I went on the bucket-list Intrepid tour with world-famous beaches, legendary football and 80p cocktails
PLACE TO TAN-GO I went on the bucket-list Intrepid tour with world-famous beaches, legendary football and 80p cocktails
'I CAN'T dance . . . I'm English,' I insisted in my woeful Spanish.
Milandra wasn't taking no for an answer, though, and forced me to my feet.
Advertisement
8
I went on a bucket list South America Tour, pictured Rio de Janeiro in Brazil
Credit: Getty
8
Relax on world famous Copacabana beach
Credit: Getty
Before I knew what was happening, she and I were locked in a tight embrace, spinning around the dance floor.
I usually avoid dancing in public, but in Buenos Aires, the tango is so culturally important, I felt it would be rude not to try.
So I'd paid a visit to one of the city's milongas — ramshackle dance clubs found throughout the Argentine capital — where dance enthusiasts assemble every night to cut a rug with one another.
I just hoped the locals wouldn't be too offended by what was essentially an act of desecration on my part, as I clumsily stumbled around the room, trying my best to stay on my feet while not crushing Milandra's.
Advertisement
They say it takes two to tango, but really, she was the only one contributing to our performance.
I was merely there — a practice dummy, as useful and as graceful as a big sack of sugar, but still, somehow, absolutely thrilled to be a part of it.
That's the overriding emotion of South America — sheer and simple joy.
I walked around in persistant child-like wonder, gawping idiotically at everything I found myself immersed in.
Advertisement
Nowhere else was that more prevalent than Iguazu Falls, the centrepiece of Intrepid's seven-day Best of Argentina and Brazil tour that starts in Buenos Aires and ends in Rio de Janeiro, via a two-day trip to the most breath-taking natural park I have ever visited.
In places like this, guides will lower expectations by explaining that they 'can't promise anything' when it comes to which wildlife will make an appearance.
Outside of New York City I found vineyards, breweries and a race track
They needn't be so cagey in Iguazu, with the sprawling stretch of jungle that saddles the border between the two countries packed with a gloriously diverse wealth of creatures.
Toucans and parrots flew overhead, capybaras relaxed in the cooling waters of the Iguazu River and mischievous coati, a relative of the raccoon, flocked to picnic areas to fight over tourists' dropped scraps.
Advertisement
All of this, and so much more, plays out in front of the most awe-inspiring backdrop, the falls, which were officially declared one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature in 2011.
'Thrilling ambience'
Rickety walkways offer vantage points to view most of the landmark's astounding angles, although guests can also take helicopter rides overhead, as well as a boat ride that is slightly more extreme than its name suggests.
My fellow sailors and I were tossed about in our seats as our high-powered vessel first took on a barrage of rapids, before the skilled driver zipped in and out of some of the falls' more powerful sections, completely drenching each of us to the bone.
I can't remember ever being quite so soaked, but the cool waters of the aggressive power shower were very refreshing in the 38C heat.
Advertisement
It also enabled me to gain a truer appreciation of the force of nature I had been lucky enough to spend two exhilarating days exploring.
Luckily, the opportunity to relax was provided at my final stop, Rio, where the locals on the famous Copacabana beach go out of their way to prevent you from having to do anything at all.
After renting a chair for the day for just £2, I was approached by a steady stream of men with barbecues offering to cook enormous prawns, grilled cheeses or various meats without me ever needing to move from my spot.
8
Iguazu Falls is the centrepiece of Intrepid's seven-day Best of Argentina and Brazil tour
Credit: Getty
Advertisement
8
Toucans fill the jungle
Credit: Getty
Even more pleasing was the constant flow of vendors serving refreshing caipirinhas, the Brazilian's cocktail of choice — a dangerously drinkable mix of sugar, limes and cachaca, a local spirit made from fermented sugar cane that has the strength of a Long Island iced tea masked by the sweetness of a can of Lilt.
