Brazil round-up

I am shamelessly stealing the concept of a country round-up from my friends and fellow travellers Julie and Andrew and their Two Year Trip blog. I've actually been in Peru a week now so a Brazil wrap-up is overdue ...

Why go to Brazil?

I'm not sure I can really say I properly visited Brazil. I saw a very small part of a very big country and to do it justice would need months. Nevertheless, I recommend Brazil for:

• Beaches. The Brazilians do love their beaches, especially in Rio.
• Samba. I didn't go to a proper samba night but the sound of the music is everywhere and I experienced some of the dancing at the Olympic closing ceremony. It's kind of infectious.
• Amazing scenery. From Rio's mountains to the forest of Ilha Grande via Paraty's turquoise sea and Iguacu's astonishing waterfalls, Brazil really is a strikingly beautiful place.

Top three Brazilian experiences I had:

•  A very Olympic/Paralympic-related one: hearing the partisan support of the crowds for their idols, particularly canoe sprinter Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos during the Olympics and Daniel Diaz at the Paralympics. And seeing the ensuing press scrums in the mixed zones after they won medals. Bonkers.
• Seeing Iguacu Falls.
•  Walking to the top of Corcovado to see Christ the Redeemer. The views weren't great that day but it was a lot of fun.

You know you're in Brazil when ...

• There's someone drinking beer at 10am on a weekday. 
• You can't walk 100m without seeing either a) a self-serve restaurant or b) a pharmacy.
• Every meal involves meat, rice and beans. 

What to pack when going to Brazil:

Your tiniest bikini or swimsuit. Everyone else is wearing one, after all. (Don't worry about packing flipflops, Havaianas are ridiculously cheap in Brazil!)

Annoyances and things to look out for:

I can honestly say that I felt unsafe only a couple of times in the whole time I was in Brazil, and by 'unsafe' I mean I felt a little unhappy that I was in a particular spot by myself. I was careful not to carry too much money or my credit cards around, but I did always have my phone and usually my camera - a good Canon DSLR - on me. I tended to keep my camera in my bag until I needed it, and a couple of times I literally got it out, took a picture and put it away again, but I never felt like my camera was making me stand out. I stand out anyway in South America just by dint of being fair-skinned and fairly fair-haired. Not having my camera is not going to make me look any less a foreigner!

That said I did hear about people being robbed in Rio. A colleague had his wallet taken, we think from the 'hippie market' outside General Osorio metro station in Ipanema on a Sunday. It's worth leaving your passport and most of your cards back at your hotel otherwise you do risk them going with everything else. Basically my tip would be to look like you know what you're doing, be sensible, and you'll be fine.

Money: use ATMs inside banks. You may find paying for something with a R$100 note is tricky - I found supermarkets and restaurants were happy to take them but few other places were.

Transport: in Rio, the metro is good and relatively cheap, and easy to navigate, although its destinations are moderately limited. The BRT (bus rapid transit) system is also good but the buses tend to be rammed. The 'Supervia' trains which leave from Central station are also pretty good but do not go at the advertised time. I had no problems on ordinary buses in Rio either, but I did only use them during daylight hours. In Sao Paulo, the metro is excellent and cheap, although annoyingly you have to buy single tickets one at a time when you need them. In both cities Uber was a cheaper alternative to taxis, and saved having to explain destinations! 

What I'll miss most about Brazil:

Probably the people. The Brazilians I worked with were awesome and welcoming and wanted everyone to have a good time. And I did. Obrigada a todos!

Iguacu and Iguazu Falls

I love a waterfall. I always try and hunt them out when I'm travelling or walking and have especially fond memories of an awesome day waterfall-hunting in the Catlins, New Zealand. There's something about the simple primal force of a lot of water falling off the edge of a cliff which fascinates me.

So when I was researching this trip Iguacu Falls very quickly made it on to my list.

Iguacu is widely regarded as being one of the world's greatest waterfalls and rightly so. It's not one fall at all, but 275, strung out along kilometres of cliff edge and spanning the Brazil-Argentina border. Technically I think Argentina has the greatest volume of falls of the two countries and certainly it takes longer to see the falls from that side. Both sides have walks and boat tours; Brazil takes you from the visitors' centre at the entrance to the falls in double-decker buses and Argentina takes you in a little narrow-gauge train.

