December 2nd – Montevideo

Sadly, bad weather meant that our delay into Uruguay's lovely capital, Montevideo was delayed, so we only had half a day to explore what's probably the most sophisticated South American capital. However, my tour had a wonderfully informative guide who really made her city come alive for us.

We first went into the city centre to see the main square, Plaza Independencia, which is surrounded by an eclectic mix of buildings that tell the story of the city – the colonial Government House dating from the days of Spanish rule; the huge statue of national hero Jose Artigas in the middle, telling the story of the struggle for independence; the 1920s art deco/gotham city inspired skyscraper of the Palacio Salvo dating from a period of 20th century prosperity; and characterless modern office blocks dating from the morally bankrupt times of the military dictatorship; while the lively pavement cafes tell you that the city is doing fairly well again these days.

From here, we drove out of the centre, to see the old football stadium where the first ever World Cup was staged in 1930 – a tournament that Uruguay won. Our guide proudly reminded us that Uruguay won the World Cup again in 1950 – a remarkable achievement for a country of only 3.5 million people.

Uruguay is renowned as being the most middle class nation in South America, and the gap between rich and poor here is the smallest on the continent – although when we went to the city's plush suburbs where the wealthy people live, you could see that there were plenty of people doing very well indeed. These suburbs are based around some beautiful white sand beaches – something many people don't expect to see here – another factor which makes this one of the most "liveable" cities in the region.

Our tour ended with a visit to the bizarre architecture of Casa Pittamiglio, the home of an eccentric alchemist who designed it like a Gaudi building on acid, with stairs going nowhere and a labyrinth of tiny rooms. Here we were treated to a short tango show, by some suitably grungey, but very skilful dancers. Our ever-patriotic guide was careful to tell us that the Uruguayan tango is more genuine than the Argentinean one, and that much of the best tango music is Uruguayan in origin.

She also claimed the Uruguayan beef is even better than Argentinean beef – this has now turned our next 3 days (in Buenos Aires and Montevideo again) into a beef-tasting trip (as if I'm going to need any excuses!).

December 1st – Rio Grande do Sul

Our final Brazilian port was one that most people haven't heard of – Rio Grande, in the southern region of Rio Grande do Sul. In fact, we were only stopping here because the Brazilian authorities required us to (although no-one could tell me exactly why they wanted us to stop here).

It's a fairly non-descript provincial town, so the city tour had a fairly tough job finding out the nuggets in a mostly modern place. In fact, Rio Grande is about as untypical a Brazilian city as you can find – there's no sun, sand and samba here; instead it was verging on cold, they cherish cowboy traditions like in Argentina, and the culture here has more influences from Germany and Italy (strudel and Brazilian wine are often on the menu).

The most impressive building in town was the customs building, which saw the city's beef exports pass through it when the city was a beef boom town at the turn of the 20th century. Like much of the rest of the city, the building had seen better days, but they were in the process of doing it up – the city's beginning to boom again too, this time based on trade with Uruguay and Argentina. Maybe in a few years, Rio Grande will build some more attractions to keep us visitors busy.

Nov 29th – Following Pele’s Footsteps in Santos

Santos is famous for a few things:
1. This is the largest coffee-exporting port in the world.
2. The city is the closest port to the enormous metropolis of Sao Paulo (by some reckoning, the 3rd largest city in the world).
3. It reputedly has the longest beachfront park in the world, stretching for 4 miles along its beautiful sandy beaches (ok, it's not that famous for that, but it's in the Guinness Book of Records anyway).

And, most famous of all:
4. It was the home club of the world's greatest ever footballer, Pele.

So, our city tour took us on a trip around Santos's famous stadium, where the trophy cabinet was stacked full of trophies won by the club (many in the glory days when Pele graced the ground). Actually, for such a successful club, it's a surprisingly small stadium – with a capacity of only 17,000. We went around the changing room, where Pele's revered locker is still marked with his name – this is the only locker that doesn't get handed down to new players.

