I know it`s been a very long time since I wrote the last time and things have happened in such an abundance during the last 6 weeks that it´s going to be hard to put it all here. But I`ll give it a try.
First of all, after my volunteering experience I tried to get through some other places in Panama but as soon as I hit the road I got stuck in a tiny village for 24hours because the roads were washed away by heavy rainfalls which didn´t stop for 4 days and 4 nights. Actually it`s nothing too special because Panama has 8 months of rainy season and the rest of the year it pretty much rains a lot.
Being the last country of my Central America journey, Panama was also one of the best ones from my point of view. Besides a pretty interesting and totally not typical central american capital (lots of high-rise buildings and construction sites almost make it look like Dubai), the SAN BLAS Islands were one of the prettiest spots in the world I have ever seen. These islands are ruled by the indigenous Kuna people and their law doesn´t allow any foreigner to own property there. So to get there is already a little challenge because nobody from the hostels in Panama City really knows where to go and what sort of accomodation they have and basic things like that.
So from Panama City after 2 hours of a very bumpy Jeep ride and another 1,5 hours in a tiny tiny wooden boat, Linzi and me arrived totally soaked and a bit freezing on Robinson Crusoe Paradise Island (I just made that name up). We stayed there in Bamboo Huts without electricity and running water. The ocean served as the toilet on one side of the island, meals were cooked by the kuna people and usually consisted of rice and whatever the fisherman could catch during the day.
There were hundreds of islands everywhere, some as tiny as a couple of square meters so there would only fit a single palm tree on the sandy ground and many islands just gave shelter to a couple of kuna families in their palm tree huts. Ours was a bit bigger, though. About 15 backpackers stayed there and to walk around the whole island once we needed almost 5 min utes. So if you are looking for an almost untouched piece of paradise go to SAN BLAS in Panamá!!! Better than Fiji!
As there is only a 60% chance of survival if you want to cross the border from Panamá into Colombia overland, I decided to take a flight out of the country and do a little bigger jump straight to Rio de Janeiro and spare Colombia for later.
There I met this Fuenftourist Ritter also known as Hannes Ambelang, who once again took 4,5 weeks of from work to join me for a little trip from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires. Starting with the Carnaval in Rio was pretty nice, a little different than expected but a must see for sure. Since everybody says that Rio is so dangerous our main focus during the first days was how to dissimulate that we are tourists. Here are some basic rules on how to be Brazilian:
- be tanned
- walk around the city without a t-shirt, even better if you only wear your swimsuit
- you need a least one ugly tattoo. more are better of course
- don`t take a towel to the beach. nobody has one, it`s to heavy to carry and drying in the sun is much cooler. In addition to that a wet body looks much hotter...
- don´t go swimming, most of the brazilians cannot swim, they just stand around the non swimmers area in the water and play with the waves, only tourists swim
- don`t ride a bicycle
- for car drivers: as soon as it gets dark never stop at red traffic lights (danger of being robbed and economy of time)
- be a good football player
Following all these rules we pretty much had a blast of a time in Brazil. After Rio we went to Sao Paulo, stayed with locals, got invited to dinners and pool parties, got presents and learned a lot about the brazilian way of life in Sao Paulo. Thank you André and Nina and also all your family and friends! It´s impressive how hard working you people in Sao Paulo are and how much you are enjoying life.
Going to Curitiba got us our first couchsurfing experience. We stayed with Fabio and had a short but intense and funny stay with him. Even shorter but not less fun was our night at the Iguassu Falls with Wellington, another couchsurfer! The waterfalls (most famous in South America) were very impressive, too.
Only some 16hours on the Bus and we found ourselves in Florianópolis, supposedly the party place in Brazil with the prettiest women in the world they say. Well, the latter could be true but the parties were giving us a bit of hard time. Unfortunately we stayed there from Sunday to Thursday - not really the party days. But as the main season was over, it was not to easy to find a good spot. The beaches were really pretty, though, and got us both a bad sunburn. We tried the surfboards and even became more brazilian when we started playing this one beach game with the two rackets and a rubber ball. Posing and being cool is the most important part of that game.
Another short bus ride (only 7 hours) brought us for 1 night to uninteresting Porto Alegre before we crossed into Uruguay. Montevideo on a Sunday is a ghost city, very strange and not more than a bit interesting. We walked about 20km that day and felt happy to leave the next day and take the ferry to Buenos Aires.
And that´s where I am right now. The Ritter left and I am on my own again. Looking forward to what is coming, improving my spanish (after 4 weeks of portuguese messed it up again) and making plans on how to compensate the constant negative cashflow of my bank account...
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