined all my papers in detail, explained that he should give me a ticket, but like in Peru he didn't and wished me a good journey. I was very relaxed about the whole thing and felt really good when I realised I could understand pretty much everything he was saying.

For a long time the road was arrow straight over rolling hills with a variety of flora – ploughed fields, tall sugar cane, primary forest and managed woods. I hadn't really been on my own for a long time and was enjoying it immensely. With other people, especially someone who knows the territory, my perception of a place is different. Being guided by them, its almost as if I was seeing through their eyes what they wanted to see or show me and not discovering it for myself.

It started out sunny this morning but gradually clouded over and around 1 o'clock started raining. I stopped for petrol and lunch to wait it out but it soon became clear that it was not going to stop. It was far from heavy but after a good couple of hours riding I was fairly soaked, especially my feet, but at least I was not cold.

Presidente Prudente is a medium sized town of little distinction, it just happened to be the first place of any size I arrived at after leaving the service station where I had lunch. So I finished earlier than I would have liked but realised as I got into my room that I was very tired. I guess I've gone a little soft in the last month. But a good first day.

A final word – the food out here is even cheaper than in São Paulo. I just had an enormous plate of spaghetti for what would probably be less than the wholesale price of the ingredients back home.

6^th May. Posto Pioneiro. 411 miles.

It was a very English day – it rained constantly. I would have got away earlier than I did if it weren't for the fact that one of the chain tensioning bolts had come loose sometime yesterday and was bent. The cap on the end of the swing arm had come off as a result and it took me the best part of an hour to get it back in place and the bolt tightened back up. I'll have words with the people from BMW when I get back to São Paulo.

I avoided stopping as much as possible but progress was slow at times with rough road surfaces, rain and trucks all playing their part. This country is so much bigger than it looks on the map. I reached Campo Grande at 2pm to find out that my intended destination was still over 400 km away, and I knew I wouldn't make it. Still I kept going but almost turned back when the rain got suddenly heavier and a wind came up as well. I ploughed on though and was rewarded when it eventually dried up for the first time.

I started seeing billboards for this Posto about 100 km away and got curious enough to come and look at it, deciding in advance that it was going to be expensive, as most of the time when the ads appear a long way away they are, or a complete dive. In the end it is neither, just a truck stop with a small hotel. The room is good and cheap, as is the all you can eat restaurant next door. I was wet through and even a little cold so it was time to stop.

7^th May. Corumbá. 164 miles.

The sunshine this morning was a welcome relief, especially as my stuff was still wet. I got on the road in good time in case it didn't last, but took it slow as I didn't have far to go. Luckily the sun held out all day, though it was touch and go at times.

As the morning wore on the road seemed to become more isolated, less travelled except by locals. There were hardly any service stations and the surface deteriorated – at times it felt rougher than being on a gravel road, perhaps because there was less give in it.

I came across two separate herds of cattle blocking the road, white cows with those humps on the shoulders and big dewlaps under their throats. At the head of each herd were a dozen or so loose horses, probably spares for the 4 or 5 gauchos driving the herd. As I approached one of the cowboys would clear a path through and I would creep along behind his horse hoping that the cows wouldn't spook and run into me, they looked very big and heavy this close up.

A bridge over the river Paraguay, a toll booth, and I entered the wetlands of the Pantanal – or thevery edges of them anyway. I spotted a few small cayman and these enormous stork type birds called Jarabou, which looked like they could be 4ft tall.

Corumbá is a smallish town right on the border with Bolivia. The influence is obvious, I've seen a few very Andean looking people, I think the first since coming to Brazil, and the language seems closer to Spanish here as well. Either that or people are talking more Spanish to me because they assume I have come from Bolivia and its easier for me to understand.

I arrived in time for lunch, my first meal of the day, and let loose with another buffet at a restaurant near the river front. In the afternoon I booked up a 3 day trek into the Pantanal and discovered that I had crossed a time zone yesterday and gained an hour. No wonder the restaurant was practically empty when I arrived.

At some point this afternoon while walking around town a couple went past me on a British bike, an Africa Twin I think, with pannier racks but no luggage. They stopped at a junction and I ran to try and catch them before the lights changed, but they disappeared before I could get there.