They're not just found by the beach, either. In fact, they're sold from stalls throughout the city and range in price from 80p to around £3, according to the extensive research that I selflessly conducted.
They're even sold at the city's tourist spots, with bars found on top of Sugarloaf Mountain, which offers stunning views over the city's beaches and coruscating favelas, as well as the Selaron Steps — 215 stairs colourfully decorated with tiles by Chilean artist Jorge Selaron that connect the city centre with the flamboyantly graffitied Santa Teresa neighbourhood.
Advertisement
Perilous perch
The main sight to see is the Christ The Redeemer statue, which has stood atop Mount Corcovado since 1931.
It's an impressive monument to behold, particularly up close, where the craftsmanship that went into carving Jesus' face almost 100 years ago can be truly admired.
From its perilous perch, tourists can pick out other famous sights, including the stage where most of Rio's carnival celebrations take place, and the Maracana stadium, where the Brazilian national football team and Flamengo play.
South American fans are considered to be among the more rambunctious, so, keen to see what all the fuss was about, I got myself a ticket, with Intrepid's tours including matches as an optional extra.
Advertisement
The streets surrounding the 78,000-seat arena were bursting with life from as much as two hours before kick-off, with barbecues, beer and, of course, caipirinhas all on offer, as Flamengo fans in their Dennis The Menace-esque black and red home shirts made their way to the ground.
Once inside the legendary stadium, the noise and atmosphere only intensified, with samba beats being beaten loudly from drums, while pyrotechnics and giant flags enhanced the thrilling ambience.
I did my best to sing along with the home fans, despite not knowing any Portuguese, and by the end I felt like an honorary member of their troop as we roared on Flamengo to a hard-fought 1-0 win.
Then, as the fans filtered out afterwards, singing and dancing into the night, I ordered a final caipirinha and already began to feel a profound sense of longing for this truly magnificent part of the world before I'd even started packing for my flight home the next morning.
Advertisement
Luckily, with trips like Intrepid's highlights tour, it's easy enough to plan another visit for the not-too-distant future.
I just need to make sure I take a few tango lessons beforehand, so I can sweep Milandra off her feet next time, instead of almost standing all over them.
8
The tango is so culturally important to Argentina
Credit: Getty
8
Enjoy a kickabout at the Maracanã, Brazil
Credit: Getty
Advertisement
8
There is a constant flow of vendors serving refreshing caipirinhas
Credit: Getty
8
A macaw at Iguazu falls
Credit: Getty
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
an hour ago
- The National
What the Highlands and Islands can learn from English seaside towns
It was the early 2000s, I was a fresh-faced Gaelic kids TV presenter, and it was the height of summer. I was filming for a segment which saw me attempt the most ridiculous things we could think of within the parameters of our tiny budget. That filming trip had included a day at the World Worm Charming Championships where I had attempted to charm as many worms as I could out of a one-square-metre patch of ground within the allotted time frame using a variety of methods, including smacking the ground with a Gaelic dictionary and reciting poetry. Unsurprisingly, the worms remained resolutely underground. We had moved on to the World Bog Snorkelling Championships, where, clad in wet suit and snorkel, I 'swam' along a brackish ditch dug from an impressive bog. Your head had to be under at all times. There were eels. I heroically clinched last place. Much of that period of my life has merged into one ridiculous mental photo album, from which I can always pull something absolutely random in order to entertain at dinner parties. Jumping from a plane at 10,000 feet? Check. Scuba diving with sharks. Yup. Stroking an Orca's nose? Old hat, frankly. Whether it's entertaining or insufferable, I don't much care. It was a truly bonkers few years that were in no way lucrative and in reality, a heck of a lot less fun than my witty headlines suggest, so I'll take the social mileage. In Bognor Regis, surrounded by candyfloss and sandy children, I took a deep breath and flapped frantically as my feet left the pier. The goal was to be the person who 'flew' the furthest. READ MORE: Rhoda Meek: AI alone just won't wash – people must be in the pipeline I can't remember where I placed, but I can't imagine that I managed more than a metre. I do recall swimming back to the shore, a soggy, wet, feathered chicken costume hanging from