Day 50: Praia do Forte-- Taxi, Turtles, Final Caipirinhas

Today we were arose at the crack of dawn (Chris), ready for our last full day of vacation (here). We decided to check out of our hotel (Tina also confirmed that the historic Pelourinho district is in fact as seedy as we suspected) and journey north to the TAMAR project in Praia do Forte. TAMAR (Tartaruga Marinha) is a project that started in the ´70s to protect endangered turtles. Since the turtle reserve was one of the highlights of our Oaxaca trip several years ago, this was a must-do. We viewed a variety of species in this site built right on the beach. There was even a petting pool, but unfortunately the stingray (with its stingers removed) was not present at the time of our visit.

 

We ended up hiring a taxi for the entire journey for time saving measures. Barbosa, our roly-poly driver, graced us with his samba music and poor-to-fair singing, always with a smile and the classic Brasil thumbs up. He seemed to have amigos wherever we went (and this was 70 km from Salvador!), and he brought us to an even better beach where we dined on a lunch for the last time in the sand. To spice up our meal, we ordered crab appetizers, which we vigorously beat apart with a mallet against a board, to harvest the meat. Conveniently, one dips their hands in the ocean to wash off after such an event.

 

Tonight we enjoy our last caipirinhas at a seaside establishment across from our pousada. This is our last post since we leave tomorrow for cold, gray, and wonderful Wisconsin!!! Despite an incredible 2 months, we are ready to come home, and most of all looking forward to seeing family and friends.

 

Thanks for sharing this experience with us. It´s been fun. See you soon. Obrigado!

Day 49: Morro de Sao Paulo to Salvador - Catamaran (what catamaran?), Christmas shopping, more friends

We had decided to take the fast catamaran from Morro de Sao Paulo to Salvador.  The trip was more expensive and everyone had told us that we would be sick, but this 2 hour wheel barrel to catamaran to elevator (yes, there is an Art Deco elevator that connects lower Salvador to upper Salvador) was much more convenient than the 4+ hour wheel barrel to ferry to bus to ferry to elevator combination we would have to if we went the cheap way.  So we woke up, had light breakfasts and said goodbye to the beautiful beach.  We hired a man to carry our bags in a wheel barrel to the catamaran.  While waiting for the boat, we both took half a Dramamine in the hopes of holding off sea sickness while staying awake.  We were the first two in line when the boat arrived in the hopes of getting a seat in front (again, to avoid sea sickness).  When we reached the end of the dock, ready to board the boat, a man asked if we spoke English, and said he needed to explain something about our journey. 

 

He said, "You´re not going directly to Salvador.  You are going to take this ferry across the river so you can take a bus which will take you to a ferry to Salvador.  This will take 2 hours.  The catamaran sank last night."

 

Um, the boat we were planning on taking sank last night?????? Not especially good news for two land lubbers.  In fact, it was quite shocking.  However, we weathered the trip just fine, no sea sickness, because we were on a bus most of the way, just irritation at buying the expensive ticket and still spending 3.5 hours getting to Salvador.

 

Since the announcement of our Brazil trip to Olivia´s former senior womens exercise class last spring, we have had tentative plans to meet up with the international exchange student sister of one of the participants, who lives in Salvador, Bahia. Tina invited us to the shopping mall (Brazilians LOVE their "shoppings") to assist us in Christmas and souvenir purchasing, followed by a lovely pizza dinner at her favorite local joint. She is a delightful, intuitive, interesting person who graciously answered some of our questions about Brazilian culture related to race issues and government and general domestic philosophies. She also invited us to see her tastefully holiday-decorated 7th apartment, which has a terrific view of the bay and for the first time in 7 weeks, we drank cold, filtered water without a charge. Her take home messages: "the world will try to get you down, and you must try very hard not to let it... it is your mission to love... I can sense this, Chris is a thinker and Olivia is a do-er..." What a fabulous person.

Day 46, 47 and 48: Morro de Sao Paulo - Boat trips, lazy beach days and English friends

The LP told us one thing we HAD to do when on Morro Island is to take a boat trip around the island to see reefs and beaches and mangrove swamps. Our hotel neighbors, super-friendly Londoners named Jimmy and Kate also read the LP so we joined them on the excursion. In the morning we hopped on the boat with about 12 other people and sped off across the ocean. Morro is an island that is straight out of a pirate movie or Lost - long sandy beaches surrounded by palm trees, tall cliffs, coral reefs just off shore.

Our first two stops were at reefs just offshore from the island. Our boat stopped in shallow water and we jumped into the warm turquoise ocean. We had rented snorkels so we could just walk on the sand over to the reefs and look down at the fish. Again we saw hundreds of fish. Some were very brave, following us around and nibbling at our toes, almost pettable. One fish followed Jimmy for several minutes before he escaped.

Our second stop was at an empty beach on another island, Boipeba. Here fishermen had set up a shack where they sold the fish and crustaceans they had caught that day. We feasted on fish and prawns and rice and beans. Following lunch we walked up the beach (our boat had already left) to the small village through a small jungle with a group from our boat and a guide. We saw some interesting trees and met some nice people from Brazil, Finland and Germany. Two of the guys we met, one from Brazil and one from Finland, were actually professional paint ball players who were moving from Jacksonville, FL to San Diego...professional paint ballers? Who knew such a thing existed?

Next we headed into the mangrove swamp. We stopped at floating dock about 100 meters off shore where people harvested oysters. We sampled some very fresh, very tasty oysters. After a long day on the boat, we returned to Morro and watched the sun set from an old Portuguese fort.

The following two days were bonus days on Morro. Our original plans had been to leave the next day to catch a ferry to a bus station where we´d catch a bus to another island near Salvador. Two days later we´d catch a ferry to Salvador. We decided instead to take the faster, direct and more expensive catamaran to Salvador and enjoy our last few days in a fantastic, car free beach town. Jimmy and Kate had also decided to stay a few more days and we were having a great time hanging out with them, so that was also a plus. Our first bonus Morro day was spent on the beach doing a lot of serious nothing. We rented chairs and sat in the shade of our umbrellas and watched the tide come in. Later in the day a massive thunderhead moved over the beach so we rushed back to our pousada to avoid getting wet. It didn´t rain in Morro, but somewhere a lightening strike knocked out the power, so, as the sun set, our super-tranquillo beach got that much more tranqi. We stumbled to our favorite restaurant with Jimmy and Kate and enjoyed tasty local fish by candle and moonlight. Soon after we went to bed the power came back on, so we were able to turn on the AC (we´re not roughing it that much...)

Because our bonus beach day was also most likely our last beach day Chris put on a very small speedo we had purchased at a TACO in Rio for 8 reals (the Brazilian GAP, no kidding, same font, same style, same music, same prices (except they´re in reals and with with 2 reals for every 1 USD, its like everything is half off)) that he hadn´t worn yet. Olivia, feeling a little left out not to be taking the skimpy swimwear up another notch, with the strong encouragement of Chris, decided to purchase a true thong string bikini. Since Jimmy and Kate left that morning, we felt free to anonymously enjoy the true Brasil style. Unfortunately we did run into some French friends who we met in Lençois, but they got a few laughs and expressed some admiration too. When in Brasil...

We really loved our time in Morro. The hotel owner, Ricardo, straight out of "Along Came Polly" (scuba?), is from Portugal, but has been in Morro for 4 years now, and vows never to return. We lounged in the hammocks for hours: reading, listening to the lounge music that was always playing, chatting with Kate and Jimmy, enjoying the ocean breeze. The hotel employees sang as they worked. It was a magical place.

