FAREWELL

OK that's it, our final entry on this blog site. 3 weary and tired looking faces at the end of 7 months travel through the wonderful South America. What an experience we have had together. We cant believe that its all come to an end so quickly and we are about to try and enter the real world again. Definitely not looking forward to that.
Hope you have all enjoyed seeing some pics and reading about some of our adventures, even though were pretty slack at updating it regularly.


Chou from the NZ 3 Amigos

RIO DE JANIERO

Well well well, here we are. Its Rio and were here for the biggest party in the World. A highlight we have all been looking forward to for so long.
Rio is such a flipping amazingly cool and extremely lively city. The Cariocas (Rio people) sure know how to party.
We are here during Carnival season and the city just never seems to sleep. Every night was another street party on just about every street corner in Rio. Saturday and Sunday we went to the parades which is just massive. For the parades they actually have a purpose built 1km long stadium like thing where the different Samba schools get to strut there stuff and show the world what they can do. The floats are absolutely huge and amazing as are the costumes and there must be a good 2 thousand people in each school if not more. After 3 nights of parading the winner is chosen and gets to strut there stuff again next week. There is only 6 schools a night and the party lasts from 9pm until 6am.
Some crazy late nights, lots of drumming and a bit of dancing has been our routine over the last weekend. What an experience.

The end of the km long stretch for the samba dancers. It takes 1hr and a half for the group to get through.

Some of the very extravagant and colorful floats. You spend hours in awe.

A group of guys dressed up as Lady and the Tramp for some street parties.

Sitting out on the rocks in between Copacabana and Ipanema Beaches.

Downtown on our way to another street party.

Up the Pao de Açucar ( Sugar Loaf mountain for those who don't speak Portuguese). Admiring the views from the top of this huge rock that over looks the whole city of Rio. Its such a spectacular view and Rio is a stunning looking city. We did go up to the Jesus statue hill which is even higher but we got up there and he wasn't there.... oh no, he was just hiding in the clouds.

The world famous Brazilian stairway. These are actually made by a Chilean artist and is an on going work. We felt privileged to walk up these stairs as the likes of Michael Jackson, U2, Pharrell, Snoop Doggy Dog and even Homer Simpson have all visited this stairway.

Copa, Copacabana.... Not the busiest day we saw but this is the busiest beach we have ever seen in our lives. I have never seen so many people at the beach at one time. The beach is huge and all you can see from end to end is umbrellas. Good luck trying to find a spot for 3 to sit. And Ipanema beach, just round the corner was just as jammed packed.

Some down time on Copacabana beach.

Hmm... Copacabana beach again. This walkway is all made from little chips of rock and stretches down the whole beach and throughout the city as well.

Undies, undies, undies....

BARRO DA LAGOA

Our first stop in Brazil and what a stop it was. Barro is a bay on the island Florianopolis in the south of Brazil. We were suppose to stay here for 2 days but ended up staying for a week cause we loved it so much. We had our own little apartment right on the estuary leading out to the beach. The estuary provided us with hours of fun as we would float back and forth from the beach to the apartment depending on the tide. Good times.

Our beach in Barro. Was generally pretty busy most days.

Floating down our estuary (except for Jarrod and Logan cant actually float). That's our apartment on the other side. Hahaha

TRINDADE

A tiny little beach and jungle town full of hippies and surfers. Much like Barro da Lagoa, we were only supposed to stay for 1 night but ended up staying for 4. How could we not though. We had a cool as little jungle hideaway owned by a french Canadian couple who live there 4 months of the year. What a life. The jungle lead down to an amazing beach. there was a bit of a jungle hike over a hill to one beach and then carry on a bit more and there is a massive natural rock pool. Reminded us heaps of some places in Colombia.

The view from our room. Logan wasn't always in the view though and it wasn't always on an angle either. This "creek" turned into a river on our second day when it absolutely poured all day with heavy "Jungle Rain".

Climbing round the rocks to get to our favorite beach.

The natural rock piscina.

