Silly Billies Return to Roam

After Christmas was over and we had fed oursleves on lots of chocolates and other delicious goodies Chris and I decided it was time to venture into the mountains to find some real snow! We hired a wee bubble blue car and set out into heavy snowfall. The land was quickly turning from white to whiter, if that is possible? We set out first to meet with Aaron and Sara and their friends in a place called Grövelsjön just over the Norwegian border in Sweden. We drove through the dark on the snowy roads to arrive at their place just in time before the New Year's Eve dinner. We had created an apple pie to accompany Aaron's pavlova...we were going for a Kiwi themed desert as it turned out. We had a wonderful feast then most of the 16 guests headed out onto the road to join in a large group of candle holding people heading towards the little upper carpark to see in the New Year. It was snowing heavily adding to the atmosphere. After a countdown there was a good wee fireworks display and ...

On Wednesday we landed in Stockholm airport, after flying over a white land. Snow and ice covered Sweden and it was hard to believe only a day ago we had been in sunny Brazil. We stepped off the plane to an icy blast; but it wasn't long before we were back on a cozy Swedish train on our way to Borlange. We were so excited by the white cold landscape before us. By 3,30 it was dark, so we crunched up the front steps of Alistair's place in Borlange and located the key for the his stuga. We woke up early to pack our vast mountains of gear into a vaguely transportable form and lugged it down to the train station via the bus. Once there we caught a train for 2 hours to Mora, and from there a 5 hour bus trip to Ostersund. In Ostersund it was beautiful and white with little christmas lights everywhere. We stayed in the 'train station hostel' (thank goodness there was one close!). Early the following morning we boarded the train for Trondheim and arrived here just as the sun set...

I looked out the cabin window to the arid planes of outlying Fortaleza disappearing below me. Slowly they transformed into more scrub covered hills and eventually onto a huge blue harbour. We landed in Salvador and waited in the airport for the arrival of Jorge and Rafael, our Brazilian friends who were going to lead us on this crazy adventure. Once we had all gathered in the airport, with the help of some super friendly locals Dilton and Casseo (organisers of the adventure race Brazil Wild) we were dropped off at the ferry terminal to Itacare. The sun was shining out across the harbour as we boarded the boat and a group on the ferry were beating out some great samba music to accompany us across. From Bom Dispachio on the other side we caught a 2 hour taxi ride to Camamu. By that time it was dark and Rafael had preorganised a jet boat to take us the final distance to the little beach villiage of Barra Grande. We sailed in across the still bay to twinkling lights on the shore and disemb...

Long awaited, here finally is our Brazil blog entry! Having spent a weekend 'training' up at James' (Kiwi living in Sweden owning kayak company) place in Dala Floda we organised our gear and caught an early morning flight out from Stockholm airport. We flew through Lisboa, then on to Fortaleza. Fortaleza greeted us hot and steamily - and a dismembered leg lying in the middle of the road from a car crash just outside the airport didn't help the unbalanced feeling you always get upon arrival in Brazil. We taxied to our hotel and gratefully discovered a supermarket right next door to do team shopping - it was dark and venturing far out into the city was not an exciting prospect. At 5.30 am we caught the taxi back to the airport and to get the race organised bus to Jericoacoara (about 7 hours north of Fortaleza). We met Orion there, they had spent the last 4 days in Fortaleza and confirmed it was not the nicest of places to stay. After 5 hours on the bus through blistering ...