Days 44 and 45: Morro de Sao Paul - Island paradise

Our little island has no cars and no roads, only sand paths along the beach and through the forest.  Instead of cars, men wait for the ferry with wheel barrels with "taxi" painted on the side.  You can pay them to carry your luggage to your hotel in the wheel barrel.  Our hotel is on the beach, from the hammock on our front porch we can see the ocean.  We watch the tide come in and out over the reef and the moon rise over the ocean.  The seafood is excellent, the atmosphere muite tranqi.

 

Yesterday Olivia took an introduction to diving course and loved it. Live Discovery Channel: eels eating fish, giant hermit crabs, reefs, fish disguised as rocks. Chris, while waiting for her, went snorkling off the beach and saw hundreds of fish, some brilliant blue, others striped with yellow, others that looked as though they might bite. 

 

Today we rented a kayak and paddled out to the reef.  We got out of the boat and snorkled on the reef. The fish were even more diverse and we saw two octopi.  The water here is as warm as bathwater.  Tomorrow we are taking a boat trip around the island to some more protected reefs with our neighbors, Jimmy and Kate from London.

 

We love it here, its so nice, we can´t stay in the hot, crowded computer lab when the beach is just 50 feet away.  Sorry to not write more, we hope you understand.

Day 42 and 43: Lencois to Morro de Sao Paulo-- massages, buses, boats, and beaches

We spent our last day in Lençois resting, exploring the town, blogging... We attempted to visit Jair and Regina at their ice cream shop, but it was closed. We had our pousada-keeper phone and find out how Regina´s arm was. It was not broken, but infected and needed to be drained. They were "thankful for our worry."

 

Then at 5 and 6 o´clock, we spent QT with Deiter the masseuse. He specializes in Shiatsu, Thai, and reflexology. It was definitely Chris´s and quite possibly Olivia´s best massage ever. We love Deiter.

 

Before we settled down for our last home cooked family style meal at Pousada dos Duendes, Olivia joined a few French travelers who has befriended a 13 year old local named Alessandra. Turns out she was just being friendly to Olivia to get to Chris (seriously), but she was very insistent about having us visit the capoeira class going on just up the hill. About 50+ kids, from ages 4 to teens, were crammed into a space, taking turns in the roda, laughing, singing loud and proud. It was just about the cutest thing ever to see the pee-wees doing kicks and spins, and of course some of them were quite advanced too, performing amazing acrobatics.

 

We took the night bus, changed at 4 am, and found ourselves in a dinky town where we caught a boat to the Island of Morro de Sao Paulo. We were exhausted, finally arriving at our hotel at 11, but glad to spend more time relaxing on the beach before returning to chilly WI in less than 1 week.

 

 

Day,40, 41and 42:Lencois to Capao: hikes, vistas, swimming holes and orchids

We left on our two day trek at about 9 in the morning. There were five of us for the hike from Lençois to the small farming village of Capão: our guide Jair, his wife Regina and an Israeli named Guy. We took the old donkey route from Lençois to Capão. Jair told us that it had been used to bring produce from Capão to Lençois as recently as 5 years ago. Only now, several years into the 21st century do the farmers use the highway to bring vegetables for the weekly market.

Our hike was very beautiful. We hiked up the mountain range from Lençois in hot, humid, sticky weather. We passed through high cliffs (again a LOTR experience) into a large canyon. We then hiked up to the end of the canyon. Jair and his wife were excellent guides, they showed us perhaps 6 different species of orchids -- this region of Brazil is home to over 100 different species of orchids. Our walk passed through grassy fields and deep forests thick with undergrowth and forests of rhododendron and hundreds of other trees and bushes we couldn´t hope to identify. We stopped roughly halfway through the hike to swim in a deep swimming hole. We also drank directly from the streams on our hike. This goes against everything we´ve been taught, but the streams are spring-fed from mountains with no people and no animals. Furthermore, we spoke with a group of people from Dublin who had done the three day trek, drinking stream water the entire time, so we knew we were fine. It is a lot of fun to drink directly from the stream, although this water was saturated with tannic acid, so in our water bottles it looked exactly like urine. It did not taste like urine, however, or what we can imagine urine to taste like.

Our hike was long. Before we left we were told it was 20 km. When we finally arrived (and it took all day in the hot sun) our guide admitted to us that it was more like 25+ km. We ate a huge plate of rice and beans and chicken at a small restaurant in Capão and stayed in a simple pousada. We were completely exhausted, falling asleep at 930. Capão is a very funky little town, its about 20 miles from the highway on a rough dirt road, full of farmers (they grow everything there: bananas, coffee, pinapples, manioc, mangos, everything) and hippies. We had a nice time eating breakfast in the square the following morning and watching the Sunday market.

Olivia also used her hand therapy skills that morning. Jair´s wife had fallen on our hike the previous day and hurt her arm. By the following day it was very swollen and Olivia was concerned she´d broken it. So, on a sidewalk in the central square of Capão she instructed her on edema control, tendon gliding exercises, and fashioned a volar wrist cock up splint from a cardboard box, a Swiss Army knife and some bandaging. We are going to stop by Regina´s ice cream store this afternoon to see how she´s doing. Brazil has public heath care, but from the casts and slings Olivia has seen, it looks to be using circa 1940s technolgy. We hope she is OK. Our hike with her certainly showed us she was a very tough woman.

After splinting Regina we met up with three more people who drove over from Lençois that morning. They were Martin and Ursula, a delightful couple from Zurich and Richard(?), a Japanese-Brazilian who lives in Santa Catarina (Florianopolis area) who was on vacation in Bahia. Jair lead the five of us to Fumaça (Smoking waterfall) supposedly the highest waterfall in Brazil. The hike was beautiful, we hiked to the top of a tall plateau and were rewarded with sweeping views of mountains and valleys in all directions. The waterfall was almost non-existent; the water falling off the 400 meter cliff did not reach more than 100-200 meters before being blown away by the wind. This "waterfall" is only a waterfall after a rain. The canyon, however, was magnificent. We all crawled out on a rock that looks a bit like a diving board, it extended a meter or two out over the canyon. Lying on our bellies we could look straight down over 400 meters to the pool far below. Beautiful, but somewhat of a stomach turning experience.

We ended our hike with a swim in a pool beneath a real waterfall. We drove back to Lençois in the back of a truck piloted by a tough woman from Sao Paulo named Fatima. We were happy to be back at Pousada dos Duendes and enjoyed a dinner of Brazilian Pad Thai (for Chris - and yes, he is the more homesick and missed Pad Thai and burritos) and ravioli with Brain and Emma (a couple from Dublin 4 weeks into a 1 year round the world adventure), Mark and Anna (an uber-London couple out traveling), Tanya (a solo Dubliner also on a round the world trip) and Olivia (the owner of the Pousada). We had a fantastic time.

Today we are chilling out in Lençois. We went to the Monday market, will eat hamburgers for lunch and plan on visiting Regina in her ice cream shop. We have massages at 5 with Dieter, a German expat in Lençois and then will take the night bus east, catching a connection tomorrow morning to a town where we will catch a ferry so that we can catch another bus so that we can go to a beach. We with then make our way north back to Salvador to close out our trip to South America.

Days 38 and 39: Lencois - Best Pousada ever, waterfalls and swimming holes

We arrived in Lencois (a small former diamond mining town in the Bahian mountains) at 530 AM and we quite groggy.  Luckily, many travelers do the same thing so all the pousadas in town let you check into a room and shower and eat breakfast and charge you only for the meal.  We had decided to stay at Pousada dos Duendes, primarily because the LP told us the proprietor was English, very knowledgeable about the nearby National Park and her name was Olivia Taylor.  Clearly a good sign when the owner´s name is Olivia.