Brazil side - Iguacu

The Brazilian side of the falls is a bit more modern and professional than the Argentinian side, and it is from Brazil you get to see the full scope of the place. There's one key trail, the Trilha dos Cataratas, which runs about 1.5km along the cliff and gives you a great view of most of the Argentinian falls and culiminates in a viewpoint right below the main fall, Devil's Throat, where gallons and gallons of water pour into the abyss.

A bad selfie. It had to be done.

The best time to go from an aesthetic point of view is in the morning when the mixture of sunshine and spray create stunning rainbows. Sadly this is also the worst time to go from an experience point of view, as the rest of the world also turns up then on buses and the place is packed. As there's basically one trail there's not many places for people to go to and the major viewing spots on the morning I visited were just packed with tourists, mostly taking selfies, as we live in a very narcissistic world these days. Mind you I took one too, just because.

Most of the views on the Brazil side are views from a distance but the walkway also takes you right up to the Devil's Throat (take a raincoat, or buy a plastic poncho for R$6). It's pretty cool to stand there underneath the waterfall.

At the end of the trail there's a panoramic elevator for people who can't walk up the stairs/are too lazy to walk up the stairs, and more views from above. And the obligatory café/restaurant complex, where I had a surprisingly good coffee.

Argentinian side - Iguazu

I did a whole separate blog post about getting from Foz do Iguacu to Puerto Iguazu by public bus, because online information is limited, and because if you're reading this to look at pretty pictures of waterfalls you don't need to know that I missed my stop coming home and had to walk an extra half an hour.

The Argentine set-up is similar to the Brazilian one but the park covers a lot more ground and there are more trails to walk. I spent most of the day in Argentina and only a couple of hours on the Brazil side of the falls. It feels less polished somehow and because there's more to see the crowds are thinner. I'd say that the Argentinian experience is more up close and personal while Brazil is the overview.

Annoyingly the longest trail, which is where they say you can see some wildlife, was closed so I couldn't do that but I did see a few birds and animals anyway - a wild toucan from a distance, some monkeys, and lots of other birds.

Like the Brazil side there are lots of coatis around. These racoon-like animals are quite cute to look at and voracious scavengers. They love human food and there are signs everywhere warning you not to feed them - although people were. When I stopped for a bite to eat there was an Argentinian couple nearby with a plate of empanadas and a bottle of Coke on their table. A coati prowling the food area spied the empanadas, jumped on to the table, grabbed an empanada and spilled the Coke much to the anger of the couple. The man was so angry or possibly distressed he flung a chair at the poor animal (and got Coke all over his shorts. I couldn't help smiling). Another coati promptly arrived to lap up Coke from the ground. It's definitely not good for them but they do seem to love junk food.

I also did the boat ride on the Argentinian side, a short and very very wet baptism. Basically they drive you into two pretty sizeable waterfalls including the one on the left of this paragraph. And then they do it again. It's cold and the power of the water, even at the edge, was crazy. Everyone in my boat squealed a lot including me. It was crazy and fun and worth the money I spent on it (450 pesos, or about £23).

The day finished up at the Devil's Throat again, but this time from above. Literally all you can see is the edge of the cliff, which is a U-shape, and a few metres of water before a cloud of spray. I knew from the Brazil side how high the fall is but hadn't appreciated how high the spray reaches. Everyone on that lookout point was soaked (hurrah for my rainjacket).

Iguacu extras

There's not much to Foz do Iguacu apart from the falls and, if you're into that sort of thing and have space in your bag, cheap shopping at the duty free shop between the Argentine and Brazil borders or in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, which is literally just the other side of the river.

Two extra things I did do:

The Parque des Aves is right next to the Brazilian falls visitors' centre and was superb. This bird sanctuary looks after and breeds a whole range of birds, mainly native to South America. The best bit about it was their huge aviaries which you can walk inside and really see the birds close up, without cage wires in the way. I especially loved seeing a toucan right in front of me and the macaw aviary, filled with beautiful parrots.

Itaipu Dam was voted one of the seven modern wonders of the world and they have a busy tourism (or, as the Lonely Planet quite accurately put it, propaganda) machine to go with the generation of 75 per cent of Paraguay's electricity and about 15 per cent of Brazil's. Due to a string of minor events I failed to get on one of the 'special' tours which take you inside the dam, but managed to do a 'panoramic' tour which drives you round the outside in a double-decker bus. They didn't mention the impact building this massive dam must have had on the Parana river and the people who lived in the area. The reservoir covers an area that's bigger than New York City or Rio de Janeiro - it's massive. A little research reveals that the creation of the dam destroyed the Guaira Falls, which sound like they were even more impressive than Iguacu. So generating clean energy had major environmental repercussions, and that's not touched on at all on the tour. Still, it was interesting to see the dam and it filled a morning I had to fill.

