Friendly games and one awesome concert

Today's activities started with a friendly game of soccer between the locals here in Porto Alegre vs The Fanatics. We all walked down to the local ground, there were benches all set up for the crowd and a sound system for commentating, it was done really really well.

Fanatics vs Local Team

The locals fought hard and ended up winning 3-2, our team consisted of about 40 players that rotated every 5 minutes which made it a bit hard to get any sort of winning rhythm.

I got to for fill my dream of being a sports photographer when our friends from Adelaide asked me to take photos of them while they were playing, they were 2 very happy customers, we even snuck in a selfie for shits and giggles.

Exploring the picturesque streets of Porto Alegre

After the game we all headed to the live site to watch Germany vs Portugal which ended up being a German whitewash of 4-0.

We got to try the Brazil version of a hotdog which consisted of 2 hotdogs in a normalish bun with peas, corn, beans, a shitload of parmasan cheese, topped with a selection of sauces, mayo, mustard and of course the ketchup.. It was.. Interesting, but still tasted pretty good.

Walking back to the hotel, yes everyone, we walk everywhere in the streets of Brazil and we haven't been robbed or stabbed yet, there are cops everywhere and even military with their big machine guns and tanks, it's quite cool. 

Enjoying a local band with dancers

So like I was saying, we headed back to the hotel and snazzied up for our big night out to see the super group that The Fanatics had organised for us. 

After a quick stroll to the bus depot we all hopped aboard and made our way to the Opiana club which has had some pretty famous bands play there so we were expecting big things.

Before we went in we decided to grab a quick dinner from a little restaurant accross the road, turns out everyone thought the same thing and the place was packed. We ended up sharing a table with these two nice guys from Melton.

The Superband performing at The Opiana

Unfortunately for us though the place was fresh out of water, they only had huge 1 L budwiesers left and the pizza we ordered still hadn't arrived after 1 and a 1/2 hours, we didn't want to miss the concert so we bailed, missing out on dinner.

The venue was awesome, the place was packed out over 4 different levels, all fanatics from everywhere in Brazil were there. First up was a Brazilian band and dancers, who may as well have been wearing nothing, they really got the place going with their fast paced sound and dances, we even had a conga line going yap tone point.

Not a bad turn out for this gig

Then the stars of the show came out, there was a band member from Jet, Powderfinger, Spiderbait, Electric Mary and The Living End, they came together perfect and rocked the house down, we had an absolute ball.

Probably shouldn't have drank alcohol on an empty stomach, especially Brazils verson of a vodka mix, which is more lethal than an apple juice and vodka from a certain German bar that we visited once, 5 parts vodka one part apple juice... Nasty!

We made it back to the hotel safely thanks to the hero of the night Adam for rescuing his staggering wife from the evils of the vodka mix.

Porto Alegre - France Vs Honduras

A very quick breakfast at 5:30am and it was back on the bus and off to the airport to catch our flight to Porto Alegre.

Chartered flight to Porto Alegre

Flying in the city looked huge, we could see the stadium and the live fan site from out the window, the city was a far cry from the small city we just come from so we were egar to get out and explore.

We pull up to our new lavish hotel but can't check in quite yet, so we out our bags in storage and head to Beira-Rio stadium to watch France V Honduras.

View of Porto Alegre and the stadium

We jump in a taxi and tell him to take us to the stadium and he starts going on about a camera and photo, riiiiiight.. So I pointed to the map to make sure he was going where I wanted him too and he just smiled and said "Si Si".

He ended up taking us up a hill that overlooked the stadium and the while city, it was beautiful, the cheeky taxi driver treated us to an amazing view and after that dropped us about 2km from the ground due to the roads being shut.

This was good as we got to join in the march of the France and Honduras fans who were chanting and waving flags the entire way. It was an awesome experience to check out the cultures of some of the other fans.

Enjoying some festivities before the France match

Once arriving at the ground we were pretty impressed. It was a fairly modern stadium and we had awesome seats right near the corner flag, giving us a great perspective of the game.

Unfortunately the speakers in the ground weren't working so we missed out on hearing the national anthems and the opening music. But once the match started the stadium was absolutely buzzing.

