Brazil

We stayed for a few days in Foz do Iguazu, where Pablo and Sylvina left us, to enjoy the sun by the swimming pool and to taste some caipirinhas (the national drink!). :)

Curitiba

After a night in the bus, we arrived in the city of Curitiba, a necessary stop on our way to the jungle in Morretes. As we only had one day to visit the city, we chose a hop-on hop-off bus to get around the different attractions.

The very nice botanical garden

We visited the Niemeyer art museum, built by the famous Brazilian architect.

This is an ecological school built by Jacques Cousteau, in the middle of a forest.

From left to right: a church built by Ukrainian immigrants, an example of decoration of a local restaurant and another church in city center.

Morretes

At first, we wanted to go into the Amazonian forest to do an excursion and see some wild animals... but after some googling, we noticed that it was completely out of reach for us: around 1000 euros (or more) for 3 days!!! As a consequence, we headed to Morretes and we found a bungalow close to the Atlantic rain forest. We did some nice treks in the jungle and, except for the mosquitoes, the heat and the humidity, we had a lovely stay. We even had a beautiful breakfast served on our private terrace every morning!

The hammock, ET and his "yerba mate", the dog, the breakfast and 2 globetrotters on their way! :)

Thanks to the owner's advices, we went for a hike in the jungle to see a waterfall.

Have you seen the size of that butterfly???

He told us we had to cross some water on the way but to be honest, we were expecting a small stream... It took us 20min to decide whether or not to cross this torrent! :)

Finally, we reached the waterfall! It was so hot that we directly jumped in the water! :)

Aurore offered a gift to Etienne: a hike in the jungle with the owner of the bungalows (half Indiana Jones, half skunk because of the strong smell coming from his armpits...) A nice hike that Etienne enjoyed thanks to the natural obstacles they passed and to the few howler monkeys they saw!

We went back to Curitiba in a panoramic train. The way through the jungle was very spectacular!

Tchou tchou! Oh Yeah!

Rio de Janeiro 

We spent a week in Rio de Janeiro! Rio is made of beaches:

Copacabana

Sunset on Ipanema beach. How romantic this is!

Ipanema beach by day: full of people roasting under the sun... 40C, feeling like 50C!

Rio also has a lot of tourist attractions:

The Corcovado and its "lovely" tourists...

The Pao de Acucar and one of the multiple favelas of Rio which are also tourist attractions...

360 degrees view on top of the Pao de Acucar: the city has taken over the nature.

The famous stairs made by a Chilean artist: Jorge Selaron.

The bohemian quarter of Santa Teresa where we stayed.

Rio also has an artistic side that we did not miss:

Rio is also the city where we celebrated Christmas 2012!

We rented an appartment for the occasion and some nice hats!

Despite being far away from our families, we had a good time with our mood enhancer: the caipirinhas!

Feliz Navidad!!!

The city of Rio even offered us a very nice free concert with Stevie Wonder and Gilberto Gil:

We saw him alright... but he didn't! hahaha

For the little story, during the concert, Etienne suddenly asked Aurore to lay down on the floor when he saw the crowd running towards us... Everything went by very quickly and we still don't know what happened but after 15 seconds everything was back to normal. A little shot of adrenalin we won't forget that soon! That's especially true since Rio is the first city in South America where we were scared to be robbed, we were hesitating to take our camera out in some places... The drug addicts laying on the floor didn't help to cool down... We think we went to Rio at the wrong time of the year because most Cariocas head out of the city for Christmas. We saw a lot of poverty there and inequality. Moreover it was so hot there that our Franco-Irish skins didn't like it! :)

Fortunately, Stevie was here to cheer us up!

Sao Paulo

We spent two nights in a hostel in Sao Paulo and we spent two days visiting the city by ourself.

A food market with a lot of good things to eat: fruits, local meals... and especially the fried pastry with "bacalau" (cod).

The famous Cathedral da Se and a nice painting

Then, we met a family through Couchsurfing and we spent the new year's eve together. Ana and Fred had a very energetic daughter: Giulia!

Ana and Fred brought us to a restaurant we call a churrascaria: it's a buffet with a lot of choice of hot and cold food and waiters continuously come to serve you grilled meats, all you can eat! As you can imagine, Etienne LOVED it! ;)

El churascariador!

Etienne loves yerba mate :)

Pancakes, caipirinhas, champagne and good mood: a very good new year's eve!

We spent a lot of time with Giulia, she speaks a perfect English and has a lot of energy :)

A funny story: Giulia has bitten Aurore during our stay... She explained to her mother the next day that she was so happy with Aurore that the only way she found to express it was to bite her!!! :D

The day after new year's eve, we went to Fred's parents and we met all his family. They generously offered us a good meal and we spent the day drinking beers and discussing about anything. Thank you to all of you! Muito obrigado!

Our stay in Sao Paulo was pleasant, not especially for the city but thanks to this little family and their little treasure:

As we continue our trip, our travel has become an experience more human and less touristic, and meeting this family and especially Giulia was unbelievable. We created a real link with Giulia (especially Aurore with a blood bond :P) and we are officially invited to her birthday party! :D