Food and drink in Brazil

There's a fair bit I'll miss about Brazil, but I'm not sure the food is really one of them. Don't get me wrong, I've eaten well, but I've got a little bored of the monotony of the cuisine - you have to go out looking for alternatives.

Brazil's cuisine is best known for and mainly characterised by meat. Lots and lots and lots of meat. I'm not sure I've managed more than one or two days without meat in at least one meal in some form or another. To be fair, when it comes to steak the Brazilians have it nailed - their beef is superb. The best steak I probably had was in a restaurant in Rio called the Braseiro da Gavea, along with a bunch of ONS-ers, but I had a pretty good and very rare one for less than £10 in Lapa one night too.

To accompany the piles of meat Brazilians like to add piles of carbohydrates. Now, I'm not a carb-hater, but I do feel that bringing a massive dish of rice plus a massive dish of chips or potato to go with your steak, fish or whatever is overkill. The most popular forms of rice are plain, or broccoli rice, which is rice mixed with very finely-chopped broccoli - it's rather good actually.

Typical mixture of salad, rice, beans and farofa (the meat came later)

To go with your rice and meat you must have two things: beans, and farofa. At the Olympics and Paralympics every meal had the option of rice and beans. The beans are usually black, sometimes red, and at weekends the thing to eat is feijoada or bean stew, which is essentially the same thing with extra meat in it.

Farofa was quickly christened 'sand' by us ONS gringos. It's toasted cassava flour which sometimes has other stuff mixed in, such as eggs, bacon, or garlic. I've actually come to quite like it; farofa adds texture to your rice!

Tilapia seems to be the most common fish and we had it loads during the Olympics. 

Brazilians have big lunches - when we were staying in Centro the restaurants opened at lunch and then closed at dinnertime, although in less business-minded areas there are plenty of places for dinner too. Buffet restaurants are the thing, either for a set price or with prices per kg or per 100g.

When I'm travelling I don't like big lunches, and at the Olympics I tended to have a massive lunch and then not need much dinner. So I've also investigated Brazilian snack and street food a fair deal.

Their biggest thing is pasties of various descriptions, usually containing meat (of course) or sometimes just cheese. They're either baked or fried. I think the most unfortunate one I got was a bit like a doughnut, except filled with the rubbery white cheese they eat a lot. The mortadella pastel I had in Sao Paulo was excellent. You can find variations on on the pasty everywhere for very little money - usually somewhere around R$5, or just over £1. Some places also do 'sandwiches' for a similar price which are generally toasted and minuscule. A 'misto quente' is basically a ham and cheese toastie.

My first tapioca from a place in Rio

In Rio I also tried both kebabs from street stalls, which were great, and had tapioca pancakes once or twice too. 'Tapiocas' are incredible things. The stallholder has a hot plate and a ring mould and spoons raw tapioca flour into the mould. They flatten the flour down and let it toast and somehow it all sticks together. Then they put a toppping on (ham and cheese and tomato was my favourite), flip it, let the topping cook, fold it and serve it. They're really good.

Although Brazilians have pretty sweet tooths (teeth?) they're not massive on pudding. But I did have a lot of cake with my breakfasts. Cakes are often made in ring moulds, usually involve coconut, and are called 'bolos' when they're that shape. Churros on street corners are also common and you can get sweet tapiocas too.

The breakfasts everywhere have been the same rule of thumb: fruit, usually melon and pineapple and sometimes mango; bread; scrambled eggs if you want them; and cake. Sometimes yoghurt. Also pao de queijo, which are little balls of a sort of cheesy bread and are very good.

Brazil is a pretty multicultural country and there are places serving foreign cuisine, but mainly in the big cities or touristy areas. Italian is everywhere but quality varies - I had a couple of very middling pizzas and a couple of really good ones, for instance. The other night in Foz do Iguacu I had a good Lebanese meal - apparently Foz is one of the biggest Lebanese settlements anywhere. Sao Paulo is a massive Japanese city and there are a number of Japanese restaurants as a result. That said, the Brazilian combination of meat/fish plus rice plus other carb of choice is common in many restaurants, even those which profess to be serving other food!

