Biggest Pizza in the World

Oi! As they say in Portuguese


We are in Florianopolis at the moment, which is a city on an island off the coast of Brazil. It is really pretty here but it is really rainy which sucks a bit because we wanted to do some beachy stuff, but steve still had a go at surfing.


We left Punte Del Diablo on Wednesday. We spent 4 days there, one night in a hostel and the other three in a cool Cabana, which is basically a little cabin. When we got to Punte Del Este it was 8:30 at night and pitch black because it is so small it doesnt have any street lights. The bus dropped us out on teh main road outside of the town, instead of at the bus like we expected so we freaked out momentarily. Luckily there were a couple of other backpackers on the bus who got off as well who were staying at the hostel in the town (the ONLY hostel open in winter). So even though we were really keen to get a cabana we ended up staying there and it was really nice, one of the best we have been in. They also had a joint restaurant down near the beach which we walked down to and had a really good meal. ed: seriously as you walk down to this restaurant- its all lit up and with really strange architechture, i wish we had a camera it was incredible it looked like the craziest farytale club in the world. actually the whole town looked a bit like that....
The next day we asked the hostel about how to go about getting a cabana and they hooked us up with Jose, their laundry guy who owned one. Since we cant speak enough spanish to be able to call anyone else we decided that was a sweet idea and he picked us up on his motorbike and took us over. ed: literally our packs on our back. day pack in front of him on a tiny little dirt bike, that was fun.
It ended up being a little dodgy (on the second last night we ran out of gas, and the stairs were more of a ladder since you needed all fours to get up) but it was so nice to be able to cook our own meals and watch tv and have a bit of privacy. We spent my birthday there which was great. Steve cooked me yummy food and we went for walks on the beach. Thanks to everyone who sent me a message or an email. I didnt have any reception at the time but I recieved all of them when we got to Porto Alegre, which was supposed to be a quick stop on the way to where we are now, but I ended up getting sick. We ended up spending a night in the worst hotel we have ever seen. The bathroom was literally just a shower that had a toilet inside it. Amazing.


We are staying at Sunset Backpackers here in Floripa and it has the most amazing views. and thousands of stairs. Despite the rain we are still managing to have a good time hanging out and we played some drinking/card games last night (not me though after being sick a day ago). Today we went to the beach where Steve had a go at surfing while I read and then we went into town and had lunch at a Per Kilo restaurant (very common in Brazil). Its basically a buffet and you load your plate up and you pay a certain amount per kilo. Its the cheapest and best way to eat. Best idea Ever!

Tonight they are having a BBQ here for dinner which we have signed up to take part in, and then there is a celebration at some pub in town for Anzac day which we may go to depending on the rain because last night we tried to go out and we ended up getting soaked.
Tomorrow we may be leaving for Rio or we might decide to stay on another night, we are going to figure that out now. Its an 18 hour bus trip so im not really looking forward to it but Rio should be great so it will all be worth it in the end.



Here are some photos
The Hand in the Sand at Punte Del Este















Steves great photograhy




























This is Punta Del Diablo. A quaint little town. Because of all the cabanas, the whole town looks like disneyland or something















Steve conquering Punte Del Diablo














The main street in Punte Del Diablo. Not kidding. Because peak season finishes at easter and it is not winter many of the shops were closed and there were barely any people around. It was cool. apparently the town goes from 20,000 people to 500 people after easter sunday. eeerrryyy














Our Little Cabana. And Frank the horse outside.















Cami thinking up a storm for her travel journal (or possibly watching MTV)














This was the worlds biggest pizza. We got this in some place in Montevevideo. We thought the grande between 2 people was sufficiant foofd, turns out that is the reason everyone was laughing at us... and it still only cost like 5-10$$ i cant remember.
We ate all but 2 pieces which was an effort and a half. later we got cheese sweats.

Montevideo & Some Photos

Hey All,
We´ve made it to Montevideo in Uruguay via a lovely 8 hour bus trip... Hooray..
Its wierd, the currency is worth next to nothing, so everything is in 100s and 1000s of pesos. eg, a Big Mac is like 80 pesos. Which also means when we went into the restaurant downstairs and couldnt speak to the staff at all, we ended up with a meal for 3 people with a 1.5 l coke for like $7... wicked...

Here are some Photos-

Will cutting sick at a plaza in Buenos Aires

I finally made it to the Toilet Museum.... There were literally about 20 toilets in a small room, amazing....

Our Loverly terrace at Tango Buenos Aires

Will and Cami with their Quilmes

The coolest Building in San Telmo. Cami doesnt think this is cool. but it is. It just is ok!!!

(the house next to it was cooler, it had a rooftop garden - cami)

we have lost count of how many games of gin rummy we´ve played.

This is the statue that is in the middle of Plaza Independencia, appaz the most famous Uruguarian ever.... no idea who he is though.

