Don´t cry for me..........

So time has come to move onto Brazil! We are sad to leave the land of steak and wine and of course ham and cheese. And just as we are getting good at Spanish we are off to a Portuguese speaking country, yikes!

In all seriousness we have seen landscapes so varied you wouldn´t think it possible in 1 country; scrub land and jungle, snow capped mountains and turquoise lakes, and lunar rock land.

The people are so friendly, if a little unable to understand personal space and that is rude to stare. They´re a mixed bunch; gauchos and trendy city dwellers all inhabiting the same space. The buses journeys are long and the atmosphere at the bus stations crazy but they get you about and really are a melting pot of all the people that live here.

We have been told to make the most of the food as it gets worse everywhere else we will go, but we have been a little disappointed to be honest.

Right, this photo sums just about it up. Is it me or is that way too much cheese on a pizza?! You can only eat 1 slice before you pass out from the protein and fat intake. It´s a long long way from being a nice cheese too. It´s their version of mozzeralla and its super bland. This pizza was actually pretty good given that you got a vague vegetable intake with a bit of pepper on each slice, shame it didnt really have any tomato sauce on it...

Ham and cheese is just about the only filling for pizza, pasta and sandwiches. They just cant get enough of the stuff.

We always steer clear of the cheese and ham empanadas too, best to stick to carne or pollo which are beautiful.

Bus food is a frenzy of ham and cheese. Every journey is much the same, so they kind of roll into one. We have done so many buses the above standard lunch and dinner is getting pretty tiresome and sometimes gag worthy..We´ve decided we would rather be hungry alot of the time. The above had a prize winning a total of 7 ham and cheese sarnies in varying breads. The brown bread is a rarity and the Swiss roll ones really are in cake bread. Yuk.

What they do well, they do really well. The red wine is fantastic and they are obsessed by meat, so every supermarket has a brialliant meat counter and everywhere you go you can get amazing steaks cooked on a bbq, or ´parrilla´, restaurants or road side stalls. The meat is amazing here but even that gets tiresome after a while. Somehow, after a couple of days you gert back on it again.

Above is a restaurant´s parrilla and below is one of our own! Note there are vegetables on ours, not the case in restaurants.

Ed has also joined the Argies in their love of ´mate´. They drink the dried leaves of a type of holly bushes in a little cup through a straw with a filter. They never seem to leave home without a little thermos of hot water and their mate (cup) and bombilla (straw) and bag of yerba mate. It gives a cheeky little buzz like a cup of tea or coffee.

You can also get great coffee and pastries everywhere too. They certainly have sweet tooth. Dulce de leche is another national obsession. The sweet toffee like jam made from milk comes in nearly every biscuit, cake, pastry or chocolate.