And now the end is near, its time to face the final curtain...

I´d loved Rio so much the first time that I felt I hadn´t given it long enough. So by plane I hopped up the coast to the City of Dreams; and the next two days didn´t dissapoint:

- Hand gliding over the beaches and favelas

- Nearly drowining in the currents of Ipanema

- Savouring the sushi at Sushi Leblon

- Catching the electric atmosphere at a local football game at the maracana

- Grinding to the beat of the best Favela funk DJ in the city

- Taking the Cog Train up to the Corcovado to drop my jaw at the view

- Plotting a documentary with a samba band from the UK

- Bigging up my last night in Lapa at a Bloco street party and samba in the Rio Scenarium

and there the tale ends.

or does it...

Going with the flo

A little white car took us off into the island of Santa Caterina and after getting really confused with directions we found ourselves on the edge of a lake which felt like a Sunnier Lake Como. Thinking we were heading north we headed off, stopping at a spectacular view and them slammed into the centre of the city of florianopolis.

After eventually working out which way up we were we cruised past Pria Mole, surf capital of South Brazil, and onto Barro de Lagoa to chill on the beach. Within a few minutes Ramunas had picked up a girl to meet the day after and I started pining after a bit of action. A few miles up the road the waves got more interesting and we wrestled with the waves and bodysurfed around.

On the way to crashing the night in a cheap place we had seen we stopped off at Pria Mole and took photos of surfers in the twilight, deciding then and there to head surfing the next morning, and sticking to our plans we were at the beach at 9am.

I´d love to paint a picture of huge waves and me elegantly gliding along inside the curl, but the fact was that I was crap, my knee not being stable enough to get me standing for more than a minute... think I´ll stick to kitesurfing...

Finding ourselves back in barro later, Ramunas caught up with the girl and we tried to find somewhere for him to stay. I was going to head south to somewhere remote that i had heard about, but bumping into some fellow travellers we ended up in a great place on the other side of the river.

That night after mucking about in the dunes was the first meal I´ve cooked in a month and lots of drinking ensued...

From the 60s to Surfing, via the south

Got to Brasilia airport with plenty of time and decided that I was going to buy some flights to spend more time in Rio at the end of my trip. Guy on the desk was very friendly and got a bit too caught in practicing his English.... very slowly...

Without a watch I kept telling him that I had a flight to catch, but after running the length of the airport barefoot I arrived to see my flight... and bag take off for Florianopolis without me.

After a short curse, I traipsed up to the check in desk expecting to fork out for a ticket, but found a fantastic chap, who got one the next flight via Porto Segure in the far south of Brazil.

In the waiting lounge trying in best Portuguese to book a room for the night, a girl tapped me on the shoulder and offered to help. Turns out she was booking a room for a guy from Lithuania, but living in London... and so a posse forms.

We´re all chatting and the flight gets delayed, there´s an electrical storm, and delayed... so when we arrive in Porto Segure we´ve missed our connection. What next, Leydna and Ramone grab their bags and we head to the desk and find out they´ve got us a taxi to a hotel and dinner - superb.

5 am we´re up and by 8 we´re in the surf capital of Brazil batering on the price of a hire car.

A 60s vision - Brasilia

Excuse the brevity on this one... there´s an article in the making!

Arrived in Brasilia in a rainstorm and asked my taxi driver to take me on a tour on the way to my hotel. The whole of the city was built in 3 years in 1960 and is one of the only cities in the world to have been built entirely with modernist principles... well I´m kind of discounting Milton Keynes in that! Shaped like a giant plane with two wings and all the commercial, shopping and government buildings in the central fuselage it faces a giant manmade lake.

The tour was a bit bizzarre, the city is a kind of intimidating with its sprawling centre and monumental buildings - it feels like its not designed for people, but to make a statement and in all its concrete beauty, that statement is looking a little shabby.