We had breakfast/lunch at the cafe this fountain is in front of. after we had the nicest meal we saw this which is the Love Lock Fountain. according to the legend couples who put a lock on here will return to Montevideo one day and their love will be locked forever.

I realllllly want to get a lock and put one there. It´s like the Trevi Fountain but not (also with a lot less water ie. none) - Cami

We are going to try and head down to the beach now. Tomorrow we are planning to go to Punte Del Diablo which is a sort of Byron Bay type beach town. very laid back and cheap apparently so we will let you know how it goes :)

chao xx

chased by women of the night

Hola all,



Steve here. Cam is just playing gin rummy with Will so i have some spare time until they can bear to be beaten again by me.

So since la boca, what have we done... Probs not too much so i apologise for writing boring crap up here. Easter sunday was pretty uneventful, we jumped on the subte (subway) and hit up an antiques market in san telmo, one of the old districts of Buenos Aires. This place was pretty awesome, alot of wierd memrobilia from the 50s. There were stores with literlly thousands of matchboxes all in sets according to what was printed on them.crazy,. Jack -if you read this - you would love it, so much random crap -especially all the old pinup cards from back in the day.

Also Sunday was the day we finally made it out at night. This city is wierd literally no one gets up till 11, has lunch at 3 dinner at 10pm, and then doesnt go out clubbing or whatever until 3 or 4 am. So we were struggling to stay awake until then especially when you are just hanging around drinking nice big litres of Quilmes all arvo. Anyway so we finally made it out with Joey and Oscar. The night was fairly uneventful, except when we were walking home we got chased by prostitutes.. Yes prostitutes hahaha. They sort of saw us, 3 guys and a girl, saw we were tourists and just started calling out to us. Luckily Oscar could talk spanish so he sorta told them no and we walked off.. From then on for about 5 blocks they just started sneaking up to us and started trying to get close to the 2 boys until we made it out of their area i guess. Very Very Strange.

For the last 2 days we have just bee hanging around tired most of the day. Will (of Little Vegas & the Fuzz Parade fame) moved to our hostel yesterday and we have been mastering gin rummy, as poker with 2 people sucks. We head off to Montevideo tonight at 1130, for a nice brief 8 hour bus trip, should be fun.

So im off to laden my bag with delicious cheeses and salamis for the trip. We'll post some photos soon.

PS- will now owes me an empanada worth of money from gun rummy. I AM KING!!

tschau
( thats the local version of ciao i think)

mental

Hey Guys.

We´ve done some sightseeing in the last day or so. We met up with old matey Amit again and two english guys called Joey and Oscar and hit up La Boca. it wasnt really what i was expecting. It was amazing and colourful and everything, but it was really touristy, picture south bank in south america surrounded by really poor and dangerous neighborhoods. But we went and got a tour at La Boca stadium, aka the home of Maradonna. These guys are soccer and tango crazy, in the words of amit- if maradonna did the tango the argentinians would go mental... (its funny cause he´s english)

Anyway they manage to pack 80 000 people into this tiny tiny stadium in mostly standing room. crazy.














Steve & Amit at La Boca stadium














LaBoca babes












Tiniest horse ever.















Palermo Botanical Gardens. Life imitates art.









Deer-Dog-Rabbit

will and his monkey...










la boca..

















la boca 2

Today we are heading over to Recoleta again (the place with the awesome empanadas) because Cami wants to do some shopping. And hopefully we will end up going out tonight to finally see some of the night life hereeee.

ciao now brown cow

Deer-Dog-Rabbit and other Buenos Aires Delights

Hola

Yesterday we moved to a different area of Buenos Aires called Palermo. We are staying in a hostel called Tango Backpackers and we have the craziest room. Our bed is up the most dangerous stairs in buenos aires in a kind of loft thing. But overall this a very cool place and we have met quite a few cool people.

It has been a few days since we last wrote so I cant really remember what days we did what but basically we have been to Recoletta, a really lovely green area where we had the best empanadas (see photos in last post) and we went to Recoleta cemetary which is AMAZING. all the crypts have several levels, so u look into the sorta main bit and there are little stairs to the side which i assume take you deep intot he creepy layers of dead pople. you could see some of the downstairs areas and they are literally stackjs and stacks of coffins = the creepist thing i have ever seen>!!!!

That was Monday, on Tuesday we went to this shopping centre that was supposed to be really awesome but it was basically just a fancy indooroopilly. We also walked down Av Florida which is a fairly famous street here. It is a bit like Queen St mall in that it is just for people to walk down, no cars type thing.

On Wednesday we checked out of Down Town Mate and caught the subway to Palermo and found this place. PS- its pronounces Mart-ay... It tooik me a while too.. Its a type of local tea that they drink out of wierd little alchemy style bowls with these creepy straws. we havnt tried any yet, but will let u know...