Decent coffee has been surprisingly difficult to find. In hotels and at the Olympics it was generally filter and very strong and the Brazilians normally drink it in tiny cups the size of shot glasses with masses of sugar. I don't drink milky coffee but reports from friends suggest that cappucinos and lattes came with sweetened milk too. I've had a few good coffees but it's been hard to find, which is weird when you consider Brazil is the world's largest producer of arabica!

All the snack bar, or 'lanchonete', places serve juice, freshly-squeezed, which is lovely to go with your pasty. Brazilians also like iced tea, and here it's a version called mate. If you buy it readymade in a bottle it's exactly like the iced tea you get in the UK but if you get it in a cup as I did once from a chain which specialises in mate it's more bitter in taste.

As a side note to this, on the Argentinian side of Iguazu Falls loads of people were lugging around huge thermos flasks and little cups, which I think is to provide them with mate throughout the day. A bit like the good old British flask of tea I guess, but we don't tend to carry ours around while we go on a walk to a waterfall.

The two principal alcoholic beverages of choice in Brazil are beer and cachaca. Beer is drunk everywhere, at any time, mostly very very cold lager-style beer. You can get cans at street food stalls and snack bars and petrol stations (yup). It's mostly served either draught, in small glasses which are called 'chopps', or in 600ml bottles to share between your party with tiny glasses to drink it out of. The big bottles come in their own special cooling covers to keep them icy. Beer also comes in 'long necks', which are usually 355ml bottles. The most common brands are Skol (the Olympic/Paralympic beer, tasteless and cheap), Brahma (drinkable) and Antarctica (similar to Brahma). Slightly up-market are Bohemia and Original and Serramalte is another step up in price usually, if a bar serves it. I found a couple of microbrewery places which had a wider range of beers such as wheat beer or stout but generally lager's what you get, and very nice it is on a hot day.

Cachaca is a rum-like spirit distilled from sugarcane which is the base ingredient for the ubiquitous, lethal capirinha - usually made with a base of lime juice and sugar. But you can get it with pretty much any juice. Capiroska is made with vodka.

Cheers!

How to get from Foz do Iguacu to Puerto Iguazu and back on a public bus

This blog is a bit of a PSA. I spent HOURS trying to verify details of the public buses between Foz do Iguacu in Brazil and Puerto Iguazu in Argentina (and on to the Iguazu Falls). There is very little information online but it's actually fairly easy so long as you're not in a rush.

To get to the park on a public bus from Foz do Iguacu in Brazil is entirely possible: the buses leave from outside the local bus terminal, on the corner of Av. Men de Sa and Rua Taroba. The bus stop has both the Brazil and Argentine flags on it.

There seem to be at least three companies running the Foz-Puerto Iguazu route: Rio Uruguay, Crucere del Norte, and Itaipu. I think the Itaipu buses are supposed to be at 30 minutes past the hour and I got the '7.30' bus which arrived at 7.40ish. However I'd say get the first bus which arrives. It's R$4 single at the moment.

At the Brazilian border the bus will probably stop to let someone off or pick someone up. If you're foreign you need to get off and go through Brazilian immigration. Now a Spanish couple on my bus didn't, and I saw them later at the falls so they evidently got into Argentina. I don't know how having Argentina stamps in their passports will affect them later without the corresponding Brazilian exit stamps, and frankly I don't think it's worth the hassle not to do it.

If you're on an Itaipu bus, get a pass off the driver to get back on again. The bus won't wait. Just complete the formalities, and then go back to the bus stop and just catch the next bus which arrives, which will probably be a different company and you'll probably have to pay another R$4 - but if you wait for the company you started out with you might end up waiting a while. If you have the pass from Itaipu and you end up on a different bus for the Argentine bit of the journey, hang on to it as it may come in handy on the way home!

At the Argentine border everyone has to go through immigration and there's a cursory bag scan, but the bus will wait for all passengers here and it takes no time at all.

My bus driver stopped on a corner in Puerto Iguazu opposite a stop for the falls, but you can also pick up a bus for the falls at the bus terminal. Either way, they're run by Rio Uruguay, they're about every 20-30 minutes, and I was charged A$65 each way. My whole journey including immigration and waiting for buses took less than two hours.

On the way back to Foz just repeat the process in return but with one important caveat: get off the bus in Foz at the Brazil-Paraguay stop which is opposite the terminal on Av. Juscelino Kubitschek. I was on an Itaipu bus and expected it to turn right into Mem de Sa to stop at the place I got on. Instead, the bus carried on and looked as though it was heading to Ciudad del Este and I had to jump off in a random place and find my way home.