France controlled the tempo from start to finish and were relentless. They received an iffy penalty early on which Karim Benzema converted. Then we were part of football history when the first ever goalline technology was used.

Pretty cool seats and a pretty cool stadium

Benzema hit a shot off the post into the goalkeeper, who then thumbed it over the line. Unlike the AFL goal technology back home, this decision was done within 2 seconds. France then added a third goal to round out a deserving 3-0 win.

We then walked from the stadium to the live fan site which was about a 30 min walk. We stopped for a drink and some food along the way and enjoyed plenty of festivities along the way including live music, carnival rides, food stalls, Brazilian samba dances, you name it.

The fan site was incredible though once we arrived. There would have been several thousands of people there and we watched the first half of the Argentina vs Bosnia match, before heading back to the hotel for the second half, plus Game 5 of the NBA Finals.

Enjoying the Argentina vs Bosnia match at Fan Fest

It was a fair walk home, but there were plenty more festivities. We were walking alone towards the end, but all those stories about how rough and dangerous the Brazilian streets are were pretty much scare tactics. The people here are awesome and friendly.

Tomorrow we have a big day planned checking out a local school where a Fanatics 11 team take on a local team, then later that night we are heading out to see a concert with an Australian super group performing, with the band lineup to be announced that night.

The Pantanals.. Aka, the loooooooooong road

Today we got up nice and early to head out to a tour of the biggest wetlands in the world called the Pantanal.

Just an aligator knocking about

This sounds promising doesn't it? Hundreds of new wildlife that we've never even seen or heard of before, new landscapes, even a safari jeep/truck!

But no, it took over an hour in a bus to get to the safari trucks, and then we split into two groups one following the other which was fine until the road turned into a dirt fest.

The poor people behind us copped all our dust, not that we escaped it be got it all on the way home.. They even gave us dust masks to wear! People, it's called a bus!

All geared up for a dusty ride

Don't get me wrong, the open air trucks were fun, for the first hour.. The second and third got a but old and then on the way home the same thing.

We did however see some pretty cool birds, kingfishers, kites, vultures, hawks and about 10 different types of storks. We also saw a heap of local alligators, just small ones but still, an alligator is awesome no matter what the size.

Another alligator

So the hour bus ride and then the 2 1/2 hour truck ride got us to a lunch spot where we dined with our favourite American/Aussie couple, on offer was a nice little buffet with weird but tasty foods and then it was in a small boat to cruise along the Pantanals.

More birds and even an iguana later we get back to the dock and got back on dry land, the boats were fun, but there was only so many birds you can see and we were pushing it for time to get back to the city to watch the England vs Italy match.

Watching the Colombia vs Greece match with the locals

Back in the truck/jeep thing again and maaaaaaaaaan did that trip DRAG! Our truck was behind now so we copped the dust from not only the truck ahead but there seemed to be a lot more cars and busses passing us. To put it in perspective, the guy next to me that had white hair, was now a ranga.

Off the truck and onto the bus, which was falling apart, the air conditioner unloaded a heap of water onto one guy and then the arm rest on the chair of someone else just dropped off this whole situation had everyone in histerics as we were all going a bit crazy after the days events.

A stunning sunset at the Pantanal

We FINALLY arrive back to the hotel and we get stuck into the England v Italy match which was already into the second half, Italy ended up winning 2 -1 even though it seemed like Englad had the ball 90% of the time.

Up early again tomorrow as we head back to the airport bound for Porto Alegre for a non Aussie game and what we hope will be the final game in the NBA to see Spurs win.

Australia vs Chile

Whoo hoo, match day is finally here! We have been looking forward to this day since we booked the trip in June 2013 and it certainly didn't disappoint.

Awesome way to kick off the day

As the game wasn't on until 6pm we decided to spend the day relaxing by the hotel pool while we watched the Mexico vs Cameroon match on the tv. We tuckerd into some chips and drinks and soaked up as much sun as we could, it was a great morning.

2pm rolled around and it was time to get on the shuttle bus to our fanatics fan site that we were at yesterday and check out the pre match entertainment. 

