MieRo: Leaving on a jetplane

OK this is it, no more countdown calendars, today we meet the great battle of our age (as Gandalf would say). Do we ignore the British Airways ticket in our pocket or do we face that bright white tunnel that leads us to an airplane home. We regret that it's going to be the latter, but it is with joy that we'll describe our last days of the pura vida.

After entering into Brazil and checking into a very overpriced hostel (welcome to this new concept of travelling without wheels), we immediately made our way to 'one of the seven', Iguaçu. As you come closer you realize it's not an army of a thousand helicopters approaching but a thunderous, jaw-dropping, simply big ass waterfall. No wait, hundred big ass waterfalls that spray your face with feel-good droplets of world wonderism. Spectacular as it was on this grey raincloudy day, we thought it would even be móre spectaculair with blue skies and a hot sun. Guess what, the next day the sun was out giving it's best and we decided to go check out Iguazu falls on the Argentina side. No words for it, but we're uploading a thousand pictures as we speak. In all this beauty we got introduced to another new travel-experience, namely waiting in line together with thousands of white-socks-grannies or noisy nose-poking brats to see a peace of nature. I guess we shouldn't complain, being curious tourists ourselves after all, but please guys get those iPhone-cameras out of our face so we can see that crocodile!

We decided to break our 24-hour journey towards the Atlantic in Curitiba. Not much to say other than that we enjoyed strolling the green plaza's, shopping our heart out and drinking good beers on a sunny terras. We happily took the stained bedsheets in the smelly hotel that came with it...
Arriving in Rio right away brought back happy seven-year-old memories for Robin. Dragging Miet by her arm around the city to see his appartment, school, beaches and favourite juice-bars he succeeded to infect her with the Carioca bug. We planted a seed in our dreams that, who knows, might grow into everybody having to visit us on a next birthday party on Ipanema beach!

We're staying with Maite, with whom Robin, his mom and sister spent Christmas evening all these years before. She lives in this amazing blue vintage house with an astonishing view on the city. Of course a good view means that the house is on a hill, and no way we're walking up this Kilimanjaro, so every day we return to the nest Carioca-style, which means on the back of a motorcycle with a local kamikaze. On friday Maite and Till, her charming husband, took us further up the hill into the favela. We partied the night away on this once-in-a-month exclusive jazz gig in a place that's very close to a Gaudi labyrinth. The smile never faded from our faces as Priscilla kept planting big kisses right next to them, we were moved to tears by the reunion.

Never a dull day in Rio De Janeiro, we packed our days with exploring and spending our last coins on beautiful adventures. While Robin climbed the Sugarloaf mountain, the iconic 400-meter rock you see in every bikini-advertisement, Miet went to get her long desired tattoo. The next day Robin also went 'under the needle' and in the evening our hosts filled our tummies with a delicious barbecue and our ears with live guitar music from the neighbour downstairs. Later that night we ran into fellow travellers we met earlier in Ecuador, what's the chance, while we squeezed ourselves through the Lapa party crowd. Here's a caipirinha to that!

This is the way to end our dream-trip, on a wave of good karma, beautiful friendship and exciting party. There's no way we want to go home, bijlange ni, bijlange ni!