Around Sydney

My priorities were to open my bank account and get an Aussie mobile number which I achieve.

Unfortunately a bite I got in England which had swelled up huge- so I got my first experience of a n Australian medical centre and pharmacy.  I need to sign up to Medicare since there is a reciprocal agreement.

In the afternoon the weather was good so went to the CBD, Hyde Park and did a walking tour.

The long journey

It seems obvious that Australia is quite a long way- so the journey was to be long.

A while ago I had booked on Ethiad as it wad the cheapest one way (excluding China Southern and Malaysian).  I was also keen to fly on an A380 as I am a bit of a plane geek secretly.

I was impressed with the A380 and had a smooth flight to Abu Dhabi.  There was a seat in the middle free which was a bonus.  The seats were comfortable, the windows large, the plane was very modern and also the way it was compartmentalized meant that it did not feel like a big plane- except when you look out the window at the wingspan.  Unfortunately at 6hrs this  was much the shorter of the flights.

I did not rate Abu Dhabi airport at all.  There was no where to sit until they opened the gate and kept having to go through multiple security layers.  It seems in the Arab world they only give a s*** about you if you have loads of money.

The long 13 hour flight was less comfortable. The 777 seemed old and cramped compared to the A380 and a bad seat selection by me probably didn't help.  When I made it to Sydney there was a long queue for passports.  However once I got through it was easy.  So long as you don't try and bring organic matter in there is no hassle.  The train to town was easy and took 10 mins.  Handily the station was also next to my hostel.


Overall a long but in the scheme of things not too painful journey.  I thought Ethiad were okay but not nearly as good as they think they are.  Granted the food was good and they take surfboards.  But I don't want to watch videos about Man City or a stupid advert about the airline before every film or tv program.

I'm off to OZ

I am at Heathrow, waiting to begin a long journey to Oz.  Many months of planning finally coming to a head.

Final Days in and around Rio

It’s clear that I haven’t updated this blog in a while.  In this time Chelsea have even won the Premier League (YES!!!).  Now waiting at Galeo Airport gives me the perfect opportunity so I will cover off the last three days.

On Friday Maria had a day off thanks to a national holiday.  In the morning I headed for a casual surf down at Arpadoar.  There was a big swell hitting the whole coast.  I had avoided going in the day before as it had been raining heavily, and as mentioned in the last post rain equals sewage due the lack of proper sanitation in much of the city.  The left was working really well but with a crowd of 30-40 on it I opted for one of the ‘peaks’ further down.  It was still croweded and dirty but managed to score a left.

The weather was great and later on headed to Bar do Bacano- ‘my favourite bar in Rio’.  I hadn’t been there since my first trip in 2013.  We had to wait to get a seat but it was worth it.  I unintentionally managed to order 2 600m bottles of Orignial and had Maria’s Caipirhina- needless to say ended up pretty wasted.

Afterwards we headed to nearby Parque Large for a quick stroll around.

When the weekend arrived we agreed to hire a car and drive down to the national park around Prainha and Grumari.  We had done this before, but this time instead of exploring we were heading for cleaner beaches and a mini road trip.  After picking up a car at Localiza it was a fairly easy and scenic drive.  

Passing Prainha the waves were much bigger than expected and the paddle out looked brutal.  Prainha is certainly exposed- on a 5ft swell the waves were well overhead.  We carried on to Grumari where we got lucky on the parking space and also the waves.  A decent clean left was running right down the first part of the beach.  Grumari is the beach featured in the beach scene of ‘City of God’ and is probably the nicest in the immediate Rio area.

Waves were really good- with fun lefts and the odd shorter right.  You will have to see pictures Maria got of much better surfers than myself (below) to get the full picture.

Following a while on the beach we headed for a late lunch down at Guaratiba.  Unfortunately the restaurant, which did fish Bahia, style was not so good and quite expensive.  Generally I would avoid eating fish in Brazil- they seem to have a tendency to deep fry the whole thing and serve it with paste.  It ends up being far to heavy and lacking that fresh flavour.  This seems to have happened every time we have gone for local fish on our trips.  However at the town we saw another wave in the across the river mouth which was pretty small and clean,b ut had some shetler from the wind hitting the exposed beaches.  Clearly an option for big and stormy easterlies.

We had such a good day at Grumari we kept the car and headed back the next day.  Waves were smaller but still fun.  After hours on the beach we headed for luch in the restaurant by the beach, which was definitely and improvement on the previous day.  The only issue with Grumari and the area around was a large and aggressive bee population (they are everywhere).  Maria got stung and I certainly came close a few times.