A sea of yellow heading to the opening game

There were Aussies EVERYWHERE! all the fanatics from all around were now in the one spot, it was a sea of green and gold. We lined up for some food but about 30 mins and only moving about 2 meters we gave up and sprawled ourselves on the grass in front off the big screen and watched Holland destroy Spain 5-1, go Holland! 

The humidity was pretty high today so we headed over to the pool at the fan site and dangled our legs in the cold water, it was bliss.

4pm and it was time to march to the stadium, being that it's only 6km from our fan site it wasn't too far away so we all funneled out and gathered outside, we even had a small band with about 5 different types of drums and some Brazilian dancers follow us the whole way as our green and gold army took over the streets of Cuiaba. 

Not a bad view, during the national anthems

It must have been quite a sight as all the locals were standing there with their phones taking photos and videos, our huge group literally took up the whole street and went on for miles. It turns out that Australia have the 3rd largest amount of fans that come over for the World Cup, just behind USA and the host city Brazil. A pretty good effort considering the cost of flights.

After a lot of chanting we arrive at the stadium which looks pretty impressive from the outside, we pile in after going through metal detectors and bag scanners and find our seats. Smack bang in the middle of a shitload of Chile supporters... Joy.

Stuck in the middle of loud Chile fans!

Last World Cup we all sat together as one big Aussie group, this year we were speckled around the ground, there was only one section of Aussie supports. Luckily the Chile fans were friendly, they loved their chants and singing though!

Things didn't start too well, we fell behind 2-0 after just 14 minutes with a Chile onslaught, but Tim Cahill got one back for us just before half time. We went into the break with the momentum and then in the second half we began to dominate.

Fuleco enjoying the festivities. He is coming to each game with us

Cahill had an equaliser disallowed, while we had plenty more chances to score but just could not claw one back. Unfortunately Chile killed off the contest with a consolation goal in stoppage time.

All in all we played well and spirits are still pretty high despite the loss. We had a crack and that's all anyone asked for. With Netherlands and Spain to come we will get tuned up. The atmosphere inside the stadium was amazing and we are pretty much deaf at the moment.

What an amazing night!

When my baby smiles at me I go to......

We kicked off our last day in Buenos Aires by taking in a tour of La Bombonera, or "The Chocolate Box" as it is also known as. It is the home ground of the Boca Juniors, the most popular team in Argentina.

"The Chocolate Box" - Home of the Boca Juniors

This stadium is epic! It is renowned as one of the fiercest stadiums in the world and they have fences up to stop fans throwing stuff at players. Away fans aren't allowed in and only season ticket holders are allowed tickets, and that is over a 16 year wait.

Off we go to Rio, upgraded yet again to business class this time, we have no idea why we keep getting upgraded but hey, we're not complaining. We hit up the business lounge before the flight and literally eat everything they had on offer, it was a pretty good spread.

Getting on the plane and we were sitting the front row! This has never happened before, served first, off the plane first, we felt a bit special.

We hadn't picked up our World Cup tickets yet and we knew that the Rio airport has an outlet but it shuts at 9pm and we arrived at 8:10pm.. Plenty of time....

So we cruise through the usual suspects, customs were a breeze and the baggage scanners were quick so you'd think that by 8:30 we would have time to grab our bags off the carousel and run.. But no, our bags were pretty much the last ones off the plane. By the time we got them it was 9pm.

Finally we have our tickets

Refusing to give up as it would mean we would have to line up for hours on end for them the next day, we walked/jogged to the FIFA counter, which turned out to be a long ass hike!

We turned up the the counter and they were serving the last person and announced that they were closed! Not on my watch! I was red, sweaty, and obviously looked razzled as we pleaded our case to the FIFA official, "come back at 9am" she says.

View of Copacabana Beach from our window

So we explained we would be on a plane again at 7:40am and that combined with some looks of desperation, wiping the sweat from my brow and some very well placed puppy dog eyes and Bingo! She says we can be the absolute last ones, thank god! 

Tickets in hand we share a cab to the hotel with another Aussie and just like that we hit Copacabana Beach and soak whatever atmosphere there is at 11pm, even at this time all the bars were still open and a market running up and down the beach was in full swing, this city is going to be awesome.

