Hola from Montevideo! No, that is not the name of the South American version of Blockbuster, it is the capital of Uruguay. Nestled between the its vast neighbours, Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay is comparatively tiny. In fact, had the direct flights to Lima not been easier from here, I wouldn’t have considered a visit. However,…
Month: August 2016
Salvadorable
My chosen means of transport from Recife to Salvador, the largest city in the state of Bahia, was bus. I made my way to Recife’s central bus terminal which, ironically, was so far from the city centre that I need to take a bus just to get there. I had booked the ticket without looking…
The pen IS the sword!
I am a self-confessed “word geek” and am accused by my friends of frequent “grammar nazism”. It’s true. I frequently, shamefully, make judgments about people based on a stray comma, poor syntax, a misspelling. When I attempt to defend my pedantry (which is often indefensible) in debates, the same argument is often used: “The important…
Ask and ye shall Recife
First, an apology to anyone who speaks Portuguese: I’m aware that an “r” at the beginning of a word is pronounced as an “h”, thereby making the title’s already tenuous pun, even more of a stretch. Yes, that’s right, folks; in Brazil, Rio is pronounced “Hio”. You reard it rere first! Recife is a small…
My week in Rio: part 2
So where was I? Ah yes! I had just finished my tour of the botanical gardens and was deciding on a plan for the evening. I settled on jazz at a bar called La Champanharía, some distance away, between the nocturnally nefarious areas of Mauá and Santa Teresa. In the knowledge that walking any distance…
My week in Rio: part 1
I arrived in Rio 6 days before the start of the Olympic games and the place was humming with expectation. And when I say expectation, what I really mean is last-minute preparation. As proof of this, I took a photo of a set of Olympic rings, wrapped in plastic, that arrived at night as I…
Last hoorah in Buenos Aires
Dear reader, please forgive my absence: I got rather carried away in Rio and have not put metaphorical pen to metaphorical paper for quite a while. Our protagonist (yours truly) was returning to Buenos Aires from Mendoza at the end of the previous post. Let us reprise: I had selected to stay in the neighbourhood…
seen2screen 