Out with a bang at Rio Carnival!

Blue body paint and lots of beer - it must be Carnival time!

In case you haven't heard of Rio Carnival (where have you been?) it is a festival centered around the samba schools of Rio de Janeiro. Over five party-filled days, the schools compete for the carnival title. This involves colourful floats, costumes, props and some serious dancing!

The samba parades are amazing but the most fun is had at the blocos. Huge street parties (organised or spontaneous), the blocos attract thousands of  revellers decked out in every kind of fancy dress imaginable. They usually involve little more than a truck with some speakers and a load of cheap beer, but the largest bloco in 2012 attracted over a million people.

Our first fancy dress effort was smurftastic. After several beers, 15 cans of body paint and some Jagermeister; 28 smurfs hit the streets. A trail of blue carnage was left in our wake and anyone foolish enough to touch us spent the rest of the day trying to de-blue themselves!

Another great one was the Sergeant Pepper bloco, featuring a Beatles tribute band. There is something special about singing "Hey Jude" with a million people dressed as pirates, superheros, mythical creatures and other wacky stuff.

I was staying with my good friend Jonny in his flat right next to Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. These beautiful beaches are packed during the day and claiming a piece of sand for your towel can be tough. On the upside, you are never more than five meters away from a guy selling cold beer. The beaches are almost as busy during the night - it's just that the guy selling beer is replaced with a prostitute selling...well you get the idea.

Jonny and his friends took me up a huge hill overlooking the city. To get there we had to walk through the Vidigal favela, an experience in itself. The favelas came into existence when huge numbers of people left the rural areas of the country and flocked to Brazil's large cities looking for work. The majority of these people had nowhere to live and no way of paying for accommodation so they just built basic huts on unused land. This was often the steep land on the side of the hills in the city which ironically has some of the best views in town.

The climb involved walking through people's porches, steps and even along a wall at one point but the view on the top was worth it.

I also trekked it up to the top of the Corcovado to see the Christ The Redeemer statue. The walk seemed like a good idea from the bottom but after losing half my body weight in sweat over the 90 minute climb, I began to see the merit of the extortionately priced air conditioned train.

There was a sign at the top that described the statue as the "largest art deco statue" and the "5th largest statue of Christ" in the world. I'm not sure who researches this kind of stuff but I was in no position to argue.

One thing that is certain, its a spectacular sight to see. Not just because of the statue, which towers above the hordes in 30 meters of solid concrete; but also because of the location. This is probably the best view of Rio, and what a magical view it is.

And that's all folks!

I am sad to say that Rio was the last port of call before I jumped on a plane back to London. Sun & sand have been swapped for snow & sleet and it is so cold that I am wearing all my clothes.

What a year it has been. I have stood at the furthest point from the centre of the earth, swam with pink dolphins in the amazon jungle, changed a flat tyre on the salt planes of Bolivia, picked coconuts in exchange for a hammock, fought muggers in the streets of Quito with a Lonely Planet guide, seen more glaciers than I can count, paraglided over a lake ringed with volcanoes and done a million and one other amazing things that I thought I'd never do.

My father has been keeping track of my movements on this map. I might not have taken the most direct route but a lot of ground has been covered this year!

But none of that compares to the people I've met along the way, which is the main reason I love to travel. I have spent time with some of the kindest, funniest and craziest people on this planet over the last 12 months! They are too many to mention but that is what has made it so special.

So that's the end of my travels (for now). I hope you've enjoyed reading the blog as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Until next time...

Sao Paulo, Paraty and Ilha Grande...

There is only way to really appreciate a city of 19 million people - view it from the top of a skyscraper.

Sao Paulo is a sprawling giant of a city that never seems to end. We took a trip up to the 44th floor of the Edifício Itália building for panoramic views around the city. Buildings stretch out in all directions - the city never seems to end.

Any city with 19 million people would have some good places to party, but when those people are Brazilian...well, good times were had. One odd thing that they do in the clubs is give you a drinks card when you enter the club. You use the card to pay for drinks throughout the night and at the end of the night pay the balance on the card. Turns out this is a bad idea because you don't really realise how much money you are spending until you get the bill. Lucky I am nearly at the end of my trip...

Next stop was the coastal town of Paraty. I kept reading this as "Party" and was wondering why there was a "Party" cyber cafe and a "Party" laundrette. To get there we had to go to the hilariously named Ubatuba and then stand on a local bus that took us the rest of the way. This was not ideal with a hangover.