The football club is really the chief attraction here - Santos is a large industrial port city, so it's not exactly packed with sights, but we also took in the city aquarium, the funicular up the steep hill behind the city (excellent views from the top), and a quick drive around the old colonial centre of town (now quite run down, but according to our guide it's on the up).

Nov 28th – Picture Perfect Paraty

The beautifully preserved historic town of Paraty (pronounced Para-chee) is an undiscovered gem. The town briefly grew rich in the 18th century, when Brazil struck gold in the inland region of Minas Gerais, over the steep mountains behind Paraty, and when you go back today, it scarcely seems like the place has changed at all since its 300 year old heyday.

Because there were no coastal roads back then, Paraty was the only place where the gold could be taken down to the coast – we went on a 4x4 trip into the mountains to see the rough roads where 6,000 tons of gold were literally carried down the steep hills, to be transferred to Portugal, to fund the splendours of Lisbon.

Our trip also took us to see beautiful waterfalls and one set of rapids where madmen "surf" over the rocks down to the bottom – you have to see it to understand how it's done (how they don't kill themselves, I don't know).

After the tour, we explored the picture-perfect historic streets of Paraty – it looks more like a film-set than a real place, although the incredibly rough cobblestones remind you that this town hasn't just been made for tourists.

The streets are so peaceful that it seems a world away from the tourist glitz and crowded beaches of Rio – a wonderfully peaceful start to our next cruise.

Nov 27th – The Boy and Girl From Ipanema

Would we be luckier today with the weather? No we wouldn't! We're beginning to think that Rio's sun-drenched-beach reputation is all a big con trick. Again, Sugarloaf and Christ the Redeemer were refusing to come out and play.

Actually, it was warmer than yesterday, and even though it was cloudy and spitting most of the day, Tracy somehow managed to get sunburnt – her lily-white shoulders haven't seen the light of day in so long that she could get burnt in moonlight these days.

We took the shuttle to Ipanema, where we did an obligatory tour of one of Rio's many enormous jewellery stores – who were clearly aiming at people with much larger budgets than us – before heading to the Sunday "Feria Hippy". This lively Hippy Market was full of ingenious arts and crafts that even managed to inspire such spend-resistant people as us to part with some hard-earned reis.

We then did a power walk up the beautiful promenade that lines the beach, and as we walked up this legendary piece of beachfront, you could see why so many people fall in love with Rio. Here in Ipanema, the streets were lined with nice shops, good restaurants, and policemen everywhere to make you feel secure – and with a backdrop of the beautiful beach lapped by the green seas, it felt like it would be a good place to live.

Having worked up a good appetite, we headed for another Chopp house, where I ordered a "carne asado" sandwich, which I thought would contain a couple of slices of roast meat. I didn't realise that it would contain half a pig, in an enormous piled-high Scooby Snack that would defeat a starving Scooby Doo himself. Halfway through this "death by meat" challenge, I had to wave the white flag – it felt a little obscene leaving so much food in a city where so many people are struggling to make a living in the poverty-stricken favelas, but what can you do?

Suffering from a severe case of the meat sweats, I staggered back to the Shuttle Bus to get back to the ship for the start of the next cruise, as we head down to Chile to round the Horn.

Nov 26th – Rio – Where’s Christ The Redeemer?

Of course, Rio is famous for its sun-kissed climate, its packed beaches, and the fabulous views of the statue of Christ The Redeemer, looking down benevolently from the stunning Corcovado – none of which you'll see on a rainy and misty Saturday like we experienced. The Corcovado was entirely covered in cloud, apart from the odd glimpse of a ghostly Christ-like figure which emerged from the mist a couple of times; while the beaches were virtually empty of people.

Yet, even on a disappointingly bad weather day, Rio was still beautiful, atmospheric and lively. We got a car to take us around the city to see as much as possible in one day, with the vain hope that the clouds would miraculously lift and we could whizz up the Sugarloaf or Corcovado for those world famous views.