If all this sounds like too much of a faff, then I understand taxis aren't too expensive and the driver will help you through immigration. There are also plenty of tour companies doing the trip, but that does tie you down to a specific timeframe at the falls.

Getting away from it all: Ilha Grande and Paraty

After over two months in the hustle and bustle of Rio de Janeiro it was time, when the Paralympics ended, to break out of the bubble and head for some peace and quiet. I chose to start my six-weeks-or-so travel by heading out of Rio to Ilha Grande.

Ilha Grande

This island is pretty sizeable and in retrospect more than two days there would have been brilliant, but I really enjoyed the time I had. Ilha Grande was, according to the guidebooks, first occupied as a pirates' lair (!), then a leper colony and then a penal colony, but now it's all about tourism, in a good way. You can only get there by boat and when you're there there are pretty much no motorised vehicles and when you get more than a couple of hundred metres out of the only really inhabited bit, Vila do Abraao, you pretty much have to hike. It's like someone's picked up a bunch of houses and plonked them on a beach in the middle of a jungle. Wifi is slow, power cuts common and you just have to chill out. There's not much else to do.

Unfortunately it tipped it down with rain on the evening I arrived and all the next day. Nevertheless this was my first proper day of proper holiday so I was determined to get out; consulting the rather basic trail map I'd been given it seemed logical to do a walk which wasn't predicated on stopping by lots of beaches. So I headed out for Dois Rios ("Two Rivers"), which is a semi-abandoned village where the island's main prison was based, about 8km walk from Abraao.

The track is one built by the prisoners and is wide enough for motor vehicles (the island's rubbish truck passed me when I was on the way back), copper-coloured earth embedded with bits of brick, stone, china and terracotta. It went basically upwards for about an hour and then basically downwards for about an hour, with bush/jungle either side, and not much of a view of anything due to the rain. Still it was good to get some serious exercise and I enjoyed walking briskly and overtaking the other crazy people who were also out.

Cachoeira da Feticeira

At Dois Rios an old man popped out of a sort of gatehouse and took down my name and arrival time. I looked at the beach, which would have been incredible on a sunny day, and then found the village's snackbar which was busy with assorted wet walkers and three cyclists. I'd passed and been passed by two of the cyclists, a couple of Brazilian lads, on my walk and they were good company. In fact the place was full of a sort of Blitz spirit as everyone tried to dry off and warm up with incredibly strong, sweet coffee, food, and then glasses of cachaca. It was quite good fun actually.

On day two the sun came out so I walked away from the village to a waterfall, the Cachoeira da Feticeira, which involved more climbing. The track was supposed to carry on to one of the island's larger beaches but seemed to stop, so I meandered back via a small beach near the town instead and had a swim and a chill on the sand. In the evening I had dinner in a restaurant which wasn't just by the beach but on the beach. Ilha Grande's that sort of place and I was sad to leave it.

Paraty

Lots of people said Paraty was worth a visit. At the edge of Rio de Janeiro state, this old colonial town has been preserved with pretty white buildings on cobbled streets with no traffic in the historic centre. I managed to find a pousada (= sort of b&b or guesthouse) which is just outside the centre, so a little cheaper, but it's close enough to be able to just wander in for dinner or whatever.

I feel I probably haven't made enough of Paraty. The guidebook and online reviews give rave reviews of various beaches and a waterfall with a natural toboggan nearby, but in all cases you have to get on a bus or on a tour to get to them, and after so many weeks spending so much time in Rio on buses, in Ubers and on the metro I'm a bit sick of transport. So I just did a 'schooner' tour yesterday - the Brazilian escuna translates as schooner, although there's no sails to be seen sadly on these elegant boats with long narrow prows - round to a few beaches along the coast. It was a beautiful day and nice to be on the water and go swimming in it, although I'm not a massive fan of organised tours as a rule.

Today I was filled with a lack of desire to do pretty much anything. I wandered along to Paraty's nearest decent-sized beach within walking distance, Jabaquara, and sat on the sand and read for a bit although it was overcast all day. And then I just mooched around Paraty's shops and galleries and churches and tasted a variety of cachacas in a cachaca shop. It was nice. I guess I probably still need the relaxation!