Paraty is blessed with a lovely little colonial centre and some beautiful beaches. The cobbled streets of the old town must have the largest cobblestones in the world - some were 1sqm in size - which I am sure have claimed many a car's suspension in their time. Still, it looks nice.

We spent a day in Trindade, home to three beautiful beaches and some natural pools. The beaches got more and more stunning as we walked, until finally we were standing next to the natural pools - deep blue sea water surrounded with huge boulders and schools of tropical fish darting around the place.

Paraty also has a natural water slide. In the jungle there is a huge smooth rock face with a river running over it. You can slide down on your ass (or face first if you feel brave enough) and drop into a fresh water pool. Everyone who visits aspires to slide all the way down on their feel like the local guys. I managed was three meters before falling on my ass.

It is the tail end of rainy season but I have pretty much had sun and clear skies all the time I've been here - that ended when I visited Ilha Grande. The first two days on the Island involved lots of rain and hammock swinging, and swimming in the sea is much the same whether its raining or not. That said, I was glad when the clouds finally burned away so I could go snorkeling and visit Lopez Mendez beach, reportedly one of the top-5 beaches in the country.

The snorkeling was great! There is colourful coral and lots of fish. I even saw a turtle which was surprising as there were hordes of people splashing around with their masks on. Lopez Mendez is a beautiful white-sand beach where jungle meets turquoise seas and white sand. After the hordes had gone home it really lived up to the hype.

Well, I'm off to Rio for Carnival - my last stop on this trip. It will be good to go out with a bang! Here are some other things I have seen over the last week.

We came across hundreds of policemen practising their marching skills for a parade. For once, it was safe to take my camera out in the streets. Crime rates went up everywhere else in Sao Paulo.

Sonar beach, near Paraty. An hours walk in the jungle, but worth every step.

The team, looking cool in Trindade.

With all these boulders about, I couldn't resist a little climb.

Warm up for Carnaval in Paraty!

We were the last people on the beach in Lopez Mendez. What a day.

Curitiba and Ihla do Mel

The Island of Honey. How could I not visit a place with a name like that?

Ilha do Mel is a small island at the mouth of the Paranaguá river. Sandy beaches, a laid back vibe and good bars; the ilha was tailor-made for chilling out.

Yet another overnight bus was required, which got me as far as the town of Curitiba. I spend a night in a hostel which was both rubbish and expensive, but at least I was rewarded with some nice buildings on a walk around the old town.

After a short bus ride to Pontal do Sol (short meaning under four hours), I was on a boat to the island. After about 45 minutes on the island I bumped into Bill and Sam, who I'd met in Argentina, and we headed out to see some live music.

The island is beautiful, in a rugged kind of way. Jungle meets beach and occasionally there is the odd marshland in between. The beach is so shallow that you can walk about a mile into the sea before you need to swim but it drops off spectacularly after that, allowing huge container ships to pass through and up into the river.

Other than partying and lying on the beach, the only thing I achieved was a wander to the island lighthouse. This coincided with a tropical rainstorm that left us stranded on the other side of the island for a couple of hours - it was not worth it.

Well, batteries have been well and truly recharged so it's on to Sao Paulo for some partying! I will leave you a wonderful discovery I have made this week - Maracuyá (passion fruit) flavoured Fanta! Why don't we have this at home?!?!

Iguazu falls and money-changing gangsters

I'm a man who likes a good waterfall. So much so that I once spent a day driving around the Australian countryside on a waterfall circuit. Well, Iguazu falls has beaten them all and gone straight in at number 1 on my list of top ten waterfalls of all time.

It's not one big waterfall but a collection of around 100 falls, ranging from 60 to 80 meters in height. Right up on the border, the falls separate Brazil and Argentina, and you can visit them from both countries.

We had to get some money first, which can be interesting in Argentina. You get a much better exchange rate if you exchange dollars on the "black market". Right now a US dollar will get you just under 5 pesos if you exchange in a bank, whereas the black market rate is about 6.8 pesos. There is not much confidence in the currency, which tumbled in value a decade ago when Argentina defaulted on a lot of its international debt. People would rather store US dollars under their bed than put their pesos in a bank, and they pay a nice premium to get them.