me, my beak askew, wondering whether my career might not be all it was cracked up to be. I hadn't thought about Bognor for years, until I read last week that Which? Magazine had crowned Bognor the worst seaside town in England. As our summer season in Tiree kicks off in earnest next week, it made me think. I live in a tourist economy too – on the face of it, a very different kind of destination – but scratch the surface and the parallels are there. Our economy is one shaped by the weather, and by whatever the latest Instagram trend tells visitors they ought to value. It's easy to believe that popularity lasts forever. That people will always come. That holiday traditions don't change. But they do. And the English seaside resort proves it. The rise of places like Blackpool, Margate and Bognor was rooted in health fads and rail timetables. In the 18th century, doctors began prescribing sea air and salt water for everything from gout to melancholy. Resorts sprang up to meet the demand, offering genteel promenades and medicinal bathing machines. But it was the arrival of the railways in the 19th century that transformed the seaside into a mass-market destination. Blackpool became a byword for leisure and light shows. Margate filled with Londoners. Bognor got a visit from George V, giving the town its regal suffix. By the early 20th century, factory shutdowns and paid holidays meant millions of working families poured into coastal resorts. Fish and chips, donkey rides and piers weren't just entertainment – they were part of an annual ritual, as familiar as Christmas. Then it started to slip. The rise of international travel in the 1960s offered something new – sunshine you could count on. Seaside resorts across England began to decline. Visitor numbers dropped, overnight stays shrank, and local economies grew reliant on day trippers. The grand hotels were converted to flats or fell into disrepair. Places that once buzzed with summer excitement were suddenly described with words like 'tired' and 'forgotten'. Blackpool, famously, kept trying. It never lost its spirit entirely. And while it still has its social challenges – it regularly appears in the top rankings for deprivation – the visitor numbers remain extraordinary. In 2022, the town welcomed over 20 million people. That's not decline. That's persistence. It's also adaptation. Blackpool is in the middle of a £2 billion transformation. There's a new museum, a regenerated tram system, investment in housing, and a genuine attempt to make the town more than a nostalgia act. Margate has leaned fully into reinvention. The Turner Contemporary gallery opened in 2011, and the town has repositioned itself as a hub for arts and culture. The old Dreamland amusement park has been restored with public money, and the High Street is now full of independent cafes, record shops and studios. You can still get a stick of rock, but you're just as likely to get an oat milk cortado with it. Bognor hasn't had the same press, but it's not standing still. Butlin's remains a huge draw, with over 300,000 annual visitors. The town centre is getting attention, too – new theatres, hotel upgrades, and public realm improvements are all on the table. It may not be fashionable yet, but it's refusing to fade quietly. So no – the English seaside hasn't been abandoned. It's shifting. It's shedding the cliches that no longer serve it and holding tight to the ones that still bring people joy. Nostalgia might lure you in, but regeneration is what's keeping the lights on. Which brings me back to Scotland. READ MORE: Rhoda Meek: Sheep shearing season means the reply guys are in full force Here in the islands, we're not dealing with the ghosts of seaside glamour. But we are tied to a tourism economy that is vulnerable to outside forces. A cancelled ferry, a bad summer, a cost of living crisis – these things hit hard. This year, some are already reporting a slowdown. And if that's the start of a wider trend, we need to think carefully about what comes next. We should be watching what places like Bognor, Blackpool and Margate are doing. Not copying the neon or the noise – but understanding that successful places are rooted in community, not just charm. The regeneration that seems to be working is the kind that prioritises housing, education, arts and health alongside visitor numbers. It isn't about pretty bunting and well-filtered photographs. It's about identity, resilience and long-term thinking. When I took part in worm charming, bog snorkelling and flying competitions, it was purely for entertainment. 20 years later, I've realised something else. Those events might not have been glamorous nor profitable, but they mattered to the places that held them, and to the people who turned up. Someone had decided their patch of ground, however soggy, was worth celebrating. That their ditch was worth swimming. That their pier was worth leaping from. The west coast of Scotland doesn't need reinvention – but it does need realism. The weather will always be what it is. The sea will always be cold. But our strength lies in the depth of what's beneath the surface. The heart, not the costume.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Mark Brown: Sympathy for the devil at Bard In The Botanics