Its evening now and I'm sitting outside drinking caipirinha and listening to some local band. There are lots of little snack stands about but for some reason I am not really hungry. Though it could be that the girl singing, who is truly terrible, is ruining my appetite.

8^th March. Somewhere in the Pantanal. 53 miles, passed 26,000 trip miles (once round the earth at the equator).

Its been a hard day. I left Corumbá in what I assumed would be plenty of time. To start the trek I had had a choice – to take a one and a half hour bus ride on asphalt to a pick up point where a jeep would then take me to the camp over a dirt track; or to take the bike down another track to a halfway point where I could leave it for a few days, and be picked up by the jeep for the rest of the way. With the rain the previous days I wasn't sure but the lady in the agency office assured me that an Italian guy on a scooter had made the trip the day before, which sounded like a challenge.

I came off the main road about 10 miles out of Corumbá. It was easy going at first, a solid dirt road, slightly rocky in places but posing no difficulty. I was taking my time enjoying the scenery. I came to the River Paraguay and as expected took a small ferry across. It was after the river that things turned a bit nasty.

A couple of hundred yards round a corner from the river bank I came across a huge mud patch churned up by tyre tracks. In the middle of it, to one side, was an abandoned bus that had clearly not been able to make it through. I almost turned back, there would have been time to get back to Corumbá and catch the bus. Instead I went for it, having first walked over it, and though I had to paddle a bit it wasn't too serious. For a while after that it was good again, with a number of wooden bridges over water ways, and I could enjoy the view. There were quite a few capibara in the road. The first one I saw I thought was a large dog at first – like a black old English sheepdog. I was going at a reasonable speed and as I got close it suddenly dashed across my path into the bushes making a very strange sound of distress – somewhere between a donkey, a sheep and a pig I reckon. After that I approached more cautiously but I was never quick enough with the camera for a photo.

I made it through this without too much difficulty.

At some point the road really began to deteriorate with more mud patches and standing water. I was mostly being careful but as in Bolivia it was when I didn't check the ground first that I had a problem. It was a puddle of muddy water that turned out to be deeper than I thought. I went in, my front wheel came out the other side but then I lost traction and came to s dead stop. I tried to ride out but as I did the back end just turned sideways until I was almost broadside to the road, my rear wheel digging itself deeper and my right foot right down there with it. I was truly stuck. Upright but with no chance of getting off the bike without risking it falling over and possibly putting the exhaust under water. As in Bolivia my salvation came in the shape of a truck coming the other way.

I was blocking the road and at first he just stopped and waited for me to get out of the way, but wen it became clear that I wasn't moving a guy jumped out of the back, took off his shoes and waded in. With him holding on I could get off and try revving it again without my weight. No go, so out came a rope. The first attempt at a tow was lass than successful, the bike was pulled even further sideways and when the rope came loose the bike did fall over, and I only just managed to jump off and avoid going down with it. We lifted the bike back up and tried again, tying the rope round the right hand fork and with me back on and trying to find some grip. Fortunately this time it worked and I cam smoothly out.

After thanking them I asked the driver about the conditions ahead of me. I couldn't quite work out of he was saying it was better or worse than this bit, but he was definitely looking at me as if I had no business being there. I was not going to turn around now though, I had come too far and would certainly have missed the other pick up. I never faced anything worse than that section but the mud was fairly unrelenting. For the most part, after and day and a half of sunshine there were semi hard tyre tracks I could stick to and though some were deeply rutted they got me through. Other times when there was standing water or obviously very wet mud blocking my way I would get off and find the best route through it on foot.

My second problem of the afternoon also came from a fairly innocuous stretch of mud, but it wasn't really the mud that was the problem this time. I was following a rut, slowly paddling with my feet, and near the end where the track rose up dry to a bridge, and stalled the engine. Not normally an issue but the starter motor decided not to work at this point. It had happened before when it got clogged with mud and a little water to clean it up fixed it that time. However for this I had to get off the bike without the stand which would have sunk into the mud, then keeping it balanced reach back into my top case for the water bottle.