 

Olivia´s pousada is fantastic.  It is on the outskirts of town, a quiet place with hammocks and a chess board in the courtyard that is about 10 feet by 10 feet in size.  We have had a great time talking with the other guests, we seem to have found the perfect place, where everyone is cool and in their late 20s.  We´ve shied away from hostels because we´re kind of tired of talking to cocky 20 year olds from Australia and Minnesota who, like, totally party all night at the clubs.  Not that we didn´t do the same thing, but we´re not doing that now.  Here we´ve met Adam and Emily, a couple from Sweden, who, among other things, are totally addicted to Lost (Emily confided in us last night that their first task upon returning to Sweden will be to download the new season). 

 

Furthermore, Olivia (the owner) is very knowledgeable about all the trips one can take in this National Park.  While hiring a guide is pretty much required (no trails are marked) and, as Brian (guest from Dublin who just completed a 3-day trek) told us, "There are many trails, but there is only one way.  You need the guides to show you the way."  A bit zen-like, and a little annoying to have to hire a guide, but its part of supporting this town which is trying to make the transition from the extractive industry of diamond mining to a more tranqi (tranquillo) eco-tourism economy.

 

That said, we have hiked for two days and have almost gotten away without hiring a guide. Yesterday we tried to hike to a natural water slide. The rivers pour off the rocks here in a series of waterfalls and rapids and the water slide is a place where you can slide on the rocks in the river.  We did not follow the correct trail, but due to our fatigue (remember we took an overnight bus) and our dehydration, we never found the water slide.  Undaunted, we left the following day to find a cave and a few more waterfalls and swimming pools.  We were sure we could find at least the water slide without a guide but were not so sure we could find the cave.  On our searches for the cave we ran into Cesar two times.  Cesar was about 17 years old, wearing yellow swim trunks, flip flops and a white shirt printed on it that said "Guide".  The first time we ran into him he told us he´d take us to the cave, the waterfall and the swimming hole for only 20 reals.  He also told us that the walk was very dangerous (peligrosso) and we needed a guide.  This is what we think he told us, he speaks only Portuguese.  Our thoughts were, hmmm, clearly this hike isn´t dangerous.  First of all, we could see the pools from where we were standing and knew walking to them should be easy.  Secondly, Adam and Emily had done the same hike the day before and told us it was easy.  Third, Cesar was wearing flip flops, how peligrosso could it be???  As we walked away, Cesar said, "quinze reals..."

 

However, we were stubborn, determined to find the cave the LP told us we couldn´t find without a guide.  So, on the second time we ran into Cesar we said "quinze (15) reals?".  He said "sim (yes)" and off we were, to the cave, the waterfall and the swimming hole.  We never would have found the cave (it was not impressive) and would have found the waterfall, but not the swimming hole, so, in the end, it was worth it.  We swam in the clear water beneath the waterfall, refreshed ourselves in the swimming hole and returned to our pousada, excited to spend another night with our new temporary friends.

 

Tomorrow we start a two day trek into the jungle (with a guide) to see the highest waterfall in Brazil (400 meters, supposedly), among other things. We will update when we return.

 

Quiz time!

 

True or false: Olivia is more homesick than Chris.

 

Multiple choice: The "American Food" Chris and Olivia miss most is:

A. Pizza

B. Burritos

C. Pad Thai

D. Both B and C

E. None of the above

 

Hint: This is not a trick question.

Day 36 and 37: Salvador - Tuesday night street parties, beaches and the mall

After writing the previous entry we walked around Salvador a bit more and staked out a place for the Tuesday night street party.  It turns out the in the colonial section of Salvador a street party is celebrated every Tuesday.  The origins of this street party can be traced back to a very special mass held at one of the churches in the area (what big party in Brazil doesn´t have roots in the Catholic Church?) but we were unable to find any religious undertones this time.  We were able to find, once again, bars set up on the street where we could buy capirinhas and beer and several live music stages scattered around the historic district.  We listened to some music and ran into the Professor from University of Indiana (Stephanie) and had a nice chat with her, her husband and her brother-in-law from Evanston. 

 

We woke the following day eager to explore parts of Salvador that were not in the old historic center.  Salvador is a very old, colonial city, but its hey-day passed several hundred years ago.  So now, while the colonial center is quaint, it is also very poor, and quite run down.  IT is the only place on this trip where we have been constantly harassed by people trying to sell us any and everything.  It is an interesting place, but a bit seedy, and quite exhausting.  So we did what we always do when we´re tired.  We went to the beach in a nearby suburb.  In Bahia the water is much warmer than we´ve previously experienced and the waves on the bay much smaller.  We enjoyed a relaxing lunch on the beach and explored the old fort protecting Salvador.

 

We had decided to take a night bus from Salvador to Lencois to save time.  Early in the evening we went to the bus station and dropped of our bags and walked over the superhighway separating the bus station from the MALL (by the way Brazilian bus stations are like nothing we´ve seen before, as big as airports and just as busy with buses going to all points of Brazil.  Quite impressive).  Brazilians love their malls, so we went to the food court for some dinner (Mediterranean food, very good) and then went to the multi-plex to watch a movie.  We managed to buy tickets to the only Brazilian film, after walking out we convinced the security guard to let us watch Happy Feet (animated about penguins) but that was dubbed in Portuguese.  Finally we walked into The Departed, but had to leave early to catch our bus.  Despite our adventures, it was nice to sit and watch a movie.  We almost never do that in the US and it was a nice break from the travelling. 

 

Our trip to Lencois was uneventful.

Day 35 and 36: Ouro Preto to Belo Horizonte to Salvador- Gold, sushi, and a hot, beautiful colonial capital

Just when we realized we were getting a little "weird", when our private jokes seemed to be spinning out of control, when our secret language ceased to resemble English, when we felt as though we were playing both the role of Wilson and Tom Hank´s character in Castaway, we had several nice conversations with some people from Peoria and Colorado at a gold mine, Dierk (a very nice Dutchman) and a professor from University of Indiana.  We´ve had a wonderful time, just the two of us, but lately we´ve realized that a little social interatcion -- in English -- was very much needed.  And we got it.

 

We woke Monday morning in Ouro Preto hoping to visit a Natural Park and a mine, then to take a bus to Belo Horizonte.  Hoping is the operative word, because we found early in the day that the Park was closed on Monday.  We were pretty sure that nature happens 24/7, but apparently not in this part of Brazil.  So we went to the Minas Passegem mine.  The mine was pretty incredible, opened in the early 1700s, closed in the 1980s.  An estimated 30 tons of gold were extracted from the mine, primarily by slaves.  We took a sketchy little cable car, very much like in Indiana Jones, about 300 meters under the surface of the Earth for our tour.  The tunnels were very large, much bigger than any mine Chris has visited in Colorado.  We saw many minerals in the walls, huge 3 meter thick injections of quartz and, incredibly enough, gold that was too difficult to extract.  There was also an underground lake that the LP reported as swimmable (we brought our suits!) but the guide said it was full or arsenic.  We made the choice to not swim. 

 

We returned to Ouro Preto for the last time, went to our favorite pizza place and were fortunate enough to have Dierk sit next to us as we were about to leave.  Dierk is a medical salesman from Holland on a 12 day vacay in Brazil.  We had a nice time for the next few hours talking shop (travel) and other things.  It was great to talk with someone on our travels.  Its not that we´ve been anti-social, but our apartment living for the previous 15 days had limited our opportunities to talk with people. Also, in a lot of places we´ve stayed, we´ve been the only English speaking people around.  For example, our lovely pousada in Ouro Preto was full of a large group of French travelers when we arrived.  They were quite friendly and we would spend our breakfasts together watching the hummingbirds, but speaking with them beyond "Comme dit on ___?" and "Ou est La Tour Eiffel" was, unfortunately (especially for Chris who took 7 years of French) beyond our abilities.