Practical stuff

• Getting to Ilha Grande and Paraty from Rio was simple - I booked a transfer with a company called Easy Transfer. They picked me up from my Rio hotel and then, as I was the first in the bus to be collected, drove around Rio picking other people up. There was a couple of hours' drive to the little port town of Conceicao and then a 30-minute boat trip to Ilha Grande. Going on to Paraty, I was on a slower but larger boat back to Conceicao followed by another couple of hours in the minibus to Paraty, where they dropped me at my pousada's door. All for R$145 (£34.50).
• In Ilha Grande I stayed at the Biergarten Suites, which is the private room 'annexe' of the better-known Biergarten Hostel. Quiet, pretty comfortable, a hammock and a couple of friendly cats. Nice.
• In Paraty I've been staying at the Pousada Marendaz, just outside the centre. It's brilliantly-located and pretty comfortable although randomly today appears to have been overrun by a million noisy children - the rooms overlook the interior courtyard, where breakfast is served, and if people are down there talking it carries into the rooms. Apart from that it's been good.
• Going on to Sao Paulo I'm catching a coach run by Reunidas Paulista, at about R$77. I booked it at the bus station a short walk from my pousada but you can book online too. It's going to take six hours. Ugh.

HARRIS (GBR)

* Note to confused readers: for my last post from the Olympics and Paralympics before this becomes a proper travel blog about, you know, travel, I decided to use the 'flash quote' template which is the backbone of what the Olympic & Paralympic News Service produce, complete with capitalised names!

Men's T54 marathon

RIO DE JANEIRO - Comments from Joanne HARRIS (GBR) after the end of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games on Sunday.

Joanne HARRIS (GBR)

On how she feels right now:

"Knackered, mainly."

On what the Paralympic Games have been like:

"Incredible. I've spoken to such a wide range of athletes in five sports with a whole range of impairments and stories and hopes and dreams. I've spoken to established, experienced athletes with multiple Games and medals behind them, and to rising stars finding out what they can achieve for the first time.

"The atmosphere has been fun and supportive from all sides: the volunteers have helped each other, and the athletes have shown real sportsmanship and friendship which has been a privilege to see. The Brazilians properly got behind the Games and especially behind their own; the sheer volume of noise in the pool whenever the Brazilians were swimming, and particularly when Daniel DIAS won gold, was utterly deafening and exhilarating at once.

"It's a very different sort of Games from the Olympics but that doesn't make it any less competitive or any less exciting. It also doesn't make the athletic feats any less impressive."

Copacabana from the marathon tribunes

On her best Paralympic memories:

"Do I have to pick just one? I don't think I can. Here are a few though:

Interviewing GB gold medallist, canoeist Anne DICKINS

"When GB won three golds on the Lagoa, not once but twice, in both canoeing and rowing.

"Interviewing Ellie ROBINSON after she won the 50m butterfly S6. She was so very thrilled and shocked and it was lovely.

"Interviewing US swimmer Cortney JORDAN after she won silver in the 400m freestyle S7 because of the way she talked about her teammate McKenzie COAN, who got gold. They're best friends and she gave the impression she genuinely didn't mind being beaten by COAN. To be fair, COAN was also a fantastic person to interview, with a massive smile and brimming with enthusiasm.

"Meeting the Zimbabwe rowing team, who I talked about in an earlier blog, for their joy at being in Rio at all."

On her most random Paralympic memories:

"Having a selfie with the Danish flagbearer at the opening ceremony was odd but nice.

"Having my shoulder squeezed by Brazilian swimmer Phelipe RODRIGUES after what was probably the second of three interviews over the course of the week as I thanked him for the chat."

On why she is very proud to be British:

GBR LTAMix4+ - gold

"Officially one is supposed to be impartial when doing this job, but sometimes it's hard and I'm particularly bad at it. I love seeing the Brits winning stuff, and we won so very much in Rio. I covered 36 finals at the Lagoa (14 Olympic rowing, 12 Olympic canoeing, four Paralympic rowing, six Paralympic canoeing) and Britain won 10 gold medals in those events, plus three silvers and three bronzes. Which is pretty bloody impressive.


"I'm proud my country puts effort into the Games. It's a relatively small amount per capita and I think it matters. I'm proud that the Paralympians are supported in a similar way to the Olympians and that their achievements are praised just as much. I'm proud that our Paralympic broadcaster went to the effort of getting live coverage from places no other broadcaster touched.