Spent the first night in my 70´s hotel room, with period marble bathroom, watching 2 movies and not wanting to go out. There had been little that I had seen that encouraged me to go exploring... but explore I did.

After the first night in a Steak house I gradually got accustomed to what this place is about. It certainly has its flaws, and huge ones at that, but is also an intriguing concept.

The buildings are made for photos and the Parliament building tops them all with it Dome and Bowl ceiling topped by two towers reaching up into the sky. I did as the tourists do and traipsed around the sights, but still didn´t get under the skin of the place. That is until I walked, and walked and walked out into the SuperQuadras on a Sunday.

The SuperQuadras are the residential areas of the city, along its wings, and although repetitive, they are green and pleasant and relaxed. I sat in a local restaurant and got a feel for the people of Brasilia who are friendly and progressive.

In fact Brazil´s country slogan kind of sums it up - it a place of Order and Progress, albeit a 60s vision of it

Alligators and Pixies

A small girl, walking an alligator down an elegant staircase, is the image that I find myself transfixed by at 6 o’clock in the morning, halfway up a mountain in the Bahia in Brazil. The girl in the black and white photograph is now the 35 year old small framed, but mighty spirited Olivia Taylor, who has invited me on the half day walk up to her peaceful retreat; and as I am beginning to understand the picture tells an interesting story of how she got here.

As we sit drinking caipirihinas the night before I’m intrigued to understand how a girl, who in England had grown up in a wealthy if eclectic household, had left her home to never return. Having set out to travel the world, after 18 months she had not even completed South America she had ended up in the former diamond mining town of Lencois. After returning to the UK and spending 8 months working in an office, she headed back to set up home. Working as a firewoman, estate agent and guide led to her running an ever growing pousada which is a hub for travellers both young and old from around the world. On the surface the story seemed plausible enough, but I couldn’t help feeling that there was more to tell.

Lencois has changed considerably since Olivia first arrived. Then in 1993 the diamond industry was coming to an end after the formation of the Chapada Diamantina national park. Following the abrupt closure of the mines, and 80% of the population of the town out of work, tourism was a natural if at times forced step.

Today tourists, who are predominately made up of Brazilians and backpackers, head to the town on a 6 hour trip from Salvador to experience an area which is 1.8 billion years old. Originally the base of an ocean, sediments laid down in layers and under pressure formed into rock. Then – million years ago tectonic movements pushed the area up into the broken landscape of tabletop mountains, valleys, caves and pools which you will now find. The landscape plays host to an amazing array of wildlife, monkeys, jaguars, parakeets; and plants – woodland, scrub, orchids, amarylliss. The chapada has become a mecca for walking, climbing, mountain biking and horseriding, and finally it seems that the government of Brazil is understanding that the area could be a key attraction for foreign tourists.

And Olivia’s Pousada Dos Duendes is already playing quite a role in the increased awareness of the national park. The house, tucked up on the edge of Lencois, originally started life as a two bedroom mud hut with no electricity. Now it is a 15 room business with a relaxing garden and bar, with a hostel being completed in the gardens behind. During my stay I found a diverse mix of interesting people from New York, Vancover, Geneva and Amsterdam who give this place a welcoming, sociable and (grown up) atmosphere, that I have yet to experience on my travels. It comes from Olivia’s passion for her home, both from where you lay your head to where you walk your feet.

The name of the Pousada again hints at why she is here, Duendes translates as Pixies, and Olivia does seem to have the childish and naughty character that the mythical creatures are known for. She is also an avid Harry Potter fan and an attraction to fantasy literature seems to have started at a young age.

Olivia grew up in Somerset, living in a country house which featured in the television series ‘To the Manor Born’, and which was also the local zoo and a working farm. Her parents had separated when she two, although they still lived together on the estate. Sent off to boarding school she very much felt in the shadow of her older brother, who by the time he was 18 and she 14, was well known for organising the notorious Gatecrasher Balls and then raves and featuring in the newspapers for all the wrong reasons. Finding that she was either very much disliked or liked because of brother, but not for herself; and combined with a home life which was anything but nuclear, the travelling started as a way to experience something different from the social norms in the uk which she found so unappealing. Having travelled around the world it was in Brazil and Lencois that she found a place in which she had nothing to prove and where she could establish her life on her own terms.