We started off from the slightly dilapidated port area (it's due a massive overhaul for the Olympics) and headed into the Centro district which was mostly empty of people because it was a Saturday. We ended up at the amazing beehive-like Catedral Metropolitana, a vision in concrete created in the 1950s by visionary architect, Oscar Niemeyer. The sheer feeling of immense space inside this soaring spaceship of a Cathedral made you feel tiny, while the enormous stained-glass windows cast a warm glow over the interior.

Next, we headed to Copacabana, where our guide blagged us into the exclusive Copacabana Palace Hotel so we could enjoy its fantastic views over the beach from the top floor. Even on a slightly drizzly day, there were plenty of athletic beach volleyball games going on on the famous white sands, even if the usual show of Rio's bold and beautiful weren't strutting their stuff along the promenade.

After visiting Rio's enormous lake (crowded with joggers around the edge) we then moved round Rio's stunning bay, to have a look over Leblon and Ipanema, two of Rio's more upmarket suburbs, before heading into Leblon to have a look around. We went to the posh shopping mall, which would have graced Dubai, London or any western city – it felt a world away from the Rio you read about of favelas and street crime. In fact, it was too sanitised and upmarket for us, so we headed to the street to find something a bit more genuinely "Rio". We ended up at a street bar/restaurant, which lured us in because it was packed, scruffy, noisy and boasted that it served "o melhor chopp in Rio", the best draft beer in Rio – how could we resist?

The chopp was certainly good, and the fact that no-one spoke English made choosing lunch a lucky dip in which I got lucky, and Tracy not so lucky, but it was great to be in a real down and dirty neighbourhood joint (obviously it was quite a nice area, so it wasn't that down and dirty).

As the clouds were stubbornly refusing to lift and Christ the Redeemer was staying shy, we went for a visit to the Museu Bellas Artes, the Fine Arts Museum in the city centre – like much of the city, it was slightly run-down, but still very interesting. There were no artists we'd heard of before, and no really mind-blowing art, but there was some good stuff in there and it was fascinating to see how much "European" styles of art continued to influence the art of South America in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Finally, on our way back to the ship, we called in at an old colonial monastery on the hill overlooking the port – not quite as many cherubs on offer as in Salvador, but another example of over-the-top baroque.

So, this was a day to prove that Rio can be excellent to explore even if it's raining, that you don't need to go up Sugarloaf or Corvocado to enjoy yourself, and that this isn't just a place of street crime and favelas. Imagine how good it would be if the sun actually shone?

Nov 25th – Buzios, the “other” Brazil

So far on this cruise, our Brazil experience has been one of teeming, chaotic cities where you're always aware of poverty on the streets, while the vague possibility of crime is always in the back of your mind – Buzios is the absolute opposite of this. It's a beautiful, laid-back little resort where you feel entirely comfortable strolling along its shopping streets, or walking along its beautiful waterside boulevards.

Like St Tropez in France, Buzios was discovered after Brigitte Bardot holidayed here in the 60s, and since then, it's become the place to see and be seen by Brazil's glitterati and moneyed classes. The shops are stylish, the bars are cool, and the price tags are adjusted upwards to cater for this wealthy clientele.

But, it's all done with such a relaxed panache that it's become the first Brazilian port to register on Tracy's "I could live there" index (when we win the lottery). So we made sure we indulged in the quintessential Buzios activities - 1. Shopping – we bought some cheap Havaillanas; 2. Going to the Beach – being tan-o-phobes, we just strolled along its gorgeous yellow sands, but on what was a very hot day, the sea did look very inviting; 3. Getting a photo taken with the bronze statue of Brigitte Bardot – I gave her a big hug; 4.Going to a trendy bar – the one we chose wasn't too trendy, but it had great views over the beach, and just as importantly, WiFi.

A beautiful place that felt like we'd entered another world - wonderful.