In the theatre, the great German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1790 version of the story stands as one of the totemic texts of dramatic literature. Predating all of the above, however, is Christopher Marlowe's famous Elizabethan tragedy Doctor Faustus. First staged in 1592, this play by one of Shakespeare's most eminent contemporaries was ripe for adaptation by Bard in the Botanics, the annual mini-festival of works by the man of Stratford and other classical writers. Marlowe's drama – in which Faustus is pulled back and forth between demonic temptation and heavenly redemption – is a work of compelling intensity. This version – which has been compressed by director Jennifer Dick to just 80 minutes – cuts to the thematic chase. Consequently, watching this adaptation is sometimes akin to viewing a tennis match, with the forces of Heaven (Rebecca Robin) and Hell (Sam Stopford) as the players and Faustus (Adam Donaldson) as the ball. Dick's reconstructed text reduces Marlowe's dramatis personae from 17 named characters to a mere three (plus additional figures, played by the cast). The piece survives its radical truncation thanks both to the richness of Marlowe's language and the vividness of certain scenes. The not-so-good doctor's metaphysical mockery of the Pope is a case in point. This scene – which, one assumes, only got past the late-16th-century censor thanks to the Elizabethan English state's hostility to Roman Catholicism – retains its capacity to shock more than 400 years on. The placing of Faustus in modern dress – complete with a stethoscope – neither enhances nor detracts from the drama; not least because the characters of The Good Angel and Mephistopheles are represented in costumes that seem somehow timeless in their broad evocation of Renaissance dress. READ MORE: Lewis Capaldi wins number one single after emotional Glastonbury comeback Donaldson's Faustus is almost naïve in the alacrity with which he parts with his eternal spirit. It is a facet of Dick's extensive abridging that the doctor appears easily swayed, from one moment to the next, by both the Angel and Mephisto. Robin, for her part, plays God's emissary with a convincing ethereality and an air of palpable forgiveness. It is, however, Stopford's performance as Mephistopheles that truly captivates. Dick is fortunate indeed that she has at her disposal the talents of an actor who is – in numerous regards – brilliantly suited to the role of Lucifer's sinisterly persuasive minion. Stopford is an actor blessed with more than his fair share of menace. His brilliantly balanced Mephisto also has an underlying anguish and, ultimately, an absolute ruthlessness that speak to his brutal separation from any sense of hope. This is, then, an unevenly adapted version of Marlowe's play, but one that is – typically of Bard in the Botanics – presented with admirable boldness and bravery. Until July 12:
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Edinburgh Arts Festival film sheds light on invisible Scottish stories
In a year that marks the 30th anniversary since the first major Pride event in Scotland, an attempt is being made to reconnect queer people with the past, as well as bring in voices of other marginalised groups and the languages of Scots, Gaelic, British Sign Language (BSL) and English. The film, titled who will be remembered here, made by artists Lewis Hetherington and CJ Mahony, features four queer writers who have responded in different languages to sites in Scotland spanning ancient to modern history. Previews of the film have already been well received, including from a community group in Glasgow's Easterhouse, who were particularly moved by Robert Softley Gale's visit to the now-defunct Biggar Gasworks. READ MORE: 'Their love for Scotland made my heart sing': George Ezra hails Scottish folk group 'In Robert's film, he reflects on his cerebral palsy and how he's been challenged his whole life to explain what his purpose or function is, so this industrial site – which is built for such a specific function – becomes an interesting tension,' said Hetherington. 'He goes on to talk about fatherhood and actually how that connects to a sense of purpose.' Hetherington said they had been 'bowled over' by the response from the Easterhouse community. 