As you can imagine, black market money changers do not exactly sit in a high street store. In the big cities like Buenos Aires it could be a guy in the street muttering "money exchange", in the smaller towns business owners usually oblige. In Rosario, I was taken into the back of a shop where three burly old men sat around a huge pile of pesos, drinking coffee and generally looking gangster-ish. In Iguazu, we had to ask around a lot and finally managed to find an olive farmer who would change our dollars. I'm not sure if it was his first time changing money, but he seemed quite nervous. It was a relief to get out of there with a fat wad of pesos and not in the back of a police truck.

Which side of the falls is better? A question that can cause heated debates in hostels all over Latin America. In my opinion, it's the Argentinian side because there are lots more walkways and you can get closer to the falls. Saying that, you do get a more panoramic view from the Brazilian side.

We spent a day walking around the Argentinian side, passing so close to some of the falls that we'd emerge soaking wet. We took a boat ride through some cascades where the water fell so strongly that it was difficult to see anything, and spent time at the top of Garganta del Diablo (Devil's throat) - a thin plateau that drinks down half of the river's flow. We spent ages marvelling at the immense volume of water that smashes its way down the rockface here. I also wondered what it would be like to go down it in a canoe.

The highlight of the Brazilian side is an awesome walkway that snakes its was past several waterfalls so that you are perched right in front of the very same Garganta del Diablo section. Rainbows everywhere - I even saw one that went all the way round in a circle. I have never seen so many rainbows in my life!

There are a few other things in the area. We visited the Itaipu dam, went to Paraguay, walked around a shelter for tropical animals and went down an amethyst mine.

The dam holds some pretty impressive titles:
 - It is the world's largest operating hydroelectric facility in terms of annual energy generation, supplying 90% of electricity consumed by Paraguay and 20% of Brazil's demand.
 - The amount of concrete used to build the Itaipu Power Plant would be enough to build 210 football stadiums the size of the Estádio do Maracanã.
 - The iron and steel used would allow for the construction of 380 Eiffel Towers.
 - The volume of excavation of earth and rock is 8.5 times greater than that of the Channel Tunnel.

There are, however, some pretty depressing stats that they don't tell you about. The lake that was formed by the dam displaced 10,000 families and drowned Guaira falls, a collection of falls that was bigger than Iguazu falls. Just to dash any hopes that that they could ever be un-drowned, the Brazilian government dynamited the submerged rockface to make it easier for boats to navigate the lake. Boooo to them.

The same day we visited Ciudad del Este in Paraguay. The whole city is one big duty free shopping centre and thousands of people cross the border to buy supplies for their businesses every day. My passport got a lot of action that day as we started in Argentina, went to Paraguay, Brazil, then back to Argentina!

The animal shelter helps injured animals from the region. Amongst others, there are a couple of Toucans that were found in a suitcase bound for Europe and a Puma that was kept to fight dogs in Buenos Aires.

Wanda mines are a short bus ride away from the town and are the principle source of amethyst in Argentina. I was under the impression that mineral exploration was quite technical but apparently they just pick a spot, blast it with dynamite and see what comes out. If there is a chunk of amethyst they have to spend days chiseling it out by hand.

Only three weeks left - now it's time to see what Brazil has to offer!

The falls are surrounded by jungle and have a lot of coaties running around.

 Salto Bossetti waterfall section.

Views from the boat. About 23 seconds later I got soaked.

The view from the upper platform - lovely.

A double rainbow!

A butterfly with the number 88! This must be the brother of the one I saw in Colombia with the number 89.

Apparently the moss that grows here is quite rare and only grows in and around waterfalls.

The view out from Garganta del Diablo.

The walkway on the Brazil side. I would not have fancied building that.

Cheers Argentina, its been a great ride...

Mendoza, Cordoba, Mina Clavero and Rosario!

Wine tasting by bicycle - what a genius idea!

This was to be my second visit to the Argentinian town of Mendoza, the first involved a five-day bender with some backpackers I'd met in Santiago, in which I saw nothing. I was determined that this time it would be different - I pledged to get drunk in the famous wineries in the Mendozan countryside instead.

True to my word, I found myself in the Maipu valley the next day. Myself and Estela had elected to spend a day visiting wineries and sampling pretty much everything that was on offer. Seeing as we'd be getting quite drunk, we decided the best mode of transport would be the good ol' bicycle.

These were rented from a jolly Argentinian named Mr. Hugo. In fact, he was so happy that I considered giving up life as an accountant and starting my very own bike rental business. The highlight was the winery of Familia Di Tommaso. This bodega has been producing quality wines since 1869 and you can still walk around the original wine cellars.