We finish eating our meal of sweet potato, rice and kale in the light of the glowing embers from the stove. “When I go back to England to visit I no longer feel the outsider that I once did. Then I felt different and was uncomfortable about it where as now I am happy to be different and my life has caught up with how different I felt at the time." I try to finish my drink, but the heady cachaca stops me short. “That’s when you know you’re a proper adult,” I say.

The Last Ticket

There are moments when you're travelling when you just gotta take a gamble. 9pm, no tickets left for the overnight bus you planned to catch and no space at the hostel you're staying in, save the hammock above the restaurant.

I had an irepressable urge to leave town to taste some fresh air and experience some nature. I guess that my mind was made up for me as I found myself in a taxi driving along the motorway to the out of town bus station.

I rocked up at the counter to do my best traveller blag fo any cancellations or no shows. A firm shaked head told me that I wasn't in luck, even when I asked 3 more times.

I perched on the floor to peruse my lonely planet for ideas of where else to head off to when, after a few minutes, the same head appeared knocking at the window and a beaming smile.

Call it fate or what you will, but things really do have a natural way of working theselves out. So onwards and upwards to Lencois and the Chapada Diamantina.

From San Francisco to Sau Francisco

Sitting at breakfast at the hostel and a Val Kilmer esque character asks me in Portuguese if he can sit at my table. Jon is a Norwegian based out of San Francisco who works part time as a Neurologist during surgery and the rest as a Sculptor. Heady creative debate ensues with a liberal splattering of 60s California.

I head out. It's sunday so churches seem the appropriate option. There's so many in Salvador that they say there is one for each day of the week, so can't tell you the name of the place of worship that i visited which is coated from floor to ceiling in gilt gold and Roccoco decoration.

Headed onto the Cathedral where a service was in full flow. There is a very distinct mix of races noticable in both the architecture and saints. Think it is the first time that i have seen statues of black saints, with both men and women - all very equal - very like the racial mix in brazil.

After taking the landmark Art Deco lift down to the port - I ate lunch in a cheap cafe watching the best Capoeira that I've ever seen and buying the trousers to prove it...

Yoga and Africans

Spent the afternoon ambling quietly around the churches of the city; Salvador has a really interesting mix of European architecture and African soul, but the holy buildings feel like a tour of the vatican - with their ornate offerings to the deities.

Walking back to my hostel the African spirit hit me again through a photograph. Marcos Rogger is from the city and studied photography before setting up his studio in the Pelorinho. His large brooding black and white prints express the art and flavour of Africa and the slaves conflict with their portuguese masters and the Tupi indigineous population. They're also quite erotic to boot with their naked painted models...

Once we got talking, one in particular caught my eye and we got onto prices, then talking shop.

Before long we were out back checking out each others flickr pages and trying to converse in two different languages.

Half an hour later the door bell rings and in walks a Japanese girl called Yoshi from New York. I took on the role of interpretor as she told Marcos how she had been in Salvador for a week and was haunted by his images. She has always had a fantasy of being painted and photographed naked in yoga poses.

And within half an hour that was exactly what was happening with me as photographer and Marcos as Art Director. 200 pictures later we negotiated that i'd pay him £50 for the photo i liked + i'd send him one of my prints. With him rushing out the door the deal was struck.

And there was one...

There's a sense of adventure when you find yourself alone in a foreign airport. It's a pit of the stomach feeling that things are about to get interesting...

So the first trial - get a bus cause you can't afford taxis anymore. Sit half an hour in the sunshine with no sign of any public transport. See a taxi driver bartering with some new arrivals, seize the opportunity, and a shared carriage to the Pelorinho awaits via the port.

