Brrrr Brazil

After an intimidatingly hot and humid couple of days at the edge of Argentina, Brazil has been freezing from the word go. Even the dogs wear little jumpers. Not what I expected of Brazil at all, I can tell you. We got the bus across the border from Puerto Iguazu to Foz do Iguacu in Brazil, and the first thing I noticed was a horse-drawn cart for day-t0-day use. In fact, it all seemed really different from Argentina. Probably the cold weather that made us feel that way. Our stay in Foz wasn't that eventful so I won't bore you with it. We were stupid enough not to take the hostel up on their offer to pick us up from the station (I didn't realise they'd made that offer!) so we suffered an hour and a half uphill trek for about 4km to find it. I'm also ill at the moment so was not a happy Charlotte. Especially as I fell over in the middle of crossing the road, and my knees weren't strong enough to let me get up on my own! The hostel was full of the same English gap year kids as we'd seen in Puerto Iguazu, and we met a Scottish couple who spent the night feeding us horror stories about Peru. Thanks for the warnings, guys! That and a little sausage dog wearing a different jumper each day. That's about the sum of it.

So yesterday we got on one of these famous Brazilian long-distance buses (10 hour, so relatively short) and shivered through to the other side of the country to Curitiba. (I say famous because Brazilian buses are known for being of a very high standard and pretty comfortable. A nice change from the Megabus!) The drive was actually beautiful after we made it out of the Foz area. Trees and hills and all those things. Plus sunshine eventually. A giant Jesus or Mary towering over each village, and more weirdly, some grannies playing in a park. Upon closer inspection it turned out there was fitness equipment there built out of the same materials as the kiddies play bit, but what it looked like was a play park for old ladies.

Apparently Curitiba is the coldest city in Brazil, which we can believe, but it's very beautiful. We met up with our next lovely couchsurfing hosts - Leticia, a lingerie entrepreneur, and her boyfriend Guilherme, a doctor. Today they took us out to lunch with Guilherme's family to a place Paul is particularly fond of - an all you can eat buffet with Lots Of Meat. Waiters come to the table with cuts of meat on sticks and you just take what you want. And there's a whole load of other delights too. Paul was in 7th heaven. We also had pasta in sweet sauces which was a new one. Like chocolate and banana, and coconut and milk. And of course various things with Dulce de Leche. Like the Argentinians they're a big fan of that. Made a nice change from the dreaded rice and beans which we had on our first night. I believe tonight we are going to experience some Brazilian music so more on that to come I'm sure.

That's about all for now - my head is filled with porridge so I'm sure Paul will come up with something I've missed. Mmmm porridge. That would be good right now. And some whisky, for the medicinal properties of course.