'There were quite a number of people in the audience who spoke up in the discussion afterwards about their own experience of disability, saying they'd never felt so seen and felt really celebrated,' he said. 'We'd be overjoyed if it makes people feel more confident to speak up about who they are and what they've gone through.' Softley Gale's section is in English, while the section from Harry Josephine Giles, who visits two brochs, is in Scots. Bea Webster, who is filmed at standing stones on Arran (below), uses BSL. Robbie MacLeòid visits Fort George, with his section in Gaelic – appropriately for a place that has an oppressive and dark history within Gaelic culture. 'Webster's approach to the Arran standing stones is also interesting as they have Thai heritage and this has led to some people assuming they have no connection to Scottish history even though they have grown up in Scotland,' said Hetherington. The film begins at dawn at Biggar, moves to Fort George, then south of Skye before finishing at Arran in the evening. 'There's this sense of going from most recent past to the most distant as well as from the beginning of the day to the end,' said Mahony. 'The film is very, very beautiful and it is hard to convey just how tender the pieces are and how there's a real intimacy that's created. A lot of people have said how connected they felt, even though it's mediated by a screen.' The pair pointed out that many of the stories of people whose lives have been part of Scottish history have never been recorded. 'It's not just queer people who have always existed – it's all sorts of marginalised voices and identities,' Hetherington said. READ MORE: One-woman play will explore consequences of explosion in extreme sex acts on OnlyFans 'That's how we came to work with four different languages because it quickly became apparent how the languages that are so prevalent in Scotland are often still not considered as part of the mainstream story. 'We wanted to think about how we could address that and reflect a broader spectrum as well as look at the purpose and use of places across Scotland.' The project was in partnership with Historic Scotland. Hetherington said the organisation had been keen to help explore how these stories could be told and create kinship with queer lives who are part of the country's heritage. 'It has been a really significant project for them in terms of a new approach to historical interpretation and we've already been invited to speak at a number of conferences about this as a case study of how to interpret sites, such as the World Heritage conference which took place in Stirling last year,' said Hetherington. A book has also been produced to accompany the exhibition, with 12 writers commissioned to contribute pieces about their queer history. Unlike the films – which are responding to sites deemed historically significant and in Historic Scotland's care – the writers talk about places which are not well known but are very significant to the authors' personal history. 'So we have moments of queer revelation, celebration, or emancipation on mountainsides, in amusement arcades, in libraries and more,' said Hetherington. The writers are Ali Smith, Amanda Thomson, Ashley Douglas, Damian Barr, Ever Dundas, Ink Asher Hemp, Jeff Meek, Johnny McKnight, Lousie Welsh, Mae Diansangu, MJ Deans and Rona Munro. Hetherington and Mahony also contributed a piece. As well as trying to connect people with Scottish history, it is hoped the project can be an archive for the future. 'I think in the context of politics at the moment, it's really important for people to see those intersections of lives and identities present on screen and for those stories to be told,' said Hetherington. 'We hope these voices won't be erased the way they maybe have been in the past.' He said he also hoped people would feel a shared sense of humanity through watching the film. 'Sometimes, when we're trying to look at history in a different way, perhaps through a feminist or a queer lens, people might think it is for a specific audience,' Hetherington said. READ MORE: Artist's lens brought to bear on impact of austerity in new exhibition 'But actually, these are things that are all our history. It's all our nation. 'The thing that excites me is the idea that people, whoever they are, will be able to see themselves in Scottish history, challenge or question Scottish history and fall in love with it again.' who will be remembered here is showing every day from August 7-24. It is 30 minutes long, with screenings every 45 minutes, from 10am at the EAF Pavillion, 45 Leith Street. The book, who will be remembered here, will be available to buy from the EAF Pavillion and a special event is also being held as part of Edinburgh Book Festival on August 17.
