Brazil!!!!

After Las Vegas, I spent 3 weeks in Brazil for a nice and long holiday with my friend Lionel :-)
The plan was: no plans!
What we ended up doing went roughly as such:

First week in Rio de Janeiro: Beach (Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon), party (Lapa, Samba, Favela Funk Party, Boat party...), pool (a lot!), Corcovado (Christ statue), Sugar Loaf, some visit of the downtown and some Hang Gliding with a nice landing on the beach! This was absolutely awesome!! Rio is a great city for all the cultural and the beach aspects :-) At the hostel we got to listen to live music and see and participate in a capoeira demonstration!

After Rio we headed over to Ilha Grande, which is a nice island about 150kms away from Rio. There it was diving and lying on the beach mostly :-)
After what we took the bus to Sao Paulo, spending a few hours in Paraty on the way.
Sao Paulo was only for the week-end and only for partying. We didn't start very well the first night where we hit first a gay club (thanks hostel guys... :p) and then a very expensive night club somewhere in Vila Olimpia. The second night was better though, thanks to a new friend met through Couchsurfing (thanks Frix!)

From Sao Paulo we flew to Manaus, a big city lost in the middle of the jungle and crossed by the Amazon river. From there we went for a 4 day jungle tour that was really good and interesting, although a bit hard too because of the heat, the mosquitos and the not-so-comfortable hamacs where we slept in the jungle (I thought I was gonna die because of the mosquito net falling on my face and dramatically increasing the temperature!). What did we do in the jungle? Piranhas fishing, aligator hunting (Lionel has the photos..), jungle trekking where we got to see some funky animals (check out the photos below), including some snakes and lots of birds (hard to take pictures of those without my most powerful lens..). The guide was really knowledgeable and friendly, which made the whole trip very interesting and nice!

During pretty much the whole trip we have been "followed" by a group of 2 and then 4 swedish guys that you can see on the pictures in the jungle. If you guys ever read this cheers and have fun on the rest of your trip! :p

Overall an awesome experience and I'll definitely go back to Brazil sooner or later (I think sooner :p )

And now the photos (there are a lot but very few of Rio and none of Sao Paulo, where I didn't dare to walk around carrying my big camera...)

Viva Las Vegas!!

Hi there!
It's been a while I didn't write in here.... well the main reason is that I was on a loooong holiday :-)

First part of the trip was to Las Vegas with my family. It was 6 days there and filled with meetings of friends and family. I got to see my ex roomate from Santiago Florence, my college mate Yves and his wife Monica and also my ex roomate Marvet from San Jose, California who know lives in Las Vegas! It was great to see you all (and the family too of course!)!

Lots of gambling and some street walking where the main activities, along with a lot of different shows. I went to see the Blue Man Group, Lance Burton the magician and also the show 'O' from Cirque du Soleil. All 3 were really worth it! They are great shows in their own style. I especially liked the blue man group for the music, its originality and the amazing visual design of the set and the Cirque du Soleil for.... everything! It was such a magical moment (and we were right in front of the stage in the front row seats!)



Here are a few photos from Vegas