"And as a journalist, I'm glad that our athletes will stop and talk even if they're disappointed with their performances while those from other countries rush by, sometimes even if they won gold."

On what the future holds:

"Tomorrow I pack my bags and head to Ilha Grande, which is an island fairly close to Rio which is known for being a beautiful place to chill out. There's walks and beaches and waterfalls. After that, Paraty (pretty much ditto, except it's not an island), then Sao Paulo, then Iguacu Falls, before I fly to Peru and get confused about which language I don't understand and can't speak." 

On who she'd like to thank:

"Working in Rio has been an amazing experience and it was great to share it with my ONS and PNS colleagues who are all superb, as well as various Press Ops team members at rather a lot of venues, but especially Lagoa. And thanks to Lisa for being a great roommate during the Olympics."

ONS/PNS jh

The joy of the Paralympic Games

Today is the first day of the Paralympic Games. Last night I was fortunate enough to be one of the team collecting flash quotes from the flagbearers before the opening ceremony, easily one of the most fun things I've done so far.

There was such an infectious mood among the athletes, even though they had a long wait - the first countries, at the start of the alphabet, started arriving at about 4pm and they started moving out about 6pm. Such a lot of diversity (of all types) in one place, and everyone trying to get selfies of themselves with other people from other countries, catching up with friends, and wreathed with smiles. There was a samba troupe moving around to keep everyone entertained, complete with several dancers and musicians with disabilities, which went down well.

My favourite interview was probably Annika Lykke Dalskov Risum from Denmark, a four-time Paralympic medallist in her third Games, who was so excited and happy and willing to talk and then wanted a selfie with me!

Once we'd collected enough quotes we went and watched the ceremony. The parade of nations was a bit long - the music a little repetitive and the gaps between countries too big - but once they got back to the ceremony part it rattled along nicely with beautiful choreography and design celebrating different types of disability. My favourite bit was where they brought pictograms to life by pushing them through giant cages, while the stage was turned into giant basketball courts, running tracks and so on with lights. Incredibly clever and effective.

It was also incredibly emotional. The Paralympic flag was carried in by a group of children and their fathers wearing special boots created by a Brazilian, which allow disabled children to walk supported by an adult. The kids were loving it and the Paralympic athletes they were walking past were loving it and I suspect half the crowd was somewhat tearful.

Then as the torch was being carried around the stadium it started to rain, and former runner Marcia Malsar fell and dropped the torch. But she got up again and to huge cheers and a standing ovation made it, solo, to the handover point.

Then the flame was lit, amid the pouring rain, and the Games officially began.

In the past few days I've been speaking to athletes in the three sports I have responsibility for - rowing, canoe sprints and sailing. It's been incredible listening to their stories. Some are at their first Paralympics and a few only took up their sports a short time ago; others have spent their lives pursuing elite sport, particularly Irish sailor John Twomey who is here at his eleventh Paralympics (six discus, including gold in Seoul; two where he also did table-tennis; and now five as a sailor).

I spoke to the Zimbabwean coxed four, who have the most basic of training facilities back home and whose effervescent coach Rachel Davis has supported them financially as well as on a sporting basis. I met GB rower Laurence Whiteley, who got bone cancer aged 14 and is one of just two survivors from his treatment group of 14 in Newcastle. I spoke to canoeist Curtis McGrath, who had his legs blown off by an IED in Afghanistan only days before the London 2012 Paralympics started and made a promise to his mates stretchering him away that they'd see him compete at a Paralympics - some of them will be in Rio.

I had a chat to Anke Molkenthin, who at 54 is competing in two sports in Rio (rowing and canoeing). She was diagnosed with a congenital nerve disorder in the 1980s and even with only 80 per cent of nerve function ran ultra-marathons through to the end of the 1990s. I met the fantastically fun Aussie sailing duo of Daniel Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch; during their training every day Fitzgibbon, who has quadriplegia, has to pass the jetty which he fell off in 1997. Yesterday I met Kenyan rower Itaken Kipelian, who got polio aged five and was taken away from his Masai family by a missionary and educated. Now he's supporting four of his brothers through school and he says his life has been a miracle.

The atmosphere is subtly different from the Olympics. Everyone wants to win just as much but I think there's an even greater camaraderie between competitors. And in my sports in particular, I get the impression that the athletes feel by participating they achieve real freedom which they don't always have on land. Sport makes a tangible difference to these athletes' lives and I'm looking forward to covering their achievements in the next 11 days.