After booking in here we met up with Steves friend Will from Little Vegas (amazing!) and we went to the zoo. Some of the animals were very cool but a lot of them look like they weren{t being looked after much so it was a bit sad. but the coolest thing was there were a few animals that just roamed around the zoo willy nilly. For example Beavers (they werent actually but looked exactly the same minus the big tail) and the wierdest hybrid animal you have ever seen we dubbed Dog-Deer-Rabbit. We tried to explain this later and that is literally the only way to explain it.

Anywayzzzz we hit up the hostel again to enjoy some quilmes. Enter Amit (english dude) and Stef (aussie chick) and dana (chicago chick) who we went and had the BEST STEAK EVER with. Literally at least 500g of pure beef on a plate by itself. YUMMM... cami had pasta...

Which was some of the nicest pasta ive ever had so i dont feel like i missed out at all thanks.

Today we went to the botanical gardens and the japanese gardens, both of which are not as cool as Brisbanes (in camis opinion anyway).
We are currently on a budget of 50 pesos a day between us after our elaborate steak night. Go and look up how much that is in Aussie dollars and then feel free to send us money.

Ciao
xx

The Best Empanada Restaurant in BA.

Beer in the supermarket. Literally that litre bottle is 5 pesos - thats like $2aud a litre for stellas and hieniken. No coronas though.

These are the maddest bears in argentina. There is one from every country, i think its a travelling exhibition..

Me and USA:::

The Ricoleta Cemetary. The rich man´s cemetary- where eva peron (evita) is buried. its so big literally a mini city.

This is me hanging out with Eva Peron.

Cami´s first Empanada. They are a local specialty and taste awesome. this restaurant is reknowned for them. oh and they cost like... 50c











This is a giant obelisk thing. its kind of in the middle of BA. But the street around it is like 9 or 10 lanes across...(crazy) cant really tell u much more about it sorry..










My first Argentinian beer - Quilmes. I decided to grab another one of these later when we were watching tv at the hostel. about $2aus for a litre -it is a very heavy beer especially after drinking a litre of it at 4pm in the afternoon

More later .

Steve

Our first 2 days in Buenos Aires

Hola!
Today is our second day in Buenos Aires. We didn´t arrive until 1:30 yesterday afternoon because our plane had to make an unexpected stop in Santiago to refuel cause of some random storms or something. Very painful as the plane had no airconditioning while we were parked there.

Anyhoö: here is mine (Steve´s) blog for the last 48ish hours - we have been a bit bored and jetlagged so i will apologise for the length.

>April 4 -Somewhere over the ocean.

We´ve lost track of the time due to neither of us having watches or phones but i know its light outside and it shouldnt be. I think its about 2am in Buenos Aires. Flying Quantas is significantly cooler than flying virgin (note to terry) mostly due to the free beer and ice cream.

4.27 hours to go: this flight is significantly longer than i thought it would be, and i cant believe i was actually excited about it. now i am just tired and sore, but whatever.

Buenos aires time: 5:30pm

We have finally found a hotel for the night- a place called Hotel Uruguay for about $40 AUS- not too bad but we were running out of options. Before that we got to walk around the main strip for a little bit. Its quite cool there are buskers everywhere. There was this Spanish rasta dude dressed like bob marley singing in one of the main squares and then there was a cool little 3 piece funk band who just plugged into some random power source and just played on the equivilant of the queen st mall - Av Florida.

4am Buenos Aires Time:
Jetlag sucks. We fell asleep about 6pm and missed our wake up call for dinner so im awake now and cami is still sleeping for a bit. But neither of us have any water or food so we´re feasting on easter eggs (thanks Kim & Mum).

9am Sunday:
We left the hotel about 530am and have now walked pretty much the whole way around BA and discovered that nothing is open a) this early & b) on a sunday. We finally found somewhere for breakfast and ordered the first thing on the menu the delicious Tostad Mixto (or ham and cheese toasted sandwich). Amazing.

We checked out of hotel at 10 and went in search of a more affordable hostel which we could settle into for about a week. our first choice - BA Stop - was booked up for the night with a possibility of being able to get a room tomorrow so we went across the road to Down Town Mate where we are staying tonight. We are sleeping in a bunk bed but our room has a little balcony which is kind of cool.

We went to a lot of effort to try and eat some traditional food today for lunch only to realise that the pizzaria we had sat down in was actually called the American Deli. Basically nothing is open today because it is a Sunday which sucks.
At lunch we had our first South American beer. Very nice but of course Cami went extremely red.

Also Cami has found a great energy drink called Speed which she is sure Ariel and Calley will be excited about. It´s kind of fruity a bit like black current juice.

ps:next time i decide to go travelling can someone sensible remind me of this time and tell me to learn the language before i leave. It has been a very difficult 2 days- interesting though.

pps: photos soon. we forgot the cable- back at the hostel.

Steve & Cami