The Arrival of Fausto - Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and Ibiza

The last 3 weeks have seen me rambling with my brother in law Fausto Morales. It was his first time to Europe and he took in plenty new experiences for his first time here:

• A fresh pint of Guinness in Dublin
• Listening to melodic harp playing hippies at the Cliff's of Mohar
• A medieval banquet where you had to eat with your hands and bring plenty of "mead" in Buntarry castle
• A refreshing swim at Newton Cove, Tramore
• A tour of the Heinkeen brewing factory in Amtersdam as well as a tour of the infamous red like district and innumerable coffee shops
• A photo with the Mona Lisa in the Louvre
• A tour of the Eiffel tour in 38 degrees of stifling heat
• A history class on Napolean's tomb
• A bopping, thumbping, fist punching techno night never to be forgotten in Cafe Ole, in Ibiza's Space discoteque from 1am to 7pm
• A Facebook check in and plenty of snaps at the world famous Cafe Del Mar, with one of the best sun sets we've ever seen
• Eating mouth watering watermelon at the turquoise and azure blue beachs of Formentura

On the 2nd half of the journey his girlfriend a federal policewoman from Port Alegre visited as well as the well as Camila tagging along for good measure. 

Just like my trip around the world a few years ago I felt the rambling spirit inside myself come to life again. Although not as long as my trip 7 years ago I found the 3 weeks very liberating. I thoroughly enjoyed going from city to city meeting friends, eating and drinking good food and wine and checking out what existed around the corner of calles, ruas, boulevards, streets, rows and lane ways. 

Some of the stand out memories.

• Checking out the medieval toilets of Bunratty castle and sipping the sweet honey whiskey on offer. I'd recommend the banquet, for 50 euro it's a good night out, with lots of story telling, songs from the old days and plenty of belly laughs. The food was very basic but the atmosphere and entertainment made up for it. A pint around the corner in Ned's pub was well worth the visit
• Fausto's face after he jumped into the Irish sea for the first time. Like a dog fetching a piece of wood thrown into the water. It was a case of jump in, scream, search for the ladder and get the heck out of there, hyperventilating along the way! Brazil's are made of soft stuff... they need to toughin' up a bit! :)
• Enjoyed a very nice barge cruise around the canal's of Amsterdam and enjoyed taking in the massive bicycle stand and canal boats. For those uninitiated to Amsterdam life, the amount of bikes flying around and parked everywhere is crazy. Think Beijing in the good old days and you won't be far off. The canal ride was 11 euro and took an hour and a half. Well worth it. House canals of which I believe there are about 2500 in Amsterdam range from the weird and wacky to the ornate and beautiful. You can get a good selection here to see what I mean.
• In Brussels we visited the externally impressive Atomica monument which was great to look at but a real let down inside. If you go, don't bodder going inside, save yourself the 12 euro and just take some snaps from outside. There is some museams inside but they are really really poor. What I enjoyed the most from out 2 days there was seeing the world famous peeing boy statue dubbed "Mr PeePee".. well worth seeing him at while eating a tasty waffle from the shop beside him. 
• Paris is Paris. This time the sun was a blazing 38 degrees roughly all of the 4 days we were there which made it uncomfortable. On more then one occasion my hand fan had to come into use. On this occasion the Eiffel Tower was majestic as ever. The queues were a disaster. We spend 50 minutes queuing outside to get in. 1 hour to go from the 1st to the 2nd level and 15 minutes to come down. The light show on the hour at night was as impressive as ever. When we where ther there was 10 models for some glossy magazine posing for an hour doing cover shots. For the first time ever I saw the tower being out photoed by a barrage of tourists who seemed more impressed by the even leggy catwalk models.
• I've never been to the Lourve, and for 10 euros it is fantastic value. One of the best you'll get at any museam in the world. It is massive and would take at least one full day to check it out properly, and at that at a rush. This time as well as the seen the black haired fair lady herself we also got to see Napolean's quarters. One hell of a party room and some incredible gold platted oranate rooms full of the decorations of war and triumph.
• Versaille, the French palace a mere 45 minutes by metro and train outside of the capital were well worth a visit. This is where the old kings of France lived in ridiculously lavish surrounds which massive perfectly manicured garden grounds and a huge palace that is hard to fully comprehend once your inside it's so big. Reminded me of visiting the Vatican. 
• Ibiza was all about beach and top clubs. I saw Seb Fontaine and the amazing soul brothers in Cafe Ole, Armin Van Burren and the disappointing Paul Oakenfold in the world's biggest club Priviledge, a really great set from Calvin Harris in the impressive outdoor Ushia and then Eric Morillo in the equally impressive Pacha. Ibiza for me was overall a bit of a let down. Maybe I'm getting old and cranky a bit and becoming a bit of a travel snob but the cost of things was bordering on a joke. Fair enough, we paid 50 euros to enter the nightclubs, to see some of the best DJs in the world but 18 euro for a Red Bull and Vodka, followed by 12 euro for a bottle of beer was taking the piss! Also, for the first time in my life I got charged 3.50 for  a bowl of ice to put into our fizzy drinks at a restaurant.  Spain currently has 25% unemployment in total and 52% unemployment under 25's. Desperate times in Spain and you could sense it in the way the taxi men were looking for every little cent on their clock. It the trip cost 7.15, they wanted the 15 cents. Also, the food was very expensive and it looked like people were out to charge for everything.