This time it didn't work and I began to get worried. I tried to push it forward to at least get it to a place where I could put the stand down, but then I only succeeded in dropping it. I was feeling dog tired and it was very hot. I had to unload the luggage a bit to get it back upright with all the energy I could muster and thankfully the starter kicked in this time so I got back onto solid ground and was soon on my way again. The rest of the afternoon was slow but uneventful. I arrived at Curva do Leque, my pick up point, at 3 pm after about 6 hours of riding. When the people running the place – sort of a corner shop with a mechanic on hand – saw me they laughed. The bike and I were both wet through and covered in mud so I was definitely a funny sight. My pick up was late and didn't arrive until 6.30 so I had plenty of time to dry off in the afternoon sun and clean up a little. I parked the bike round the back under its cover.

And it was so clean just a few days ago.

When they turned up there were a lot more people than I had expected, 20 piled into one truck because another one had broken down. It was another hour or so along darks tracks before we got to the camp. A series of wood frame huts strung with hammocks, a cafeteria, bar, and some very rustic looking toilets and showers. No electricity so no hot water, but three square meals a day.

9^th May. Pantanal Camp.

The breakfast bell went off at six am this morning. For my first night in a hammock I slept reasonably well if not soundly. The place is bigger than it looked last night with about 3 more cabanas of hammock other than the one our group was in and several tents dotted around the place as well. The clientèle and pretty much exclusively gringo backpackers – Aussies, French, Germans, Israelis, a surprising number of Brits, and one Brazilian though as she is a researcher for a local travel guide I'm not sure she really counts.

We set off for our first walk around 7 am in a group of 6 with our guide Mario. It was the best part of a 4 hour hike through grassland and copses of palms and other trees. We saw lots of birds including parakeets and storks, a raccoon type animal called a 'cuati'. We also got an introduction to the uses of the local flora, a gum tree whose sap was useful as a glue and for closing up wounds, a vine that was a good source of fresh water when cut and a very bitter tasting woody plants used as a natural contraceptive for women.

Back to the camp for lunch and a couple of hours around the camp. We struck up a game of volleyball, with the guides beating everybody in sight of course. They were also practising with lassos a lot using a tree stump with a cows skull attached to it as a target. Some kind of competition was going on between the guides and one of them kept winning – he almost invariably got his rope just round the horns of the cow, clearly the object of the game. I decided I was going to have a go and with a bit of training I managed to get the rope over the stump within half a dozen attempts, although standing closer to it the the pros were. I am proud to say however that I was the only gringo of the 3 or 4 that had a go, to actually succeed.

In the afternoon we spent another couple of hours walking, occasionally up to our knees in water (my Argentinian shoes will be wrecked after this)and we saw a few cayman and capybara and lots more birds. In the evening there ware plenty of drinking and sitting round the fire with the guides singing songs while one of them played on a little four string guitar.

“Crocodile” Beaumont.

10^th May. Pantanal Camp.

Up at the crack again this morning and today we were off piranha fishing. This involved an hours ride in the truck where we also spotted emus and a taipir, which looked a bit like a large long snouted pig but ran like a horse when we tried to get closer to it. We stopped at a farmhouse for a supply of fresh oranges picked from the trees, which were absolutely delicious.

The fishing involved standing with a bamboo rod, waist deep or more in a lake occupied by both piranha and cayman with bits of cows hearts for bait. Nobody caught anything ( or got caught by anything) and most gave up fairly quickly but I persevered feeling sure it was only a matter of time. The problem was not that there were no piranha, there were loads of them swimming around right near my feet. It was really that they were too small for the hooks we had. You could dangle your bait in the water just at arms length and a few inches below the surface, and watch as these fish no more than 3 or 4 inches long ate everything off the hook with little darting, smash and grab raids, and no danger of getting caught on it. Still it was a beautifully sunny day and we managed to get up close and personal with some cayman attracted by our excess bait. There was also a large otter type animal in the water at one point. It swam towards the shore from somewhere in the middle of the lake, looking as if it was trying to get to shore but not wanting to get too close to all the people standing in the lake. Its head would surface, it would look around at whoever was nearby, then duck down and reappear somewhere else a few seconds later.

After lunch back at the camp it was an afternoon horse riding, gaúcho style. I had a silvery grey one over which I had very little control at first. It seemed to either do whatever it wanted, which was invariably to walk as slowly as possible, or break out into a trot or canter whenever another horse nearby did the same. The trot I learned to get the rhythm of, but when it started cantering I just hand on as best as I could , laughing all the way. Later on I discovered the secret word to make it go faster when I wanted it to, which was 'catch up' or 'ketchup' which worked just as well. Whenever his natural laziness separated me from the group in front, I told him to catch up, and he did. Sometimes even overtaking. But I think he realised that when he was going any faster than a trot I was not really in control, and rarely broke out for more than a hundred yards or so. It was a great afternoon and near sunset we got a rare treat. The guides spotted, rounded up and caught a giant anteater, which are very difficult to see, especially during the day.

