Then we had to head towards Buenos Aires to make sure our camper would get in time on the ferry - at least that's what we thought. The drive from the mountains where we had spend almost two months in dry arid deserts down to the planes of Argentina went through a kind of rain forest attached to the Eastern hillside of the Cordillera. Within an hour we went from desert through rain forest down 2500 meters into the Pampa. Then only 1500 km separated us from the capital. We made it with lots of driving in a couple of days and spent our last days parked in the posh part of Buenos Aires. They were perfect because a police man stood at every street corner - we couldn't be safer.
We walked the old parts of Buenos Aires to watch the Tango dancing couples in the streets, the Tango playing muscians in the streets and the cow parade.
Just before arriving in Buenos Aires the world cup had started. The opening match between Germany and Costa Rica we watched in a petrol station and Germany won!!!! Then in Buenos Aires we could experience the South American football fever together with the Argentinian side.
Finally, we brought our camper to the port to be shipped to Europe. Unfortunately, it turned out that they had overbooked the ferry (yes, it seems to be the same as for planes...) and our camper only left 4 weeks later - and all the time it spent at the port (with us worrying who would be interested in looking inside !)
After this tough year we decided that we needed a real holiday and so we had decided to fly from Buenos Aires for a week to Bresil and spend a week at the beach. So we flew to Rio de Janeiro and stayed for a few days in a hotel right at the Copacabana. Lili still remembers how we sat at the terasse of the hotel having breakfast and watching Brasilians going to the beach (mostly they only had a towel and were wearing a stamp sized bikini or swimming trunks).
We also celebrated the last birthday of the family - I was turning 41 - and got a Brasilian football shirt to blend in well with the locals :-).
When I came out of a hairdresser I bumped
into our Danish friends with whom we had
travelled since Honduras and whom we had
met again in Panama, Guyaquil, Cusco and
now again Rio. Small world!
From Rio we drove to a beach resort of
Club Med in the South where we enjoyed
the lavish life of no cooking and driving for
a few days
Experiencing the Brasilian football fever after Argentina was quite interesting. We found out how much those two nations "loved" each other. It goes as far as well renown brands making advertising with rather agressive
views on the other nation, like the beer ad when all the Argentinian players hurt themselves by hitting the goal post, sliding against a pole between their legs and falling off the stairs.
We were lucky - the CEO of Club Med came to our village while we were there and so we were treated to a splendid dancing performance. Our girls looked a bit overdressed compared to the locals......
Finally we flew back to first spend a few days with our Parisian friends to watch the matches with them and finally we saw the final rounds in Germany.