 

We then took the bus to Belo Horizonte.  LP describes Belo as "modern".  In LP-ese, modern means ugly.  Not much to say about Belo except that we stumbled upon a per-kilo sushi place.  Per-kilo restaruants are the rage in Brazil, but have not partaken, until we saw "Sushi Beer".  We gorged oursevles on sushi and decided to change our itinenerary.  We decided to fly to deplane in Salvador where our layover was on the way to Porto Seguro. We could still hit beaches closer to Salvador, plus this buys us more time for our journey west for the Parque. NOTE: The lovely airport attendants at TAM changed our tickets free of charge, and threw in a bonus better time for our departure in 2 weeks! Try that in the USA (or Holland, as Dierk commented after getting a full refund for a bus ticket he was no longer going to use!)

 

Our flight to Salvador was uneventful (no pukies from O).  Again, hour long bus trips surrounded our flights.  We talked with a nice professor from University of Indiana on the bus trip to Salvador who is studying water usage in South American ports (what we learned was a little disturbing).  Salvador is an incredible city, we´ve only just started exploring.

 

Tomorrow we take an overnight bus to Lencois for a few days of hiking in what is supposed to be an incredible National Park.

Days 32, 33 and 34: Ouro Preto - Baroque, cobblestones and uber-cute 18th century mining towns

We left our little apartment in Rio with full bellies and massive sunburns early in the morning the day after Thanksgiving.  Our itinerary, made months before, had us flying from Rio to Belo Horizonte (a major city in the mountains north of Rio).  From Belo we planned on taking a bus to Ouro Preto and surrounding areas.  Ouro Preto is in the heart of Brazil´s gold and gem country and is the old colonial capital of the state of Minas Gerais.  The town is supposed to be extremely picturesque and we wanted to visit this region of Brazil to see part of the country other than beaches (read on and you´ll see that Ouro Preto is indeed quite picteresque).  Our day of travel was fine, but we proved without a doubt that sometimes it better to take the bus than to fly.  Our apartment was an hour bus ride from Rio´s International airport.  After a two hour wait and a one hour flight we found that we had a one hour bus ride from Belo´s airport to downtown Belo and from there we could catch a two hour bus to Ouro Preto.  This made for a long day.  (For those of you keeping count, this day also brought Olivia´s puke total to 3.  She "lost her frango" (Portuguse for chicken) early during bus ride #3 in the outskirts of Belo.  After puke #2 we took a few barf bags from the airplane and now never leave on a bus or plane trip without some). 

We´ve also become quite lax on our travel planning.  We arrived at the Rio airport with no reservations at any hotel or pousada, we figured that our wait for our flight would be a good time to get our 5 day trip to Ouro Preto organized.  This was also the time that we read that there is a 7 hour overnight bus from Rio to Ouro Preto.  This time our flight was certainly a mistake.  We have become fairly good at getting along with Portuguese as well.  When we (Chris) called hotels in the Ouro Preto area, we´d start with "voce fala ingles?" (do you speak English?)  If the answer was "yes" we are golden...if no, then we move on to Spanish, and, finally, if the answer is no again, we manage to speak in Portuguese.  The language is similar to Spanish, and thankfully a lot of people speak Spanish, but its been somewhat difficult to communicate, especially compared to our time in Argentina.

After our 1+2+1+1+2 hours of bus/wait/air/bus/bus travel we were rewarded with Ouro Preto.  The town is quite simply incredible.  It is built deep in the mountains and is criss-crossed with streets steeper than San Francisco.  The city was the capital of Minas Gerais (the state we are in right now) for several hundred years during the Brazilian gold rush.  As such, it is filled with colonial buildings and Baroque churches and cobblestone streets.  To make matters even more "cute", there is not one 20th century building in the city center.  It really has the feel of the 18th century.  All cobblestone, streets and sidewalks so narrow we cannot walk side by side, streets so steep that we are exhausted at the end of the day after so much hiking. 

We have visited several churches.  They are incredible ornate, covered with gold and statues.  Other churches were built by slaves and have incredibly intricate carvings, both on the inside and outside.  Ouro Preto was home to one of Brazil´s most famous artists, Aleijadinho ("little cripple") who carved much of the exterior of the churches in the region and is an important figure internationally in terms of his contributions to Baroque art.  Incredibly, he did much of his work after he´d lost use of his hands and feet to an undetermined illness.

Ouro Preto is also quite an artistic community. There are many local handicrafts from the regional sources. We were successfully tempted into buying more art for our future home: this time, carvings from soapstone (fortunately this is a special kind of rock that is practically weightless and folds down to the size of a pair of athletic socks-- just kidding). Seriously though, we have enjoyed watching the artists carve and learning about the techniques, all with the low pressure sales which we have appreciated through out all of our travels on this trip. "Ouro Preto" literally means "black gold"; this area is the heart of the mining region, famous for all sorts of stones and gems. We had a fabulous time negotiating some "bling" with a nice jewelry artist and his wife, mostly in Spanish, with the occassional "no problem... very good price..." to reassure us (since neither of us shop for precious stones in the US, we weren´t quite sure, but felt that our new amigos were fair with us). On the Saturday night of our Ouro Preto stay, there also happened to be a free recital in a space below an art gallery. We weren´t able to locate the space despite the shortness of the street, and had to return to our pousada to fetch the exact address. Therefore we were 20 minutes late (better late than never when it comes to Mozart and Frank violin and piano sonatas!), but Latin time was on our side and we sat down just before the introductory announcements. Olivia, although formerly averaging 6 concerts a month in her college days, has lacked in classical music attendance over the past few years; this was Chris´ first time at such an intimate music performance. The musicians were truly talented, with delightful and interesting interpretations. We were especially invited into the experience with out front and center seats, not missing a single audible breath, flying bead of perspiration, or pained expression reflecting the composer´s intentions. It really made Olivia miss her former music involvement-- for the pure music itself, and of course the friends and the physical challenge and artistic stimulation too. We are having such a marvelous time on this trip, but a good percentage of time is spent discussing our futures: lives in CA, jobs, and priorities with resurrecting old or exlporing new hobbies. Sometimes being away is a great time to reflect on those matters. So Olivia may become a street musician by day/tango dancer by night and Chris a scientist by day/industrial designer by night...

This afternoon we rode a recently restored train down the canyon from Ouro Preto to a nearby town named Mariana.  Mariana, like Ouro Preto, has an old city center with ornate Baroque churches.  Also very picturesque, though less "happening" than Ouro Preto.  The train ride was pretty, but slow and loud, but we were able to take a bus back.  Tomorrow we go to a mountain park and a mine and then back to Belo for a Tuesday morning flight to Port Seguro on the Bahian coast.

Day 31: Rio - Speedos, thongs and turkey

Thanksgiving.  We had talked about what we would do today, to celebrate a holiday that is difficult to celebrate outside the US.  This was Olivia´s first holiday away from her family, and oddly enough, it was Chris´ second thanksgiving in a row spent in Latin America.  We wanted to celebrate the day without being absurd.  We´d discussed making a meal in our apartment.  This was eliminated primarily because our kitchen is the size of a postage stamp, ingredients like turkey, cranberries and stuffing are very difficult to find and the utensils, pots and pans in our kitchen are minimally useful.  We also knew that the Marriott down the street was having a Thanksgiving buffet (we´d posed as guests a few days before to glean some tourist info from the English speaking concierge), but that seemed a bit expensive and a bit of a cop-out.  So, our plan for the best holiday in the US was to strut our stuff on the Impanena and Copacabana beaches and eat only food we could buy on the street.  This may sound like a small meal (or a way to get sick) but we´d been craving all the coconut and hot dogs and beer and peanuts and popcorn and corn on the cob and tapioca and cheese-steak on a stick and who knows what we´d seen for sale on the street in the last week (full disclosure: we´d also sampled our fair bit of ´street meat´in our week in Rio with no sign of GI troubles).  Because of the threat of rain we went to the beach immediately in front of our apartment (one block away), laid out our towels and sat on the beach in our recently purchased speedo and thong (or what Olivia believes to be at least a version of a thong).  Both of us felt quite liberated to be on the beach and so comfortable wearing so little.  And we were able to sample capirinhas, small puff pastries, freshly grilled cheese, cashews, peanuts, a sweet coconut dish, stay fully hydrated with water and beer AND buy some souvenirs all without leaving our towels.  It was wonderful.