11^th May. Posto Pioneiro. 111 miles.

Had a very calm morning learning to make string out of the fibres of a local leaf which was then used to make necklaces using a small nut related to the coconut as a medallion. Not exactly exciting but my legs were in need of a rest after the horse riding. I also got a henna tattoo of sorts – a natural blue-black dye from a fruit, which then started a craze until everybody had one. Also spent some time watching toucans and monkeys in the trees right in the camp.

The tattooed man.

By lunch time it was all over and around 2 o'clock I was reunited with my bike. Taking a different route to the one I came in on I had about 30 miles of dirt before hitting the main road. With the intervening days of sunshine much of the mud had dried up and this road posed no problems though there were still a few patches of wet stuff that I had to walk through first.

I'm back in the same hotel I stayed in 5 nights ago, reasonably convenient for tomorrow's route and an easy choice compared to trying to find another place when I was feeling very tired.

12^th May. Bonito. 103 miles

I woke early this morning having got used to it in the last few days, but took my time leaving. It was a relatively short ride along a good, solid dirt road although with a lack of signposts to mark the way (unusual until now), I had to ask directions a few times. I met a couple of Brazilian bikers from Minas Gerais coming the other way and we stopped to talk for a while, with me just about holding my own in Portuguese. One of them told me he thought I spoke pretty well.

Bikers from Minas Gerais.

I arrived in Bonito around mid morning. It was hot a humid so I was very glad to get a room quickly and change out of the bike suit. Bonito is a major centre for ecotourism in the region but its quite heavily controlled so my first order of business is to go round the travel agencies to sort out a couple of excursions. With permission required ahead of time to get to some places its very difficult to do it entirely alone. I quickly discover that the prices are all the same, mostly because I am just paying entrance fees rather than transport as well. I drop my clothes off at a laundry and have some lunch – piranha soup. A couple of large beers and I end up sleeping away most of the afternoon, but I do manage a walk around the town, which is not very big.

The evening starts off perfectly calm but there is silent sheet lightening in the distance which turns out to be the herald of a storm which arrives when I'm sitting outside a bar with a caipirinha. I move inside and then run into a Dutch guy who had been at the camp in the Pantanal so we talk while outside the rain is coming down with tropical ferocity. It doesn't last too long and in a lull my friend decides to brave it and make his way back to his hostel. I'm not particularly hungry and order some bars snacks (sausage and chips) which turn out to be more substantial than I expected but I still manage to polish them off. Even after the rain stops the lightening continues, causing occasional breaks in the electricity supply which momentarily plunge the bar into darkness.

13^th May. Bonito. 42 miles.

I woke up to overcast skies and a light drizzle this morning which is not great news. I had 15 miles of dirt road through farm land to my first planned destination, the Gruta de Lagoa Azul, a limestone cave with, you guessed it, a blue lake at the bottom. The road was mostly hard packed and little effected by yesterday's rain but there was one section, maybe two or three miles long, where the surface was much looser and hard turned to a soft mud layer on top. No chance of getting stuck but it made for slow slippery progress. In the middle of it I came across a couple on a small hired bike who were having a little more difficulty, but we both made it through unspilled.

The cave was very impressive with lots of stalactites and stalagmites, but a lot less impressive than it would have been on a sunny day when apparently it shines right down to the lake at certain times of the year. The lake is exceptionally clear fresh water, and very blue, though unfortunately there was not enough light for my camera. The tour was all in Portuguese but fortunately there was a lady there who had lived in Portishead for a couple of years and she provided translations for me as it was all too technical for my limited vocabulary.

I have seen the light!

Back in town for lunch the rain was still falling intermittently and after a big churrasco I decided to delay my afternoon trip until tomorrow hoping for better weather. Bonito is a nice enough place but it is a bit like a ski resort in that you don't come here for the town but the surroundings. So with the bad weather there is very little to do or see in town. I while away most of the rest of the day planning my route out form here and doing some writing.