The car journey back was pretty smooth and was even able to get a parking space very close to Maria’s flat.  I was so knackered and despite applying strong sun block ended up somewhat burned.

Sitting at the airport this concludes a great trip in Rio and around South America.  Now many hours on TAP await before returning to London.

                                              

Common Knowledge

Hardly news that Sao Conardo is full of s***.  Always avoided that beach.
It's raining very heavily here though...that doesn't boad well for anywhere.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/30/polluted-rio-de-janeiro-beach-ruled-out-for-pro-surfing-competition

Back to Rio and Saquarema

After leaving Valparasio we spent our last day in Santiago.  Having done most of the city before, we saw the modern district where they have just completed Latin America's tallest building.  Underneath there is also a huge shopping centre called the Costanera Centre.  We passed an afternoon here, before heading back to the Peruvian restaurant for dinner.  We found that in general the best food in Chile was actually Peruvian.  Although Chile doesn't have good beers.  I also bumped into a guy a had been surfing with in England a few times which was quite strange.  He agreed that the surf around Valparasio was quite s*** and was telling me about Pichelemu.  Maybe next time.

We had one last morning in Chile before our flight back which was taken up by visiting the National Zoo.  As expected it was not quite like a zoo in the UK.  Although not cruel, I would not say conditions where great, especially for the elephants who looked pretty sad.  The highlight were meercats who were pretty cheerful and friendly.

We had a smooth flight back on TAM again with decent emergency exit seats.

Back in Rio the following day- it started off with heavy rain.  However once the weather improved I was able to persuade Maria to come down to Arpoador while I surfed.  For one it was not crowded, although there were still plenty of drop ins.

We had pretty interesting sunset with the clouds and the light water giving special effects as below.

Saquarema:

The next day I got up pretty early (just before 5:00) and headed to the bus station in Rio to get a bus to Saquarema exactly as I did in December 2013.  Also stayed in the same hostel which lets say is pretty basic but a least it was cheap and near the beach.

The main reason to come here is waves.  And they have been really good.  A massive difference in power compared to Rio.  Although it is a bit s*** scary when they slam down on the sand.  The surf is very much like Hossegor.  Contrary to what the locals say I found the water to be pretty warm and was too hot in wetsuit so switched to boardies.

The night was pretty boring as the town is absolutely dead- couldnt even find a place to get a proper dinner.  Nevertheless a fun little trip was good to surf some waves in a different class to the city breaks.  I won't miss the mosquitos here which have eaten me despite repellent.

Chile- Valparaiso.

The return bus journey was less smooth than the outward journey.  The bus was stopped multiple times by the Argentinian Military Police, while customs into Chile also took ages.  Unfortunately on both bus journeys being night time we did not see much of the Andes.  However being more awake on the way back we could see the stars pretty clearly (almost at eye level) and experience the feel of 180 bends in the road.

We arrived early in the morning and were able to check in to the Ibis where we were staying.  It was the most modern building in Valparasio by a long way.  After looking at places up the hill which were more expensive this had proved to be the best value and we had a decent room.

For lunch I was keen to taste the local specialty dish 'Chorillana'.  Despite the beer being good the food was terrible.  As put by an Aussie we met later on- 'if that was my local dish I would be pretty embarrassed'.  Spot on.  The meat- a combo of beef, chicken cuts and cheap sausage was s*** and after Mendoza it was impossible to stomach bad meat.

In Valparasio one of the 'things to do' and also get up the hills is to take an elevator which is basically a rickety funicular railway.  Up the hill a few blocks are quite arty with many little cafes and painted streets.  Despite this the whole place felt very quiet.

After wandering around the bit of town on the hill, which to be honest is the only scenic bit of town we saw we went for drinks with a view of the sunset.  We chatted with some Aussies, who recommended a pretty decent restaurant called Cafe Tourri.  It was a relief to have something light in the form of salmon and salad.

Having checked out Valparasio which did not take too long, we used our second to check out the coast.  We headed to Concon, past Vina del Mar where waves small.  Nevertheless I hired the 'worst surfboard in the world' and had a quick surf in the small close outs- complete with a view of a nearby oil refinery.

We continued back past Renaca, which did not have any hire places.  But to be honest I don't think much was missed given that it was mainly close outs (below).

From our hotel we were able to observe the workings of the port including the comings and goings of ships like this.  We opted for dinner again at Cafe Tourri.  I opted to try Congor Eel, a Chilean dish, which was great.