Up at 4am and we meet up with all the Fanatics who we're doing our tour with, we jump on a bus and head back to the airport for our very own chartered flight, no strikes are going to cancel our flight!

Watching the Brazil match at the live site

Once we arrive in our first Brazil stop Cuiaba, we check into the hotel and head to the opening party, it was awesome! The Fanatics had hired an old military barracks and had it set up with bars, tv screens, bbqs and chairs galore, this was going to be a great night, and that it was. 

There were big screens setup for the Brazil vs Croatia match and it was a bit sombre when Brazil went down a goal early on. But it was all Brazil after that as they won 3-1.

We are going to have to get used to Portuguese commentators for this trip as nothing is in English  but gee do they get excited after a goal. Every Brazil goal was greeted wiith the commentator screaming GGGGOOOOOOAAAAAALLLL.

Linnie pool side at the live site

It was a pretty good buzz during the game, before the match and after every Brazil goal there were fireworks going off all over the city. All the shopping malls were shut down for 3hrs while the match was on and the city was pretty much a ghost town as everyone was trying to find a tv screen.

The rest of the night was a cracker too. They hired circus entertainers and some deejays called The Stamford Brothers. Apparently they are pretty popular, but not really our style of music.

Partying long into the night

We ended up having plenty of drinks after we managed to find a heap of free beer/vodka tokens lying around. There are so many nice people on the tour with us and we've already made a few friends. A few of us went back to watch the NBA Final which now sees San Antonio one win away from the title against Miami.

It was then off to bed to get ready for a big day tomorrow. The Australia match is on tomorrow evening and there is another big day of festivities planned at the live site.

Long walks and a very interesting dinner..

Finally, we had a sleep in and awoke at about 10am, it only took 4 days of hard trekking, an overnight flight and an all day bike ride to banish the jet lag!

The streets of Buenos Aires

We thought we would walk Argentina today and see all the things that we couldn't get to on yesterday's cycle.

First on the list was the Zoo, not the best in the world but for a zoo that's been dropped in the middle of a city it wasn't too bad. The highlight was definitely the white tiger and her 3 cubs, a pretty rare sight. We also bought a little bag of food and you could feed just about all the animals.

Tiger with her cubs

Their enclosures had a little ramp where you could drop the food and there would be a little deer or zebra there waiting at the other end, a great idea I thought. Even the giraffes had learnt to bend their necks right over their fence and got some.

Next up we went to a few parks and checked out some very old buildings. Argentina is such a weird city in terms of architecture, there will be a regular high rise apartment building and then right next to it a two storey luxury building that looks like it was cut out of a street in London or Paris.

It's like the immigrants just come from all over and designed their own house to look like it did at their own country, some of the buildings here are actually made from bricks that were brought in from England, very much a patchwork city. 

The Obilisco at night time

After walking for nearly 5 hours we hit the wall, so we headed back to the hotel to recharge the batteries before heading back out for dinner... And boy what a dinner we had!

It was a nice sophisticated restaurant, we had actually eaten breakfast there on our first day. We order our food and our 1L bottle of beer and then I notice a really skanky looking lady, bleached blonde hair, short skirt and tight pink top.. Has to be a hooker..

Near where we had tea

She gets up looks really sus and then ends up leaving with an old man. Two more skanky looking women walk in, so I look around and sure enough there's another 2 sitting behind us. By then end of the night the restaurant was full of them, as we left I counted 13.

I have never had a more uncomfortable meal in a restaurant, as strange as it was to people watch, the vibe in there was so icky we left as soon as the litre of beer was drank laughing all the way out the door.

Back to our amazing hotel for the last time, we fly out tomorrow afternoon at around 5:30pm and then our Brazil leg will start! The first half has gone so very fast.

More photos from the Zoo

Adam feeding some kind of rabbit/dog type animal

Linnie feeding some deers

Grizzly bear

Have a guess what this animal is (it begins with the letter E)

No idea what this bad boy is

Bison having a rest

This was one stranger character

Argentina by bike

Up early yet again we headed down to breakfast where we found more Aussies that were heading to the World Cup, we filled our bellies full of fruit, cereal and eggs and headed out to find our bike tour.