Anyhow, great to be back home as usual and here is some of the photos so you can see what it was all about.

Some snaps of the day

Paradise Islands

Lone Swimmers @ Sun Set

Day Trip Boats

Cheese On The Beach

Ice Deliveries on a Jet Ski

Sun Sets

A snap of a snap

little Portuguese churches shot from a speeding car

Ilha Bela

I'm now off the coast of Sao Paola at the eponymous Ihla Bela or "Beautiful Island". Interesting place and I'm enjoying investigating what it has to offer. To get here it took a 4 hour drive from Sao Paolo before we came to the ferry stop that took 30 minutes of waiting in line in our car and then 15 minutes to cross over to the island. Ihla Bela is about 6km by 3km wide, 5km of the coastline and has in the region of 30 tropical beaches all spread around a number of spiky mountain tops covered in forest and clouds. It is a place where the rich of the rich come from Brazil to vacate and it received millions of tourists each year, most coming from Sao Paolo, Rio and Buenos Aires.

Today, we took the car along the north side of the island passing by about 8 different beaches. We decided to descend down a forest path with a small river covered in stones to get down to a tiny beach about 500 meters wide that was situated by a very small farm. Down there was 5 people already and an old women selling beer, water, sun tan lotion and crisps. It was an idyllic hideaway and across the water ways you could see two cruise ships in the water, a man paddling effortless on a kayak and some threatening rain clouds in the town of Sao Sebastian which was in the distance.

I immediately jumped in the warm water when I got the beach. On entry there was no cold sting just warm water. I stayed in there for 20 minutes flapping around in the brown green water with a few waves occassionally disturbing my mediation on the coconut trees and forest slopes that were all around.

After I came out of the water the guy who was kayaking had come ashore and was talking to Camila. He had rowed about 6km to get to the beach and was spear fishing for some local fist to eat. He too was from Sao Paolo, he ended up telling us all about the island, the types of dangerous snakes and spiders that exist in the centre of the island but no where near the beaches. He explained to us that a wind coming down from Rio was causing a certain type of small frequent bumpy wave that was hitting the west of the island today. He went into a lot of detail why Ihla Bela is famous all over the world for kite surfing and wind surfing due to its unique winds that are a regular feature of life on the island. From his colourful and passionate discriptions it was clear to see why so many people come here and it explained why we were seeing so many marinas with a huge variety of paddle boats and all types of powerful jet boats that were anchored in nearly every beach we saw.  He went on to offer to catch some fish and cook for us and he gave us his address on the island where he has a house of his own. He gave me his flippers and snorkeling mask and insists I take them to explore some of the dives to the east of the island which I hope to do Monday. Nice guy.

Today we are also trying to book a boat ride to two of Ihla Bela's most famous beaches. We'll get up at 9am and come back at about 5pm. We'll go by boat but come back by jeep through the forest with a couple of dives in between. So far the best quote we got is about 150 reis which is about 60 euros which ain't too bad so we'll go with that. The jeep ride is supposedly worth all the money alone with a number of water fall stops also taking place where we can dip our toes. Only problem is that the weather is forecasted for rain which may scupper our plans.

One thing I noticed today as well is that a lot of Brazilians now have smart phones. This wasn't the case two years ago. The prices are still ridiculous. It is more costly for me to call Camila's mum's mobile from a Brazilian mobile phone then it is to call her from an Irish one.  The prices are really high, and inter state additional charges exist. A lot of Brazilians have been travelling abroad in the last couple of years, especially to the US, and you now also see a lot of the latest iPads knocking around in beaches and in airports.  The prices for normal day thinks have also gone up. I reckon about 15% since last I came here. That's a big jump. The economy is still doing well, and reminds me of 2005 back in Ireland. They've also this month officially surpassed Britan as the 6th biggest economy in the world. 

Some of the other highlights so far:

-Watching a young man yesterday, maybe 20 years of age, playing Vivalidi on his violin for 20 minutes on rua de meio with tons of kids staring at him in awe like I was

-Visting the Irish bar on the island that was the first Irish bar i've visited abroad with no Guinnesss

-Climbing a mud hill to get up from a secluded beach and meeting a goat half way up who seemed to be kneeling down and watching beetles go by

-Looking at a man standing on a surf boat, fully upright, paddling out to his jet boat about 150 meters off coast. 

-Drinking a fresh water melon smoothie with a plate of calebresa and incebola onions fried with some golden sizzlingly olive oil

-Eating freshly baked potato crisps on the side of the road with a coconut ice cream

-Listening to Brazil's answer to Christy Moore, Jorge Ben Jorge, singing "Moro em pais tropical" - I live in a tropical county, says it all really!

-Met the owner of the hotel we're staying in, 6ft -7 German man who worked from General Motors, didn't like it, when he met a Brazilian woman on holidays decided to come down here and live for good!