There's also a certain quietness to being alone on your travels. You listen more and keep your eyes open wider, so i got a bit more of a sense of the portuguese being spoken between driver and passengers about polotics, bahia and music.

Taking a long tour around the bay gave a chance for me to get a different perspective on Salvador, although the long stretches ofbeach are overun by dual carriageways and badly constructed hotels. The city's position is fantastic, but its expansion from the beautiful historic centre seems slapdash and polluted; but perhaps i'm being unfair as it is very hard to live up to the expectations placed by a city like Rio.

A james bond exit

It was the day before Jus left and we were heading to Salvador for our last night.

I thought it would be good to end with a bit of drama, and a zip slide off a cliff seemed just the trick...

With 30 minutes before our boat I climbed the hill, strapped in, ran and jumped off a cliff - flying through the air and into the sea... fun... and getting me in the mood for hang gliding in rio!

horses and material assets

Don´t know if it is just me, but the thought of riding a horse doesn´t exactly inspire confidence in my future child producing department. On this occasion the elegant thought of galloping along the beach with the sun in my face took precedence.

Alex is an Argentinian who came to Morro de Sau Paulo 9 years ago and never went back. Having married a Bahian, who happened to live in Argentina for 15 years, he bought a wooden house tucked in jungle on the quieter side of the island and takes out visitors for tours of the island.

The first i knew of him was a question on the main strip of sand that they call the morro high st. ´Do you like to ride´, i shaked my head, but said that the lady next to me was probably a better bet for his sales pitch. And now looking out over the whole of the island and bay in the bleached out sunshine it felt all worth it.

We decended down sandy tracks that I´d find it tough to get a mountain bike down, rode along the beach and stopped for a beer at the supermarket. Then in the vein of my fantasy we galloped across the island and amazingly I didn´t turn into a unach...

And relax...

Had trouble keeping up with this blog up to this point of the holiday, but then we just took a well deserved chill.

Morro is just the place for it too. Some say its got too developed, but we reckoned it did exactly what it said on the tin. A fun place to enjoy the sea the 4 beaches, the nightime drinking and beach parties.

We checked into a bungalow in the grounds of the oldest building on the island and swam, ate superb food and drank from the countless fruit cocktail stalls.

In fact think I need to paint a picture for you. Its night, we´re on the beach, the music fills the air, and we´re surrounded by 31 stalls with huge displays of the widest variety of fruit you´ve ever seen. You head up to one, you point to some stuff and 2 minutes later you´ve got in your hand a cocktail from the gods... except if you pick a weird fruit by mistake!

A bus, a motel and two planes

We jumped on the bus late to get back to rio, arriving at the bus terminal at midnight.

We had decided to try out a motel in brazil, (to save the details - do a google search on motels in Brazil and you´ll get where i´m coming from...) Just let it be said.. a little seedy, but funny to boot.

Early the next morning we got a cab to the airport and after a bit of waiting flew off to salvador in the north.

Our destination was Morro De Sau Paulo at the tip of an island 100ks from Salvador. Originally set up as a fortification post to defend Portuguese interests Morro is now a haven for partying in the sun, by the sea.

We decided to arrive in true jet style with a air taxi, which cut the journey time for 3 hours to 20 minutes. After paying a quite reasonable fare we realised that it was just the two of us... a private charter none the less!

Sitting in the front seat grinning like a cheshire cat, the engine spluttered to the life and the smell reminded me of sitting in my old Triumph Spitfire. The captain was decked out in all the right gab even if his plane was a little behind the times. He kicked up the throttle and we picked up speed and skitted off the runway. It was totally exilerating... I´ve been desperate for some time to get the view out of the front of a plane... in fact I think i´m might be growing up into someone who will want to learn to fly... and here i was flight controls before me. I felt like being a kid in a sweet shop.