IGUAÇU

After a teary farewell to Sam in Buenos Aires we headed up to the wonderful Iguaçu Falls to cheer ourselves up a bit.
What an amazing place, truly is one of the Wonders of the World. We spent the day cruising round in the sweltering heat admiring these beautiful gigantic waterfalls and only wishing we could jump in the water to cool ourselves down.
Standing over the falls you could probably throw a stone over and take out some Brazilians on the other side.
Iguaçu was our crossing point into Brazil.

Garganta del Diablo (the devils throat). A crazy amount of water is going over this edge. The mist from the bottom rose so high that from a distance we thought it was smoke. Wouldn't wanna fall in there.

This is Bob and us checking out some more amazing views at the falls. They stretch for miles.

What a lovely pose from these two hotties at the top of the Devils Throat.

Some crazy gringo making a dick of himself amoungst the hundreds of tourists, at the base of yet another fall.

BUENOS AIRES AND URUGUAY

Ventured to the famed city of Buenos Aires. It has a pretty big road down the centre with 11 lanes in each direction. Fun trying to cross it. Visited the Zoo with roaming otters, La Boca, the Obelisk and all the other usual attractions. Cool city, with mega hot dogs and a cool run down subway. From here we travelled for 3hours on the Love Boat to Uruguay. Stayed in Colonia Sacremento, old colonial town with cobbled streets, and then to Montevideo which we didnt like so much. After 4days in Uruguay we headed back to Buenos Aires for Sams imminent departure!!

Joel, Jarrod, Sam and Random at the obelisk. Centre point of the 22 lane road.

Us hanging at La Boca. A poor area that they have turned into a bit of a attraction. The home of Maradona. Pretty smelly river....Sam felt like he was at home in Rotorua.

Visited an amazing cemetery accompanied by thunder and lightening. The whole place was filled with tombs where you could look in and see the coffins. Sam even tried to open one!!! This is also where Evita is tombed. The thunder and lightening turned into the heaviest rain and we got completely nailed. Returned to our hostel completely drenched.

Us on a wooden draw bridge in Colonia del Sacremento, Uruguay. Logan won this fight.

Joel, Jarrod and our guide on our horse trek through the woods to the beach. Joel had the funniest, slowest horse ever. Was sooooo crackup!

CAMP AMERICA

We moved to the coast of Argentina and stayed at the most amazing camp ground ever. Came with 2 resturants, a store, a supermarket, a pool, two big bush fires, kites, a funny ´hey whats up´ man, a cool waitress and a American guy named Mark. We had a complete mission getting there which we wont go into...but once there it was really cool.

Awwww, just like Parachute! Our camp tags for the biggest and best camp in the WORLD!!!!

Sam loving some kite action on the top of the sand dunes.

A blurry photo of one of the neighbouring bush fires. We were heading to bed after midnight and then noticed chaos and a mass exodus from the camp ground. We ran to check it out, the biggest fire any of us have ever seen. Pretty amazing really.

PATAGONIA, ARGENTINA

After hanging out in Santiago and visiting the cool Island of Chiloe, we headed from Chile to Argentina to the Patagonia region. Stayed in Bariloche which is on the edge of a massive lake. Possibly the most beautiful place any of us have ever been. Also the most expensive place that we have been as it is a huge holiday spot for Argentinians (here begins the struggle to get accommodation). Went on a boat cruise on the lake which was cool.....boat broke down and we had to wait for about 3hours in the middle of nowhere which wasn't. Ate amazing Argentinian steak and local handmade chocolates. It was absolutely freezing but such an awesome place.

Us on our boat cruising the lake.

A beautiful scene in the National Park we stopped in on our lake tour.

Sam being Karate Kid on a half sunken wharf on the waterfront of town.

We moved from Bariloche to Junin de los Andes which was a river town. Spent the day enjoying the sun and river before heading to the coast of Argey.

CHRISTMAS IN HORCON......WITH OUR NEW TOY SAM.