In the evening I went out meaning to just have a couple of drinks as I was still feeling full from lunch. However I bumped into Petra, a German girl from the Pantanal and ended up having another meal and quite a few drinks with a group from there who were staying in the youth hostel.

14^th May. Ponto Pora. 299 miles.

It was overcast again this morning and with it quite chilly, not the sort of weather to go swimming with the fist as planned. So I decided instead to get under way as I couldn't sit around here doing nothing for another day.

Most of the journey was on back roads through farm land. With straight flat roads and the cold never going away it sometimes felt a bit like being back in the northern US. I made good time for the most part but got a little lost in Dourados, a rather ugly looking city, before finding the road to Ponta Pora.

By the time I got here it was raining and getting dark. Ponto Pora straddles the border with Paraguay and on the other side of the Avenida Internacional it becomes Pedro Juan Caballiero. It is an extremely informal border with free movement of people and traffic. The result of this being that it was actually very difficult for me to cross properly with all the stamps, and I only half made it. After riding around for over an hour I finally found the Brazilian customs office, having passed it several times, to check out the bike, and they in turn directed me to the police station where I got my exit stamp in my passport. Too late I discover that today is independence day in Paraguay and all the offices are closed, so I can't complete and entry formalities. On top of this its Friday and the Brazilian officials can't tell me if they will be open tomorrow either. So I may end up stuck here, effectively in no man's land, until Monday.

By now it was fully dark and I was wet through from the continuous drizzle because I hadn't put my waterproofs on. So I booked into the first hotel I found here on the Brazilian side of town and its too cold and damp to bother going out for dinner. Not my best evening.

15^th May. Foz do Iguaçu. 383 miles.

It was still raining when I woke up this morning but had stopped by the time I had finished breakfast, so I got moving. I found Paraguayan immigration okay, but the customs people weren't working today, but the lady who stamped my passport said there was another office 20 clicks down the road which would be open, so I set off. The office turned out to be a roadside checkpoint, but there was a customs bloke on duty. He gave my documents the briefest of glances, asked me where I was going, then told me 'todo tranquilo' and waved me off without a single stamp. So if I wanted to sell my bike, Paraguay would be the place to do it.

There was an immediate marked difference between Brazil and Paraguay where Ponto Pora became Pedro Juan Caballiero. Paraguay looked extremely poor by comparison, the streets cobbled or unpaved, and it was much dirtier. Even the money, which was off the large numbers of zeros variety, was old and held together by sellotape. There was also a much more obvious presence of armed police.

I had decided to come through Paraguay for two reasons. First it looked like the easiest road route to Foz, and second because I wanted to renew my 90 day visa for Brazil.

Things didn't change much as I rode through the country. It was all villages, one street towns and farmland. The landscape was not unattractive, just unremarkable. About the most interesting thing I can note about Paraguay is that its the only country I seen since leaving home where they use amber in the traffic lights when going from red to green. At least the weather stayed dry and the sun even shone through a little in the afternoon.

I arrived at Ciudad Del Este, the second largest city in the country and back on the Brazilian border, with the sun setting. I had thought about spending the night there, but as the road led me straight to the international bridge over the Rio Paraná it seemed easier just to keep going and cross over than to get off the main road to look for a hotel. Besides it did not look particularly inviting.

By the time I'd cleared Brazilian customs, with a little bit of patience and persuasion needed to make sure they gave me another 3 months, it was fully dark. With the help of a local biker I found a reasonable, if not exactly inviting, hotel with parking. The town is not exactly buzzing with life. I guess they know that with people coming here for the Iguaçu Falls outside of town, they don't have to make too much effort making the centre very attractive. Its low season now of course, distinctly chilly in the evening, so there's a bit of the Bournemouth in winter under occupation air about the place.

16^th May. Foz Do Iguaçu. 25 miles.

It was overcast and misty first thing this morning for my short ride to the Parque Nacional do Foz Iguaçu. No private transport is allowed near the falls so I had a short bus ride, during which the sky cleared, to the beginning of the trail. Most of the falls are on the Argentine side of the border, so my first sight is looking across a valley at the cascades of water. My first thoughts were this is pretty impressive. The water is cascading down about sixty metres, though in some places it doses so in two steps. Yon hear the noise before you actually see the water .Then after taking in the first view you follow a path round a bend, more falls come into view and suddenly its twice as big as you thought so you think "Hey this is pretty big" At this point I tried to capture it all on a short video. There were lots of falls and a very vivid rainbow which l am sure will not come out in the photos.