20 minutes later and the island appeared below us as we approached a dusty small stretch of runway which ended in the sea. If the take off was exciting, the landing was a joy, as your palms got sweaty with the idea that youy could go bouncing off into the sea, but no - 10 points to the pilot for his landing skills. We taxied up, opened the door to let a breeze into the airless cabin and stepped out to a cattle shed for a terminal...

A boat named Victor

The sky was clouded over, but our hopes were high for a boat trip around the islands off paraty. The weather held as we negotiated a price with an amiable local chap and set off on his green and yellow painted boat (use some artistic license on the one above).

Feeling like the jet set with our own privately chartered cruiser, (well a wooden vessel with a noisy motor), we headed around the coast stopping at coves and jumping overboard to swim.

The thick jungle which heads right down to the beach side gives a really tropical sense to the place, even when it started raining and the sky clouded over.

But the sun returned again as we pulled up at a small remote restaurant and ate like kings, watching a turtle play at the piers edge.

Green gunk with a view

3 hours south of rio is the colonial town of paraty, founded as a stopover from the Minas Gervas goldfields in the 19th century. A beautiful seafront perched at the front of mountains tumbling down into the ocean... and here we were covering ourselves in green gunk in the sea. We´d seen the locals taking handfuls of the stuff from the sea floor... and after some hypothesising we reckoned that it was dead mulch from the abundant greenery around.

Anyways feeling cleansed and glowing we hired a kayak for a tour round the bay and then headed off into the cobbled street and painted houses for dinner

Motorcycles and Misconceptions - Rochina Favela Rio

The favela is undoubtedly a dangerous place if you´re not with the right people, but I feel there is a misconception of these poor areas of rio as portrayed in City of God and the like.

These are communities of passionate, freindly and welcoming people... it is the divide between rich and poor and the drugs that causes violence...

Rochina is the largest favela in the whole of South America; a spectacular place of buildings falling down the mountainside. My perception had been that these were the shanty towns of rio, but that isn´t the case. These areas house the hard working class of the city - the cooks, the cleaners, the hotel workers - who need to be close to their work in order to keep their jobs and survive.

7 minutes

7 minutes doesn´t seem like long, but when you are flying over rio it seems like a lifetime. The beach city is even more spectacular from up here and when you turn behing the Christo and see that view you know where the passion all comes from...

... and yet despite everything that this city offers it is the favelas, running in slivers up the mountain sides which intrigue me the most. Even from a distance it is clear that there is a spirit there which you won´t find anywhere else.

So despite the warnings of danger and violence we arranged to go...

Waterfalls and sushi

The Botanical gardens offer a brief, but welcome respite from the buzz of Rio, with its avenues of trees seemingly stretching up into the rainforest and the Christo perched as always with his eyes and arms over the city. We ambled in the shade until we came across a man made waterfall which begged to be jumped under...

Having cooled down we got talking to a family from Sau Paulo, and it turns out the dad was a creative director of an advertising, which all fitted rather conveniently with the story I´m shooting there. With an offer to stay, followed by an invite to lunch, we hailed a cab and made our way to Leblon.

We didn´t realise at the time but Sushi Leblon is one of the most rated restaurants in the city and rightly so - the nigri was divine, the tempura heavenly and that was before another course that we were recommended which had me on the floor...

Sunset on Ipanema that night was jaw dropping - its an incredible beach with a spectacular mountain at one end, filled along it length with beautiful people looking beautiful or showing some passion for volleyball or football.

The Sky Explodes and the People Dance

I thought that I had seen a lot of people up in Edinburgh for Hogmanay, but take 2 million people all walking through the street to one huge mile long stretch of beach and you know that there is going to one big party, especially when everyone is dressed all in white for the occasion.

We bought caiprainhas and some food from a street stall and found our spot on the beach, heaping sand up to make a kind of lounger, lit some candles and placed the white rose we´d bought to the side.

The atmosphere was electric and a lively mix of ages, families, friends, lovers, strangers and two londoners; with no idea what time it was.

