For those of you who do not know us, we are a Paraguayan couple who have been living in Rio de Janeiro for the last twelve years. We both left Paraguay after high school and moved to Brazil to study at the university. We got married and share the passion for trips and, as every good Paraguayan would, we love tereré.

Now, for those of you who don’t know it, tereré is a typical drink in Paraguay, made from yerba mate through infusion in cold water. The process is very similar to mate, the main difference being that mate is drunk with hot water. According to our research, apart from Paraguay, tereré is appreciated in northern Argentina as well as in southern and western Brazil.

On our journey we seek on one hand to get to know new cultures, flavours, places and people. On the other hand, our desire is to show a bit of our culture, to make people to get to know our country and tereré.

We plan to travel five continents and since we are good budget travellers, we are always looking for the cheapest way to see more and spend less. We intend to stay mainly in hostels as most of backpackers do, but we would like to stay with locals as well, at least once in each country, since we believe it is the only way to truly experience a country.     

We plan to record our trips to share our experiences, ideas, problems, adventures, joys, feelings, thoughts, flavours and colours. We believe that in this way we can give back the help we got from other travellers and their respective blogs. It is also a way to show our relatives and friends a bit of our adventure.

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We arrived in Australia in the morning, after quite a long trip. We did a stop in Auckland, where we slept at the airport for six hours roughly. It was the beginning of a series of challenges and the first of them was passing through the customs with our 14 packages of yerba mate explaining in English what that was! The second one was arriving at Nelio and Ive’s house, friends of ours from Brazil who put us up for a few nights. Finally, after a train ride, a bus ride plus a long walk, we reached their place. We were welcomed with a delicious breakfast. That first day in Sydney was dedicated to resting and going for groceries at a supermarket nearby.

On the next day we felt the winter weather. We left our friends’ home early morning on a cold, rainy day to go to Sydney CBD area. We went to visit some of the attractions nearby the CBD. Our first stop was Sydney Observatory, where we visited the museum and enjoyed some panoramic views. Later on we visited the Museum of Contemporary Art and The Museum of The Rocks neighbourhood, where the history of it is presented. The Rocks is one of the oldest areas in Sydney. We also went to the oldest Christian Church of Sydney.

On the next day we went to visit the area of Sydney Opera House and Circular Quay, the former one is one of the landmarks of the city and the latter the place from where many ferry lines depart. As always, we chose the economic way, so we just visited the Opera House’s surroundings, the tour to go inside seemed too expensive for us. What we were completely sure about is going to watch a show at the Opera House is really worth it. Next time we will!!!

After visiting the Opera House, since we were already there, we went to check out City’s Botanical Gardens, which by the way is one of the main attractions of Sydney. Later, we visited the city’s Cathedral had lunch afterwards.

We continued the day visiting Darling Harbour, which is a place surrounded by many interesting things, such as restaurants, museums, and The Aquarium among others. We enjoyed the Maritime Museum, since it was the only one that’s free. Later on, we went to Chinatown, which as its name suggests, is the place, where immigrants with a Chinese heritage live. To finish the day, we went to check The Victoria Queen Building, which is very famous for its architecture.

We began the next day with a short walk at Luna Park, which is a kind of amusement park. However, we were only interested in the views of the famous Harbour Bridge, not in the park itself. Later, we went to see a fish market, where it is possible to buy fresh products directly from the fishermen or just walk around and eat anything there. We also visited Saturdays fair in the heart of The Rocks. It was very interesting to buy some old stuff, handmade products or to just walk around enjoying an ice cream. To end the day we went to see Hyde Park and the ANZAC Memorial, the last being a tribute to Australian and New Zealand troops, who took part in the First World War.

On our penultimate day in Sydney, we went with our hosts to wander around Dee Why, one of the many neighbourhoods of the city. We really liked the beach there. Later, we went to sit at one of the many bars around the Opera House. We tried to eat like an Aussie, so we ordered fish and chips, a few glasses of wine and beers. After watching the sunset we went to Darling Harbour again, this time to check out Saturday’s fireworks show. So this way we ended our first visit to Sydney. We already had planned to come back for New Year’s Eve.

Our last day in the city was just dedicated to packing and going to the airport and waiting for our flight to Cairns, the city that was to become our home for the next five months.

Ubaldo and Maria