 

It was also cloudy, but, it turns out that when you expose parts of skin that have never seen the light of day even to a very cloudy sky, you can get a very bad sunburn.  Even with sun screen.  Our plane ride to Belo Horizonte will be fun tomorrow.  Ouch!

 

We went back to our apartment and took care of some business and realized that the street food did not cut it for Thanksgiving.  We were hungry, and we missed our families.  So we broke down and went to the Marriott.  We stuffed ourselves with turkey and mashed potatoes and filet mignon and salmon and salad and cranberries.  We did not eat the mushy bread crumbles that was masquarading as stuffing.  We did eat the tasteless tough orange triangles that were masquerading as pumpkin and apple pie.  We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and also enjoyed some very nice amenities offered by the Marriott that we haven´t had for a long time. Like hot water. And the use of English with people other than each other.  And $12 bottles of water.  Yes, 12 US dollars for a bottle of water.  Oops.

 

Thanksgiving was fun, but we miss our families, though we hope to start a tradition in our family of always having a capirinha on T-day to remember our first married Thanksgiving together.

 

Deep thoughts from full bellies: We are thankful for...

eachother

our dear families

our fabulous friends

this trip

not getting sick on this trip (yet)

grilled meat, gelato, fresh tropical fruit

burritos, pad thai, and pizza

our great memories of Madison and the other places we consider home

our cats

our cat-sitters

 

Optional essay question: Define "thong swimwear" in 50 words or less. Any language is acceptable although English is preferred.

 

 

Day 30: Rio - MAC, shopping and beaches

We woke to a beautiful day in Rio and decided to cross the bay to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC).  Our guide book (good ole LP) told us that the ferry ride across the bay alone was most definitely worth the trip to the MAC.  We took a large ferry across the bay and walked to the MAC.  It is an incredible building, designed by Brazil´s most famous architect (so we were told).  It is white and circular, an organic shape that rises from sea cliffs above a small bay across the larger bay from Rio.  Behind this building we could see all of Rio, including Cristo and Pao do Asucar.  The museum was mediocre but the views very worth it.

 

Because the weather was so nice we decided to take a bus to some highly recommended beaches north of the museum.  Our book, as well as two different people in two different information booths told us that the #38 would take us to the beach.  In order to catch the 38 we had to walk for several km, and, when we finally reached the place to catch the bus, the excitedly jumped onto a bus.  The #38A bus... 

 

Everyone can probably guess where this is going.  The ride, we knew, was about 50 minutes, and 50p minutes of driving time is a lot of time to get off course.  Thankfully, the 38A route ends only about 3 km from the beach...unfortunately, the 38 route ends about 500 meters from the beach.  So, we got some walking in. The beach was very nice, bound on both sides by very large cliffs. The waves were quite big and there were quite a few surfers riding the waves.  We also got to test out our new swim suits we´d bought the day before...Chris bought a speedo.  Olivia bought a thong.  When in Brazil, do as the Brazilians.

 

Answer to quiz regarding the dangers of the futbol: the correct answer is actually D! According to the LP, games have the potential to get so rowdy that spectators in the lower seats can get struck by dead chickens and human urine! Yick! (thankfully nothing like that happened to us).

Days 28 and 29: Rio - Cristo, Pao do Asucar and Bonde

Rio is quite a city.  In fact, even though there are numerous Internet cafes, we´ve been so busy site seeing that we haven´t sat down to write about our experiences.  But we want to tell everyone what we´re doing.  Plus, we want to write it down so we don´t forget what we´ve done. 

 

Rio is a city with a huge amount of things to do and things to see.  Similar to other great world cities, e.g., New York, London or Paris, you can spend a week here and not see it all.  But, like other great cities, there are a few very touristy, very cool (possibly) things you have to do when you visit.  For Rio, two of these are taking the train up to Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer, huge statue of Jesus with his arms in the shape of a cross) and taking the cable car up Pao do Asucar (a mountain in the middle of the city).  Because there is a certain amount of energy involved in these uber-touristy undertakings, we decided to do both in one day. 

 

In the morning we hopped on a bus that took us to the train that ascended the mountain to the Cristo statue.  We fought off dudes trying to convince us that their taxi service was better than the train (though it was more expensive, and, we came to take the train, why take a cab on curvy roads up a mountain when you can take a train through the rainforest????  These are times when we wish we spoke more Portuguese) and bought our tickets to the train.  We boarded with a bunch of other tourists and took the train to the top of the mountain.  The ride was about 45 minutes, and, even though this mountain is surrounded by Rio and its suburbs, it is also part of a National Park that reaches into Rio like a finger between the inland suburbs and the mountain hugging beach cities.  Thus, we soon were out of the city and deep in the rainforest. In fact, as our train slowly climbed the mountain, Olivia spotted a sloth climbing in a tree.  Unfortunately, it ran off before Chris had a chance to look at it (just kidding!). 

 

The Cristo Rendentor is incredible.  The statue of Jesus is about 30 stories high and is on top of a mountain that rises straight up, several hundred meters above the city.  So once we reached Cristo, we were given grand views of Impanena, Copacabana, Pao do Asucar as well as the rest of Rio and mountains and ocean in all directions.  They view was outstanding.

 

We then hopped two more buses (Rio´s buses are very convenient, though they are loud, uncomfortable, driven by maniacs and, we´re told, slightly dangerous...but we have not seen any sign that we could be robbed on a bus) to get to the neighborhood of Urca.  Urca is about two blocks wide, tucked between Botafogo Bay and the sheer cliffs of Pao do Asucar.  At the very end of the neighborhood is a seafood bar (Urca Bar) where you can sit on the sidewalk or a short wall overlooking the bay and order fish and beer.  This isn´t a sidewalk cafe, we (and many others) were literally sitting on the sidewalk, ordering food from Urca Bar.  We stayed at this charming bar for a few hours, enjoying the view of the bay and the city, great seafood, and the novelty of drinking beer on the street with dozens of other people. We were waiting fo the sunset for our ascent of Pao do Asucar.  We walked from the bar to Pao and were rewarded with magnificent views of Cristo. While we´d been enjoying ourselves at Urca Bar some clouds had moved in so we saw Cristo high on the cliff with while small clouds drifted underneath the statue but far above the city.

 

Pao do Asucar is one of Rio´s oldest tourist attractions.  The first cable cars were put in in around 1913, though they were modernized in the 1970s.  There are two sections on the cable car that bring you to successively higher points above the city.  At the top of Pao we found the view to be even more amazing than up Cristo.  The Pao do Asucar is several hundred meters above the city and sits on a peninsula that allowed us to view all of Rio. To our left we could see the beaches of Copacana and Impanema, in front of us the neighborhoods at the base of Cristo, to our right downtown Rio and the bay that defines Rio.  This city is amazing in that is is built in and around and on top of some of the most beautiful and amazing mountains and beaches anywhere in the world.  And, unlike other cities, whose skylines are defined by their building, Rio´s skyline really is defined by these mountains that rise improbably among apartment highrises and beaches.