And the the sky exploded.

I´ve seen fireworks and some inpressive ones to boot, but they set off so many fireworks all across the sky, both high and low and everywhere in between, such that for a minute afterwards there was so much smoke that you couldn´t see anything...

And then it continued and continued for half an hour with the backdrop of classical music playing along the promenade. And the crowd, the most animated, vocal and happy i´ve seen.

When the fires of the sky ended an applause began that spread across every one of those two million. And that was just the start.

Till three in the morning Jus danced whilst I watched and fell asleep...

Among men

Picture the scene.

I´m in the pool,a group of five men are reading a book which looks like it has got some great photography. I ask what it is,( in French of course), and they tell me that I wouldn´t be interested in it, its an alternative guide the gay scene in Rio. I tell them that they are mistaken, that my girlfriend is actually my sister...

I find it quite amusing being in this enviroment, but I think Jus found it all too alternatively male... so we after New Years we moved just next door to another home... this time owned by an Irish lady named Julie.

Where Inspiration Comes From

An Art Deco 1930s house perched in the hills of the art district above Rio. They call St Teresa the ´Montmarte of the Tropics´and with its antiquated yellow tram rattling its way down cobbled streets with an expansive view over the city, you can´t help but see why.

And in this house? Once you´ve walked in the darkness of a mood evoking tunnel, closed the metal shuttered doors of the lift and ascended up into the heart of the casa you open the doors into a palace of simple elegance.

The place feels French first of all, like a 1930s film noir, but with fabrics, patterns and colours which offer a contemporary slant to the home.

You walk through the spacious dinning and living area - with its 50s lounge chairs and cushions dressed in natural and colourful patterns, and electic ephemera adorning the sideboard to a glass walled green room overlooking the Centro. With this dramatic backdrop you relax with a cup of chinese tea, taking in the mix of architecture - from the brooding Cathedral to the progressive 60s Petrobas building.

And onto your room, the Sony TV the only sign that you in the present. An Art Deco bathroom with a brave mud green ceiling, beautifully paterned tiles and a bath big enough for a family. And is in the rest of the house colourful patterns of plants, lines and nature - all the work of a french designer - Laurent, the owner of a French Agency - Robert De Helios. You can find his fabrics, cushions bags and hats in Selfridges, Barneys and La Gallerie Lafayette in Paris.

As luck would have it Laurent was our host for the new year, and as those of you who know me... take a good story, a connection and a creative medium (in this case a camera) and click... another idea. Keep you~re eyes peeled on this one...

A little Argentinean Girl in a Unique Hotel

By mid afternoon the day called for a rest for the legs and a drink for the soul.

We flagged down a cab and headed for the Unique Hotel, a modernist monument created on a dead piece of land close to the park.

With its eye-catching exterior; palatial lobby and a bar whose shelves stretches up to the roof we ordered two pricey caiprihanas and relaxed supping them whilst reading coffee table books.

A little Argentinean Girl played on a floor seating area and we got talking to the family and I snapped some shots as she posed as if on a fashion shoot. Talk of Buenos Aires got me thinking of including the city on my trip...

We left in the slowing rain to head back to the Jardims district to find a good restaurant for Js pre birthday dinner.

A Walk in the Park - Sau Paulo

Sunday in Sau Paulo, walking through Ibeirapueira park, offers a real respite from a Tokyo like sprawl of ugly grey towers . 

The heat of the day was tempered by a curvaceous 70s covered walkway; under which hundreds of locals were involved in every type of physical activity. Boards and bikes; Kids somersaulting and fathers teaching their daughters to rollerskate; all vieing for your attention.

Sau Paulo is meant to be the violent, dirty and hectic pit of brazil, but to us it felt cosmopolitan and friendly with fantastic food. The food and culture of the city may top Brazil, but as a native told us, ‘if you didn’t go to Sau Paulo on your trip ; then you wouldn’t miss seeing anything.