All set to start our bike tour

A little easier said than done when the map you were going by suddenly disappears but some free wifi later and we find it again, running a tad late now we jog about 5 blocks and find Will out tour guide and Danny from, you guessed it, Australia, waiting patiently for us.

We pedalled literally all over the city, it was a 7 hour trip over 26km across this route. It was with possibly one of the smartest tour guides that I have ever had the privilege of listening to, he was a university student originally from Hampshire in England but had since moved to Japan and now Argentina, he loves his history and politics so we were in the right hands.

The impressive Bombonera Stadium, home of the Boca Juniors

We begun our journey in San Telmo where we saw the place that Buenos Aires was first discovered back in the 1500's, then we saw the Bombonera stadium where the local soccer team (Boca Juniors) play, the crowds there are known to be fierce, loyal and totally insane, and we plan on going back there for a tour on Wednesday.

Mate Tea (not a bong)

Continuing along we ventured into the colourful streets of Caminito where the dance Tango was born. It is one of the most famous parts of Buenos Aries and also one of the poorest with most of its inhabitants coming off boats back in the day.

It was here that we also first tried 'mate tea' (pronounced; marte tea) which was a bit of an experience!

We saw a lot of graffiti along the way, apparently artists will knock on your door and ask if you have any walls that they can paint on, and then after a few days you've got a stunning wall of art... Not sure you get a decision on what it looks like though..

The it was off to a completely different landscape, one of the richest areas called Puerto Madero, to give a bit of an idea how expensive this area is it costs $67k per square metre.

An absolutely divine lunch

We rode around a while longer and appreciated the architecture until we ran into another tour group with yeeeeeeep, more Aussies heading to the World Cup... Seriously, are we even in another country? 

We decided we would all have lunch together at a very traditional Argentinian BBQ at the original parrila on the Constanera Sur boardwalk and that included salads and beer. It was like a thinking mans subway and absolutely beautiful.

A prestigious University in Buenos Aires

After a deep and meaningful chat over lunch about veganism and vegetarianism, we said goodbye to the other group and continued on to a very "unique" bridge called the Puente De La Mujer that was designed by an architect that sold the exact same design to 3 other countries, epic fail! 

We went on to see the biggest university in South America, a mini version of Big Ben and a 22 lane highway which is the widest highway in the world.

Final resting place of Evita

Probably the most interesting place we stopped at for the day was the cemetary where Evita's final resting place was. It would cost you a sweet $6 million US just to have your body kept here for 10 years and that's just for the privilege and doesn't include the headstone, funeral or maintenance.

We walked inside expecting a run of the mill cemetary but boy were we wrong, it was IMPRESSIVE to say the least.

There wasn't any headstones, they were all huge monuments, memorials and what looks to be tiny buildings that housed all the dead people. And it went on for miles with rows and rows of these huge tomb like structures all of the  as impressive as the next.

$6 million US for ten years for one of these graves...

We found Evita's resting place and then walked around for a while, we could have spent all day in there but we had to move along to our next spot at the Plaza De Mayo which was pretty much the hub of activity back in the day with all the government buildings positioned here and thanks to Will and his endless flow of knowledge we got the low down on everything that had happened.

We finished up our tour where we started, it had been such an eye opening day, we didn't realise just how much interesting history Argentina has around every corner and how every monument has such profound meaning, it was a great day. We thanked Will and headed back to our sweet pad.

The famous Casa Rosada in the Plaza de Mayo

If anyone reading is ever in Buenos Aires then be sure to check out this tour company at www.bikingbuenosaires.com and hook yourself up. Is one of the better bike tours we have done, and we've done a lot.

For dinner tonight we dined at an Argentinian restaurant and it was deeeelicious! Quite possibly the best food so far, we ate these little things called Tamales that look like pasties but the insides were all sorts of different Argentinian flavours, they were amazing.

Then for our main we had gratin pies that were quite melt in your mouth, going on such a  roll we really wanted dessert but we just couldn't fit it in so we decided to call it a night and head home.

More photos from our day in Buenos Aires

What a happy little bunch

Checking out the colourful Caminito

The Argentines love their graffiti. Nice view of Bombonera Stadium in the background too

Perhaps one of the nicest teas of all time at 1810 Cocina Regional