The path continues and there is a cuati (the raccoon type animal) wandering around, clearly used to the visitors. Then there is another bend and at last you get an idea of the full extent of this cascade, as "A garganta do Diablo" , the devil's throat, is revealed to you. This is a horseshoe shaped section where l world guess the majority of the water falls. It is only then that l appreciated the full scale of the Iguaçu (and for the curious, the name means "Big Water" in Guarani, the language of the indigenous people in this region).

Somebody said to me the other day that I would be able to compare this place with Niagara Falls having seen them both. My response to that now is that Niagara looks looks like someone left the tap running in the bath.

And the best bit is yet to come. The walkway stretches out over the river at a point where there is a step in the falls, so you have one small part above and can look down from the top of another fall, plus get closer to the Devil's Throat. This is the part where you get soaked by the spray, especially if you don't buy one of the pacamacs on sale. Of course I was wearing the bike suit, still covered in mud from the Pantanal, and it was considerably cleaner after that walk. Looking down from the end of the walkway I could see a rainbow that was almost a complete circle.

I had lunch at the cafeteria at the top of the falls then came back into town. I had decided to check out of last night's hotel as I didn't like the room so spent a bit of time hunting for a new one. After looking at a few that were a bit pricey (one as much as £13 a night!)I eventually found the place I had started out looking for yesterday – Pousada da Laura. At first sight I wasn't sure of it because it looked like a private house, but I rang the bell, and Laura came out to greet me. She is one of those genuinely welcoming people and at £5 a night it was definitely my best option. She speaks good English but spotting that I was trying Portuguese she responded in kind and only switched when I was obviously struggling to understand.

I had a bunch of Paraguayan Guaranis that I hadn't spent seeing as I had not had a night in the country (which I think is a first for the trip). There seem to be no money changers here apart from the banks and this being Sunday they are all shut. So I decided I might as well cross back to Cuidad del Este and try to get my Reais back there. This gave me another first experience, crossing the border on foot, over the Friendship Bridge as there was no point in taking the bike across. I was very careful to check whether I needed my passport stamped , and found that on the Brazilian side the bloke that had stamped me in yesterday was now working the exit window, and remembered me because he had helped me locate the customs office. I explained, all in Portuguese mind, that I was only crossing over briefly, so he told me it wasn't necessary to stamp me out then back in again. Similarly on the Paraguayan side I was just waved through immigration.

One thing I have noticed, as a brief aside, with my recent return to a Spanish speaking country, how difficult it was for me to switch back. Not because I had forgotten but just from out of habit. Although in some ways it is more complex than Portuguese – using more vowels – it now almost feels to me like a pigeon version of Portuguese which is much richer and more difficult in terms of pronunciation, especially the use of nasal vowels.

Ciudad del Este is nothing more than a duty free shopping centre for Brazilians to avoid paying heavy import duties on most goods. unfortunately for me the whole place closes down on Sundays and I wander through virtually deserted streets. I does make me realise that I made the right choice in crossing straight back into Brazil yesterday. In comparison this place looks dirty, dangerous and unpleasant to be in. I felt I had to be on guard walking through the empty streets whereas in Foz, and most of the other places in Brazil I have been, I feel perfectly comfortable and safe at any time. The contrast can barely be more stark. I change my money with one of a number of street changers and cross back after barely an hour.

Tonight I am sitting out underneath an outside heater having eaten quesadillas for dinner, my first Mexican food in ages. It was more like a European Tex-Mex version of Mexican cuisine that the real thing, but good nonetheless. Despite the fact its actually quite cold tonight, and I wish I'd listened to Vanessa when she told me I might need to hang on to the jumper I sent home, I'm really warming to Brazil in a new way. I'm starting to feel at home here. Although I freely admit this may be the booze talking.

17^th May. Foz do Iguaçu.