 

The weather on the following day was not great (hot and muggy with light, misty rain) so took the Metro to downtown Rio.  Rio is a very bustling city.  Our Lonely Planet walking tour took us through neighborhoods full of old mansions and skyscrapers and crowded markets.  We also took the bonde (street car) up to the neighborhood of Santa Theresa which sits on a hill high above downtown.  The street car was quaint and the streets steep, much like San Francisco, but more run down.  Now we´re walking through the heart of Rio, the non-touristed part and are planning on having the best churrascaria (grilled meat) in Rio for dinner. Mmmmm...meat.

Day 26 and 27: Beaches, Futbol, Samba

Our first big day in Rio was a hot and happening Saturday and we started it off right by exploring Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. We caught a bit of the international handball championships (no team for the USA--surprised, anyone?). As we strolled much of our time was spent pondering deep philisophical questions: ¨ fake or real?¨ and ¨what are the thong to full coverage and speedo to shorts ratios here?¨

 

Then we freshened up for a futbol game at Maracaña Stadium. We tailgated with cans of beer and hot dogs with the works--Brazil style. It was a small crowd but full of serious spirit, true to the rumors of Brazilians´ passion for soccer. Big flags and constant chants and songs, drumming, and a zillion vendors. We left early to avoid any potential danger and to gear up for our rocking Saturday night.

 

Lapa is party central. In contrast with our motherland, in Brazil, anyone can open up a little bar/stand on the street. Not only were there food and beer vendors as we saw earlier that day on the beach and at the stadium, but there were also opportunities for various cockatails, and not just random young folks, but older, respectable looking people too tending bar. Apparently this is an official profession. Lapa is a beautfil old area of the city wih rehabed mansions that have been converted into clubs, restaurants and bars. We enjoyed pizza at a tranquey spot on the second floor overlooking the street action, then headed to a reputable samba club where we both spectated and participated. There was a live band and people of all ages and abilities having a grand ol´time. Rio is quite aware of their party scene and very nicely provide safe and convenient transportation back to Ipanema and Copacabana barrios: vans that shuttle back and forth between the 2 areas and costs the same as the bus.

 

Sunday we hit the Hippie Fair of Ipanema and started our home decorating: We bought art!  Then we headed north to the lake and rented a cheesy little side-by-side recumbant bike (with fringe on top!). We welcomed the break from walking and also were able to cover all 7.3 km in a much more reasonable amount of time.  We took our time wandering the streets for just the right dinner place (no thanks to the Lonely Planet) and stumbled upon a great spot where from the corner sidewalk table we enjoyed gigantor shrimp which were surrounded by a Brazilian type of cream cheese and gently deep fried. The waitstaff, as we have found everyone in Brazil to be (except for a few odd ducks), were incredibly nice and invested a lot of time in making sure we felt welcome and were having a good time (ie teaching Chris the secret waiter move of using a serving fork and spoon in one hand to scoop rice). Ipanema, although lovely with its boutiques and restaurants, is quite expensive and for the first time, we weren´t getting the 50% US to Brazilian currency discount we look forward to.

 

A classic Rio thing that we instantly fell in love with: juice bars aplenty! Fresh sucos of any kind at your fingertips. They are inexpensive, delicious, nutritious, and a good pick-me-up for a hot and weary traveler.

 

Quiz time!

 

Answer from Campeche post: True, a coati did eat our food and poop on our blanket.  Not so cute anymore the little bastard!

 

Multiple choice question: Which of the following items did the Lonely Planet warn us may be dumped on our heads while watching a futbol match?

 

A. Rotten bananas

B. Dead chickens

C. Urine

D. Both B and C

E. None of the above

 

 

Day 25: Rio de Janiero - Apartment hunting in Copacabana

We somewhat sadly left our home of eight nights, hopped into our tiny Chevy and drove to the airport.  Our flights to Rio were fine, the only issues were some indigestion from eating about 75 mussels the night before at our favorite restaurant Arante. 

 

We arrived in Rio to find that summer has arrived with a vengeance, it was very hot as we wandered out of the airport trying to find the subway station.  We finally found the station (a challenge because a lack of good maps at tourist offices in S America and a lack of knowledge of English or Spanish at information kiosks - even at the airport!, as well as a general lack of information, as in they did not understand the few words we did know in Portuguese--onde metro?--and also did not know where the subway was, just told us to take a taxi...?) and rode the metro to Copacana where our hostel was located.  We checked in, depressed at our room and surroundings, hot and hungry.  We ate some meat and pineapple sandwiches and hunted down the city of Rio tourist office and were pleasantly surprised to find extraordinarily helpful English speaking staff with awesome maps of the city (the lack of free tourist maps or subway maps everywhere we go has become a running joke...there were no maps to be found in BA and our experience at the airport in Rio made us fear the same here).  They also told us to talk to some people down the street who rented apartments on a short term basis.  We´d read about this company in the Lonely Planet and had considered renting an apartment, but were not sure about the logistics.  However, we´d become quite spoiled in our house in Pantano and already missed the kitchen.  So, we went to the office, and Tiago showed us a few places and now we´re the proud residents of a 12th floor one bedroom apartment on Ave de Copacabana, one block from the beach and a few blocks from the subway.  We have a kitchen, a living room, a doorman, AC and a few of the busy street far below for only modestly more than a hostel and far less than a hotel.  We live here until the 24th.  We´re thinking of cooking our own Thanksgiving dinner in our little kitchen.

 

 

Day 24: Last day in Santa Catarina-- Yes-Rent-a-Car, surfing on multiple surfaces, tchau Arante Bar

Realizing that the taxi ride to the airport would be roughly 75% the cost of actually renting a car and conveniently returning it to the airport, plus it was our last opportunity to explore the island and the buses, although frequent and inexpensive require much time with multiple transfers, we decided it would be a brilliant adventure to rent a car. According to LP (Lonely Planet), if you are going to rent a car in Brazil, this is the place to do it (because the roads are clearly marked and the drivers are not maniacs).  So, given the rational stated above, we called Yes-Rent-a-Car (Brazilian phones are very difficult to figure out, 30 minutes were spent trying to dial an 8-digit number), and in Spanuguese (no English this time) we (Chris) negotiated the price and the drop-off point for our rental car the next morning.

 

With Chris at the wheel of a little hatchback Chevy and Olivia nagivating (eek!), we arrived at the sand dunes of Sao Jaoquim for some sand boarding. We rented boards and lasted only about 40 min the the blazing sun, with the hot sand burning our feet, and feeling pretty out-of-shape with those ascends. It was a good time with only a few wipe outs, and of course, the scenery was beautiful. From the top, we could see distant views of the ocean just past rolling sand dunes with sparse vegetation.

 

Then we headed further north to a Barro do Laguna beach. We worked up a great appetite for frutos do mar and for the first time on this trip, enjoyed shrimp with our feet in the sand at a outdoor beach restaurant. Being at this beach made us realize that we had, somewhat purposefully, picked the most isolated, non-touristy part of the island to stay. This place was happening, with tons of restaurants, shops, and a surfing school...

 

We wet suited up, were issued his and her boards (seriously-- blue and pink), and followed our super chill instructor to the most protected starter waves, which was difficult on this windy day. Basically, the instuctor took control of the board, pushed us when there was a decent wave, and we popped up upon his command.  We´d look back after each attempt to receive one of the following body language signs: "look up!," "relax...relax," or the classic Brazilian thumbs up.

 

We explored a bit further north, and unfortunately missed the hours at the turtle reserve (don´t worry, we will hit a TAMAR location just north of Salvador), then headed home to Pantano do Sul for our last dining at Arante and our last sleep at Posada do Pescador.

