A year on the road in photos…

It’s 365 days since we stepped out of our empty London home onto the early morning streets of Peckham and made our way to Rio. Twelve months and twelve countries later, we’re in Mexico with no intention of stopping our travels. It’s been an epic year and, short of reading the blog in its entirety, I think the best way to tell it is in photos… Read more

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Victoria in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Photo stories, Portugal, Spain, Thoughts, Uncategorized, Yoga 44 Comments

Selaron Interview: If I had a Superpower

Selaron interview, 2012, Brazil

Last week, Jorge Selarón, a Chilean artist most famous for his tile-covered steps in Rio, died next to his masterpiece. Back in March, we were lucky enough to see Selarón painting on his steps, and he agreed to take part in our superpower interview series. The 215 steps were one of our favourite art pieces we came across in South America. Selarón continually changed the design and invited visitors to contribute tiles from their country, which he eventually added to the steps. He also painted his own tiles, most often with the image of a pregnant woman who sometimes had his head or the head of a fish. Read more

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Victoria in Brazil, Destinations, Superpower interviews 8 Comments

Top 15 South America highlights: our year in pictures

Excellent splendour salt flats This time last year, our journey was still a dream. I had another couple of months at work, we needed to find tenants for our house and the number 2012 was still synonymous with the Olympics. Now, twelve months later, that number has come to symbolize the year the dream came true.

Choosing to travel was a massive ingredient that helped make 2012 one of the best years of our lives. In our next post, we’ll look at what else helped create that, but today we wanted to celebrate our travel highlights from the past 12 months.

During that time, we’ve been to six countries in South America, as well as separate trips to India, Europe and the US, and now Mexico (which you’ll be hearing a lot more about soon as we’ve fallen for it head over heels). In the meantime, we’re limiting this list to our highlights from South America. Here’s the top 15 in no particular order. Read more

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Victoria in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Destinations, Ecuador, Photo stories, Thoughts, Travel tips 17 Comments

Photo of the week: Selaron and a question of seeing in Brazil

This week has had a theme of bloody good travel quotes, so we thought we’d add one of our favourites to our photo of the week. We took this picture of the artist Selaron in Rio when interviewing him for our blog If I had a Superpower. True to his artistic temperament, after five questions, he turned away and declared “I am painting now”, and that was that. If you’re ever in Santa Teresa in Rio, don’t miss his spectacular steps, covered in tiles from around the world.

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Victoria in Brazil, Photo of the Week 3 Comments

Photo of the week: Cosmic street panda

The street art is phenomenal in Brazil, especially in Sao Paulo. The amount of excellent graffiti crammed into this small network of alleyways – Beco do Batman – is mind blowing. We’ve seen this cosmic panda elsewhere in South America, but can’t find out who the artist as: anyone know?

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Victoria in Brazil, Photo of the Week 5 Comments

Sao Paulo

Photo of the week: rainbow favela in Rio

Rainbow favela

We took this photo from the cable car that runs across Alemao, one of Rio’s biggest favelas. We went to the favela for lunch with a girl we were couchsurfing with, and had some awesome vegetarian feijoada at Isabel’s cafe. Seeing the favela from above was fascinating, but most of all we enjoyed meeting some of Alemao’s residents and interviewing them for our blog If I had a Superpower. A trick of the light created the beautiful rainbow colours in the corner. Read more

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Victoria in Brazil, Destinations, Photo of the Week Leave a comment

Rio de Janeiro

Photo of the week: George the sagui monkey in Rio

George

From now on Friday is ‘Photo of the week’ day. Up first is this excellent sagui monkey we met at the top of the Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio. Steve named him George, which we think is pretty fitting. Monkeys like George run amok on top of the Sugar Loaf and you can also find them on Ilha Grande.

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Victoria in Brazil, Destinations, Photo of the Week 2 Comments

Rio de Janeiro

A way to help…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the feeling of saudade for the forest that I got when in Brazil. Mine was a sense of loss, but for many people deforestation is having a direct and devastating effect on their way of life in the here and now. There is one man who can change this. Please watch this beautiful video and do what you can to help the Awa.

On a less serious note, does anyone know what that excellent creature is? The one playing in the hammock with the little boy?

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Victoria in Brazil, Thoughts Leave a comment

Iguazu: excellent splendour of the universe

Our visit to Iguazu Falls gave birth to a new catchphrase: ‘Exxxxcellent splennndoooooourrrrrrrrr of the universssssse’. This has to be shouted in a mighty way as if a superhero, preferably with one joyous hand thrust into the air.

At the end of out trip, we had a tiredness that reminded us of days spent at theme parks as teenagers, fuzzy from the repeated rush of adrenaline. Every view is like a ride with the La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil’s Throat) being the main event. Read more

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Victoria in Argentina, Brazil, Destinations, Photo stories 2 Comments

Writing on the wall: street art and graffiti in Sao Paulo

The walls in Brazil are completely alive with street art. From the winding murals of Santa Teresa in Rio, to the hyper-glyphs and psychedelic pandas of Sao Paulo’s backstreets, you can sometimes hardly turn a corner without seeing a piece of finely crafted visual madness. Read more

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Steve in Brazil, Destinations, Photo stories 1 Comment

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