Going back to the Pousada last night I met the other people staying there, English Sam, Swiss Chris and Italian Wolfgang (!). This morning we all went on the same tour over to the Argentinian side of the falls. If anything its more impressive over there, and I wasn't the only one struggling for words to describe it. In the morning I wandered round several paths looking out over the top, middle and bottom of various falls. You are much closer to the water on this side and get a real sense of the sheer volume and power. The falls are about 2.5 km wide and there are something like 270 separate waterfalls that make up the whole area. The Rio Paraná feeding the falls is second only to the Amazon in Brazil, and still the seventh largest in the world.

I took trip on a dinghy that went right under a couple of falls, including one that had looked massive from above (it did from below too but at a certain distance you just have to close your eyes against the spray), and of course everybody got soaked to the skin. Luckily it was a sunny day and reasonably warm, if not actually hot, so I dried out fairly well over lunch.

The afternoon finished with a train ride and a short walk on gang ways out to the middle of the river, to what is the most impressive single viewpoint of all – right at the top of the Devil's Throat. The volume of water falling here is astounding and there is a whole wall of water that is invisible from anywhere else. You can't see the river at the bottom for the amount of spray being kicked up. There is also something very hypnotic about watching all that water tumbling down in repeating patterns of white spray and muddy brown colours. It really isn't right that Niagara s more famous and undoubtedly draws more crowds. I'd put it down to the fact that the Yanks are just better at marketing than the Brazilians. If more people even knew about this I'm sure it could become one of the world's biggest tourist draws.

Top of the Devil's Throat.

18^th May. Curitiba. 408 miles. 27,000 trip miles.

It was very cold again this morning despite the sunshine and I got under way around 10am. It was a toll road all the way here and annoyingly one where I had to pay. The countryside was hilly in places but not quite mountainous. As always on main roads in Brazil its the lorries that make up the majority of the traffic, and at times the going is slower than I would have liked. Two other events delayed my arrival in Curitiba.

First I was pulled over by the police, though not for any infraction this time, and a close examination of my paperwork ensued. It almost turned bad when the guy noticed that I was missing a stamp on my international driving permit – the one that confirms I can ride a motorbike. I had noticed it before (though not before leaving England) but of course played dumb, nobody else had ever picked up on it. We had a small debate about the importance of this stamp, but after conferring with his colleague for a while he let me go. It has got me determined to fix it, and a little bit of forgery is called for.

The second event happened just 20 miles out of Curitiba as the sun was beginning to set. I was coming down a hill when all of a sudden there was a noise and I lost all power. The engine was still running but nothing was getting through to the wheel. Noe of my gears worked and my first fear was that it would be a clutch problem. I coasted to the hard shoulder where I discovered, to some sense of relief, that the chain had come off the rear sprocket (the front sprocket would have been harder, and the clutch impossible to fix roadside). This could only have happened with the rear wheel moving in on the swing arm, which it clearly had. I put the chain back in place then rode slowly down the hard shoulder to a petrol station just half a mile ahead, a much safer place to make a proper repair. The axle nut was definitely not as tight as it should have been, for which I can really have a go at the BMW dealer as they were the last to touch it. So I adjusted the wheel to get the chain tension right and tightened it up again as hard as I could. I have done it before just by hand so I am confident that it will be tight enough now.

It was properly dark for the last stretch into the city, but as it is a big place it was well signposted and lit. I paying more for my hotel tonight than I have for a long time (almost £10), but it was easy to find and comfortable. The shower is the best I've had since leaving São Paulo (not including the one under the Iguaçu). Having gone to bed at two this morning after a drinking session with Sam (the other two couldn't take the pace), I am tired so its a quick bar meal with a couple of beers, then bed.

19^th May. São Paulo. 276 miles.

Last night I bought an eraser and a black biro, and this morning made an approximation of the missing AA stamp in my driving permit. Its not perfect but I smudged it all up a bit so it would pass most inspections I am likely to get. Its a temporary document, and I am entitled to the stamp, so I have no qualms about doing it.

It takes me a while to find my way out of the city, at one point I get on the right road but in the wrong direction. After that it was a mostly uneventful trip. There was a steep mountain section with very heavy, slow queues of lorries, rain and not many opportunities to overtake, but otherwise all was fine. I got back into the city shortly after dark, which meant rush hour, so it took me another hour at least to the get back to the flat, but I had no problems actually navigating as I kind of know my way around a bit now, especially the main roads and the relative positions of the main neighbourhoods, but having a street map helped as well.

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