 

We became regulars at Arante during our time in Floripa. At the end of our second visit, we were kissing the waitress (on the cheek). By our last time, she knew our drink orders. We ate mussels the size of golf balls and for the last time indulged in the self-serve ice cream for dessert. We bought T-shirts (which upon close inspection we believe may be individually made from a sharpee and puffy paints, tastefully done though), received a burnt CD of the music we commented on enjoying during our meals (which turned out to be Puntamaya Nuevo Latino), and walked away with a special gift-- a bottle of their homemade cachaça. We will definitely send Jô, our waitress, a copy of the photo we took together. We left our mark, like the many visitors, with a message taped to the wall, but noticed that there is a nice collection of pictures in the dessert area too. Good times.

 

 

 

 

Day 23: Isla do Campeche - Snorkles, boats and waves

We have not told you about the proprietor of our pousada in Pontano do Sol.  We´re not sure if he leaves the grounds of the pousada, he primarily walks around in dirty sweatpants and flipflops and smokes pot in the afternoon.  He means well, and though he told us he speaks Spanish, our conversations are in a language that we have termed Spanglishuguese.  Thus, the exchange of information is quite low.  This is somwhat of a problem as we are living in a fishing village, so tourist information is hard to come by ( i.e. it is nonexistant).  However, we did find out from our handy Lonely Planet, that there is an island of the name Campeche just off the shore of our island that is a nature reserve that is beautiful and can be reached by taking a boat from Aramcao, the village to our North. 

 

Somehow we were able to find out from the proprietor of our pousada using the Spanglishuguese language we communicated with that if we arrived at the dock in Armacao by 10 AM we´d be able to catch a boat to Campeche.  So we woke up EARLY and walked the 4 km to Armacao, forgetting we had significant blisters on our feet from the 20 km hike the day before and our inability to effectively adjust our Chaco sandals.  After a somewhat painful walk, we found the boat that would take us to Campeche.  It was a open faced boat that was very pretty, brightly painted in the style of fishing boats on the island.  The boat was about 25 feet in length with seating for about 15 people.  While we were waiting for the boat to fill, we rented snorkel equipment, hoping to see some fish off Campeche. 

 

After about 20 minutes, we hopped on with about 10 other people for a trip to Campeche.  The ride was exciting, especially for a couple of landlubbers like ourselves.  As far as ocean waves go, we think that these were not large waves.  However, as far as our preception goes (two people prone to a little motion sickness) while sitting on  a boat a few feet about the water, the waves seemed enormous.  The best description of the trip we think can be found in the Life of Pi (thanks Kim for the suggestion, we both enjoyed that book) where Yan Matel describes the waves as mountains and valleys.  Our boat was roughly the same size as Pi´s, the difference was that there was not a tiger on the boat and we weren´t shipwrecked and were very safe in our life vests. 

 

Isla do Campeche is straight out of a postcard.  The beach is about 1/2 a km in length.  There were only about 30 people on the beach because very few boats make the trip.  The beach is surrounded by mountains covered with a rain forest with palm trees poking out above the leaves.  There was no food or water (or sunscreen) to be purchased, just beach, beach and more beach.  We did a little snorkeling.  Unfortunately, the water was cloudy and we didn´t see anything.  We had an intensely relaxing day, returning to Armacao in the evening after a day on the beach.

 

Quiz time!

False and True, Olivia did NOT buy surfer trunks (she bought super-hip beach shorts) but she WILL become a surfer chick upon moving to Cali (see Day 24 for more info).

D, the bird/ bug sounds like an alarm clock.  Very strange, and very annoying.

Essay, thanks Mama Adams for the answer, our Portuguese is not as good as yours, but we got the drift.  In case you didn´t know, there was an ulterior motive for the essay question as we´ve had quite a difficult time adjusting our Chacos.

 

Answer to Ed´s question: an eagle.  Or five eagles.

 

New quiz:

True or false, while we were preparing to go snorkeling on Campeche, a coatis opened our Timbuktu bag, ate our peanuts and pooped on Chris´ towel.

Day 22: Isle do Santa Catarina - Butterflies, bananas and flowers

We woke the morning unsure of the weather, we´d had rain all night and the clouds were threatening in the morning.  We left our chale and walked south with some cookies, our beach towels and a few liters of water.  We knew that there was an isolated beach on the southern tip of the island, but the trail was 9 km one way and we weren´t sure if we could make it.

The beach was abandoned today.  We saw 100s of shells, sand dollars at least 8 inches in diameter, crabs hiding in holes in the sand, birds of all shapes and occupations.  Nothing headless.  Our trail left a village south of our pousada and went straight up a large ridge plunging from a mountain into the ocean.  We´d already done the first few km of the trail a few days ago, so we knew what to expect. There were sweeping views of the island, we could see the beach we were staying on sweep to the north.  As we entered new territory we experienced a hike that alternated between windswept ridges and wind-protected rain forests.  The windswept ridges had small bushes and cactus straight out of Arizona and enormous views of the ocean and the island.  The wind-protected sides of the ridge were filled with groves of 50 foot tall bamboo, forests of banana trees and pineapple bushes with iridescent blue butterflies the size of Wisconsin bats.  In both places, we could hear the sound of the Atlantic crashing against the cliffs below us.  We turned around at a rocky point on the southern end of the island.  We did not make it to the beach, but the site of waves smashing the cliffs as we ate our cookies was reward enough.

Quiz time!

True or false: OIivia bought some surfer shorts yesterday and plans on becoming a surfer chick upon moving to Cali.

Multiple choice: The sound made by the bird (or bug, not sure were to place this thing in the Animal Kingdom) outside our window at 4AM is most like:
A. A chainsaw
B. Frank Sinatra
C. An electric toothbrush
D. An alarm clock

Optional essay question: In 250 words or less, please describe the location of the extra strap on a Chaco sandal and mechanism of tightening the sandal.  Please cite references were appropriate, extra points will be awarded for gratuitous use of Brazilian vocab words.

Day 20, 21: More Isle do Santa Catarina: Beaches, Surfers, Caipirinhas

We have been having a very relaxing time. No matter what time we go to sleep, usually between 11 and midnight, we seem to sleep soundly til 10AM.

Honestly, we don´t have much to report: we´ve been beach bums, but quite ambitious beach bums! We have been enjoying more steep mountain hikes along cliffs overlooking the amazing bay, walking our beach every night at dusk, playing chess, reading, splashing in or watching the friendly waves. We have been day dreaming, too, wondering about our future lives in CA, and feeling a little homesick (Chris)... except that we don´t really have a home right now! So, we made mac and cheese with ring bologna last night. Tonight we are returning to the seafood and caipirinhas (a tasty Brazilian cocktail made with lots of lime and cachaça, a liquor from sugar cane which they make fresh at the restaurant).

We also explored the bus system yesterday and the destination was the city: Florianopolis. We instantly missed the beach, and vowed never to return again (unless we really need the ATM). What lies ahead? Boat trip to Isle do Campeche tomorrow (although that requires us to get up before 9) and sand dune surfing on Thur.

Quiz time: The answer is TRUE! We saw a dead shark head on the beach. Weird! The next day, we also saw a headless dead penguin! Sad! We took pics of both as proof.

D is the multiple choice answer: We hiked past 4 surfer dudes with their boards on the shoulders on our first hike. Yeah, that steep, rocky jungle trail that was reminiscent of a certain television show on ABC. They were foolishly wearing cheap flip-flops, but we guess you can do whatever you want when your a cool surfer dude.

Thanks for the comments. We are concocting a new quiz-- you guys are smart!

Day 17, 18, 19: Isle do Santa Catarina-- Finally Floripa!