We were shown the original brick tanks that the wine was fermented in and walked through a storage tank that was originally used to hold up to 10,000 litres of the good stuff! I won't lie, I'm not a connoisseur, but the wines we tasted were great. They mainly do Malbec but one taster was a desert wine made from an original recipe created by the abuela (grandma) of the family.

Another good fact is that, unlike a lot of bodegas, they pick the grapes by hand instead of by machine. Thus, at harvest time, all the extended family and a few casual workers head out into the vineyard armed with nothing but large pairs of scissors. This would be fun if it wasn't 42°C in the shade.

Next up was Argentina's "second city", Cordoba. I was not overly impressed when we arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm to find that all the hostels were booked out. It turned out that there isn't really that much to do in Cordoba either except drink beer and eat asado (meat + barbecue). Life could be worse.

Outside the city there is some beautiful countryside with mountains and rivers. We spent a day exploring the countryside villages of Villa Carlos Paz and Cuesta Blanca. This is where we were introduced to the concept of the riverside beach, which they love over here. Someone buys a load of sand, tips it on the shore of a river and before you know it it's packed with Argentinians, eating ice cream and grilling various cuts of meat.

After some big city action in Mendoza and Cordoba, we felt like visiting the countryside. Estela had been recommended a little place called Mina Clavero, a riverside village with yet another riverside beach. It's a small place but big with holidaying Argentinians, so had a really lively atmosphere. It also became apparent that they don't get many international tourists - every time we spoke English people would stop what they were doing and look at us.

We spent a day hiking in the surrounding hills. Not only did this provide some lovely views, but there was also no end of freshwater streams to cool down in along the way.

The problem with streams is that I can never resist the urge to build a dam. This hindered our walking progress slightly.

That said, the main activity in Mina Clavero was eating lots of meat. I have to report that I had the best steak of my life in a Parilla restaurant in Mina Clavero. Thinking about it is making me hungry as I type...

Rounded off central Argentina with a trip to the town of Rosario. Guess what, they have a riverside beach. This one is a bit more special because the river in question is the Rio Parana, big enough to transport 300ft cargo ships, and the beach is on an island in the middle of it.

Other than that, they have a huge monument dedicated to Manuel Belgrano (liberator and designer of the Argentinian flag), wonderful ice cream and a magnificent creation called the Super Pancho.

The flag monument is spectacular - there is a tall tower with an elevator that you can ride to the top for some nice views across the city, some seriously large statues and an ever-burning torch. It is a bit over the top but a great sight nonetheless.

Ice cream is taken seriously by these people and this year saw the successful launch of the Rosario "Miss Ice cream" beauty pageant (I'm not making this up). Each girl was asked a number of questions, the last being "why do you want to be Rosario's Miss Ice cream?". Of the 16 contestants, 15 answered "because I love Rosario... and I love ice cream", as though they were the only contestant to think of this witty response (I promise I'm not making this up). The sixteenth contestant replied "because the prize is an all-expenses paid trip to Mendoza". She won!

Ahhh the Super Pancho. The backbone of this tasty snack is a standard hot dog. You then wrap the dog in crispy bacon, cover it with melted cheese, sprinkle tiny chips on top and garnish with a variety of spicy sauces. Costs about a pound. Since I discovered these, a day has not gone by without me eating one.

That was the whistle-stop tour of central Argentina. A 20-hour bus ride awaits - I'm heading North to see some waterfalls. Here are some more highlights.

It wasn't just wine tasting. I got stuck into some liquor tasting as well. This one was actually absinthe. I momentarily forgot how to ride my bicycle after the tasting session.

Why aren't all signs as informative as this?

Nice views from the mountains near Mina Clavero.

The town centre. It is a ghost town between the hours of 11am and 5pm while everyone is siesta-ing. You can eat steak at 2am though.

A nice view from the top of the mountains overlooking Mina Clavero.

The first thing I did in Rosario was rescue a cat that had got trapped on the top of some window bars. I am a friend to all cats.

Part two of the flag monument.

The stadium on Newell's Old Boys. This is one the biggest teams in Argentina and was named by ex-pupils of the English High School of Rosario in homage to its director and football coach, English immigrant Isaac Newell. Interesting facts - their strip is a combination of the English and German flags, they have a huge outdoor swimming pool in the stadium, they have an amazing youth team setup which produced (amongst others) a player called Lionel Messi.

The flag monument by night...

...with its ever-burning torch.

The man himself - Manuel Belgrano.