So it was our first Christmas without any family which was a little strange but having Sam arrive and finding a great location for the Christmas period, made it a really great one. Stayed in Horcon which is about 1hour on a rickety bus from Viña del Mar. Was a small little fishing village where you could buy fish right from the boats as the fishermen pulled them up on shore. Totally awesome. Stayed with a crackup, large, Chilean called Juan Estaban who made our time even better and much more amusing! Ate and ate.....turkey, roasts, fresh fish and even a Christmas pudding from NZ!!!!.... and basically just spent the days lazing around. A holiday from our holiday.

New Years was in Valpraiso....massive fireworks display which spanned the coast of probably about 20kms. Pretty impressive. Found out shortly though that the Chileans aren't as good at street parties and general celebrating as the rest of South America. A good night.....but not as good as we were hoping.

Joel and Sam chilling on the fishing boats down at the shore of Horcon.

Horcon had millions of Pelicans who ate off the scraps from the fishing boats. Heres Sam loving it as the birds swarm around us.

We rented a quad pedal bike in Viña del Mar. Funny cruising on the road with all the traffic but funnier when we mounted the footpath and terrorized the locals.....yeah!

Us on some rocks. Reñaca.

Merry Christmas from the 3 Amigos.

HUACACHINA

We have headed back down to Chile from the top of Colombia. In Peru a few hours down from Lima we hit desert. In the middle of gigantic sand dunes is a beautiful Oasis made into a cosy little town, from here they run dune buggy tours and sand boarding exurtions.

The little town situated amoung huge sand dunes.

Our Dune Buggy for the late afternoon, and our experienced driver who freaked us out on several occations as to where they could take these things...

One of the sand dunes that we hurled ourselves down, scary at the outset but sooo much fun as you are flying down the hill.

IPIALES

At the bottom of Colombia just before crossing the boarder, we found another amazing Church. This one is heavily devoted to the Virgin of Las Lajas, and is plastered with plaques of people giving thanks for what we think is all healings.

Las Lajas, in all its glories.

CARTAGENA / PLAYA BLANCA

Cartagena, the most beautiful city we have come across so far...With it's old colonial style city surrounded by a massive fortified wall, built to keep the pirates out, and the other half of the city full of high rise apartment buildings, making it more like Miami Beach. We spent a few bright, sunny and hot days parading around town with the hoards and swimming in the perfect Caribbean waters. We danced the nights away at local street parties to the ohhh so popular Salsa rythms (and got a few helpful Salsa tips from the locals).

Us on the fortified wall, just before we discovered the huge street party down below.

While parading around all day we were pigmented, flowered and watered...severely!

Playa Blanca (white Beach) is a hours cruise out of the harbour into the even more crystal clear Caribean waters. We spent a few nights in hamocks on the beach, 20 paces from the water. Amazing spot though not so much with the annoying German next door.

Ohh the serenity...

Our shade from the heat of the day, Logan, Jarrod and our friend...

The view from our hammocks... and Leroy our Israelie bud.

TAYRONAS/ SANTA MARTA

So we are in Colombia and welcome to the Caribbean Sea! We bussed our butts off through the bulk of Colombia up to the top.....our first port of call was Tayronas Park, a National Park/ Jungle that edges onto deserted beaches! A mission to get to after walking for 40mins in the jungle heat...but worth it and totally beautiful. Stayed in hammocks out in the open, watched a ridiculously amazing thunder and lightening storm on our first night....none of us had ever experienced anything like it before, spent 5 days lazing on the beach tanning, reading, swimming. We love the Caribbean.

The veiw from our hammocks....we woke to this every morn.

Our beach.....pretty rugged surf. A more tranquillo beach was a little walk away from here but we quite liked the surf.

We found a random bakery in the on the edge of our beach, nestled into the jungle. Just a wooden shack with a wood fire oven......but with great chocolate filled bread! So each morning we headed here for Pan de Chocolate and a short black coffee.

Us swimming in Paradise a little way round from our beach. Us and only two others were on this massive beach. The water is sooooo warm!

Us back in the main town, Santa Marta, an hour away from Tayronas. Cool town on the beach....experienced mega cheerleading practice/ shows as a competition was on when we where there (´Bring it On´ styles). The town was totally packed...very social place, everyone hangs near the beaches especially on this day as it turned out to be a public holiday. The beach was jamma!