Fire, wine and street art in Valparaíso, Chile

We looked very much forward to going to Valparaíso, Chile because we would see our friends Basti and Dani who live there. They were also so very kind and let us stay almost two weeks in their home. We appreciated it a lot and were really glad we got to spend some time with them. 😊 

Valparaíso is a city on the West coast of Chile. It is a very colorful city with a big harbor as well. During our first days we mainly walked around and took gazillion pictures of all the graffitis in the city. Every day something new pops up! Some art works are so big and beautiful that other artists respect those and they are on the walls for a long time. But some other places get new art work on top of the previous one all the time. If you own a house in Valparaíso (or Valpo as they say), you can hire a street artist to paint your house walls. This way you will most probably get something well-made. Otherwise someone will paint anyhow on your walls and you don't have any control over it 😝 There was one house that was white and we learned that the owners have to paint it white like every month or so.

Few days in Sao Paulo

After Iguazu falls we had a few days to spend in São Paulo before flying to Chile. We had met João at the Christmas dinner in Penedo and he lives in São Paulo. He was kind enough to invite us to stay with him for the two nights we were in SP. How great is that!?

Many people had said that there is not much to do or see in SP and asked why we were going there. Well, we had thought we would go somewhere else before flying out but we wouldn’t really had time to travel somewhere else and then travel to SP so we headed there 😜

A happy hydrant greeting us in SP

Breathtaking Iguazu Falls and Das Aves bird park!

After city life in Rio, it was time to continue to Foz do Iguacu and the Iguazu waterfalls. We had only seen pictures of it before and it looked amazing. It was something that we felt we have to see!

A part of the falls from the Brazilian side

Rocinha - Rio's biggest favela with just a bad reputation!?

Rocinha is the biggest favela in Rio and there are different estimations of the population that vary quite a lot. The estimations are between 200,000 and even 400,000 inhabitants and it has a hmmm...well, not so good reputation. Nowadays almost all of the favelas are ‘pacified’ and the pacifying process started around 2008 with brutal force to clean up and take control over the favelas before the 2014World Cup and Rio Olympics in 2016, and nowadays they should be quite safe. We wanted to visit and see how life in Rocinha is. Markus had found a blog for few years ago about life in Rocinha and he noticed that the writer organizes also tours there. It seemed like the organization tries to help locals, tries to make living a bit easier, give different education to kids (such as dance, dj’ing, martial arts etc.) and show how Rochina is to outsiders. The description of the tours was promising. Not just normal tourist sights, but more of the normal life in Rocinha and local places. We booked a tour from favelatour.org together with Maria and Johan (the Swedish couple) we met in Peru on the Inka Trail. 

View over one part of Rocinha

Rio de Janeiro, Part 2: New Year’s Eve including thieves, Christ Redeemer statue and peaceful Jardim Botanic garden

Then it was time to celebrate New Year’s! We had read that most of the people wear white at New Year’s to bring luck for the upcoming year. If one wears black, one is doomed for the next year! We went around in different shopping centers in Rio to find the clothes and it was not an easy task! There were plenty of white clothes in the stores, but all stores were really expensive! If you think that the lowest level is at a ‘Tommy Hilfiger/GANT’ price level, you can figure out what the prices were in Rio. 😞 We don’t know where one could find cheaper stores there? Well, we managed to find something anyhow 😊

Rio de Janeiro, Part 1: Beautiful views from Sugarloaf Mountain, crowded Copacabana and other touristy places

We were both excited and a bit nervous entering Rio de Janeiro. Well, Markus not very nervous. Everyone had been telling us that Rio is a very beautiful and interesting city, but also very dangerous and that one needs to be careful all the time because there are so many thieves and people who have nothing to lose. Well, our (especially Edda’s) image of Rio changed during our 9-night stay in Rio. 😊 Even though the city is big, the touristic area is easy to comprehend and we felt also rather safe.

This is the Sugarloaf Mountain. More text and pictures will follow!