We gladly left Foz and arrived on an island directly east on the Atlantic coast. We settled into our posada eagerly, realizing that we have not stayed any one place more than 3 nights since we were in Milwaukee. Our chale (cabin) is in a garden setting, 100 m from the beach, has a kitchen, bathroom, large living/sleeping area, front porch with hammocks and is spanking clean! Sadly, this place is very likely bigger, nicer, and definitely cheaper than our future apartment in CA.

 

The village, Pantano do Sul, is a classic fishing village nestled between the mountains and the ocean. We watched fishing boats depart from our beach last night while feasting at a famous seafood joint. Some of the beaches, as we discovered yesterday, can be reached only by foot, by climbing over large mountains thru very rocky trails. We have become completely disoriented to time (of day, date, and day of week), but will get ourselves on track before Fri´s flight to Rio. This is the relaxing honeymoon and break from constant traveling we need.

 

Internet is somewhat rare, but we´ll be in touch as able.

 

P.S. True or False: Today we walked by a dead shark head on the beach.

 

P.P.S. Multiple choice: O & C saw which of the following on the jungle hike to yesterday´s deserted beach

a) a polar bear

b) black smoke

c) Hermano

d) surfer dudes carrying their boards

Day 16: Foz to F-ing Foz-- Toucans, time changes, and disappointment

We arose to some early morning construction. How rude! Hotel renovations at 7 AM! Oh my!

 

We had a wonderful time otherwise at our hotel. By far the cleanest and nicest place we stayed. Just missing one essential item: clocks.

 

We had time for one last sight-see at the Bird Park before our flight. It was amazing: parrots, parakeets, toucans, turtles, boas, what have you... We jumped on the bus, excited to catch our flight out of the jungle and to the beach. 

 

There was just one little detail that no one had bothered to tell us.  One little detail that we would have known, if there were clocks in our room.  Or if the concierge had told us we checked out half an hour late. Or if there were clocks in the lobby, or on the street or in the bus, or at the border, or ANYWHERE. 

 

It turns out that Brazil changed their clocks on Sunday.  So we were one hour late for our flight.  So we´re back in Foz, an ugly, hot town in the middle of the Brazilian jungle. We have done everything there is to do in this tourist-driven city.  There are many negatives to this story, however, there are a few positives.  Number one: We were able to change our flights to tomorrow, and it was inexplicably free of charge.  Number two: our clockless hotel is clean, comfortable, has AC and cable (watched election results this morning on CNN - go democrats!!!!) and a great breakfast.  Number three: we (Chris) were able to call our Posada on Florianopolis using Skype, and, after finding the owner did not speak English but spoke Spanish, we were able to change our reservation for tomorrow.  A small victory in a day that felt much like a defeat.

 

Now we´re off to eat some beef and drink some beer and count down the hours left in this town.  We may go to Paraguay or the Dam, just to go, but probably not.

 

P.P.S. Answer from Day 15: False.

Day 13, 14 and 15 Puerto Iguazu, Argentina and Foz do Iguacu, Brazil - Waterfalls, coatis, cockroaches and iguanas

Hi everybody! Thanks for all the comments! We love hearing from you!

Soon after we finished writing the previous blog entries a major storm hit Mendoza. The lights in the computer lab we were in went out, the computers went down. When we walked outside, the streets were completely flooded and the sewers overflowing with excess water. It didn´t seem that there was that much rain, but Mendoza is a desert town and the streets clearly weren´t designed for rain. We ran back to our room with 0.5 kilos of ice cream and ate it in a much better room than our previous room at Malbec hotel. We have neglected to mention the quality of the ice cream here in Argentina. According to our guidebook, the influx of Italian immigrants in the last 100 years made it so that Argentina has an abundance of quality and affordable ´heladerias´. We have indulged on many occasions. The ice cream is rich and flavorful, and the cones, when scooped from the buckets containing the ice cream, become works of art, small statues on a cone, round at the bottom and twirled on the top.

We woke up early the next morning to catch our plane to Iguazu Falls. Argentina is a big country, so by the time we made it to Puerto Iguazu, it was late in the day. We were tired and hungry (Argentinian airlines feed their passengers only moderately better than American airlines) and Olivia had, once again, ´tossed her cookies (this time, literally) 30,000 feet above the Ar gentian countryside. We left our airplane and entered the sticky hot weather one finds only in the tropics or on awful July days in the Midwest. Our taxi took us directly past the entrance to the Iguazu Falls National Park, but we knew we wouldn´t have time to visit the falls on our first day because they close at 6 PM. Upon arriving in Puerto Iguazu, we found our way around the city (easy in a town of 30,000), ate some pizza and went to the tourist office. While speaking with the representative, we remembered that the park runs Full Moon (Luna lleno) walks on the nights around the full moon, so we asked her if the walk was taking place tonight. (In reality, Chris said tengo una pregunta, hay un camiando quando la luna es...um, la luna es (at this point Chris made a circle with his hands).´ It turned out that this night (Nov 5) was the last night for the full moon walks this month and that there was room on one of the walks. So we quickly got ready and were soon picked up by a lone driver in a remis (taxi) who drove us to the Falls. We met up with about 100 other people from all over the world along with a ranger and about 6 guides and we took the train to the main portion of Iguazu Falls called Garganta del Diablo (Throat of the Devil). Now, before we go on, we want to emphasize that Iguazu Falls are incredibly large. They are much taller than Niagara and much much bigger in terms of water. In fact, Elanor Roosevelt, upon seeing these falls, said, ´Poor Niagara, it looks like a bathtub compared to this´.

Our first view was at night, on the full moon. We took a 1.3 km catwalk across much of the river to the heart of the Garganta and starred right into the devil´s throat in the moonlight. The spray from the falling water flew back into our faces, soaking us. There was so much spray, and the moon so bright, that we were surrounded by tiny rainbows made by the moon - moonbows, we called them. The view from the top of the falls in the middle of the night was unbelievable, not the kinds of thing one sees every day, or ever, for that matter. We went back to our remis, riding the train with a bunch of very friendly college kids from Abilene Christian University, excited to see the falls in the daylight.

We woke the next morning to rain, but what did we expect, this is a rain forest. This time we took a public bus and went to the park decked out in rain coats and pants. The Argentinian side of the falls is quite extensive. The Parana River breaks up into about 250 separate water falls as it crashes through the jungle. There were many kilometers of trails that we went on to see the falls from many different angles. We saw coatis (sort of a mix between a racoon, a possum and a rat) and many birds and Olivia even saw a toucan (Sam) in flight. The falls were even more amazing in the daylight. It was an incredible experience, the only drawback is that these falls are probably the most important tourist attraction in South America, and the national park is far more developed than any in the US. There are shopping malls and restaurants and trains. There weren´t too many people, but the feel of the whole thing, despite the fact that we were in reality, was of a theme park. This went so far that the logo for the national park was written in the same style as Jurassic Park is written in the movie.

The following day (Nov 7) we woke and crossed the border into Brazil. The process was relatively straightforward, but because we had to take several different buses on our crossing, we did not arrive at our hotel until the early afternoon. We were anxious to see the Brazilian side of the falls so we rushed down to the Brazilian National Park. Again, the falls were incredible, we were able to look across the canyon at all of the places we´d hiked the previous day. Unfortunately, the Brazilian side is even more commercialized than the Argentinian side. All hikes into the rain forest were extra charges (and they were significant amounts of money, $60+ to hike into the jungle) and the catwalks much less extensive. We enjoyed the views, and saw several 3 foot long Iguanas, but were delighted to come back to Foz do Iguacu for some dinner. Foz has a large middle eastern population, so we were stoked to have schwarma, falafal and hummus for dinner after all the steak, pizza and pasta we´ve been gorging on.

Tomorrow we go to a bird sanctuary and fly to Florianopolis where we will spend 9 days on an island full of beachy goodness.

We already miss Espanol, but have high hopes for a smooth transition to Portuguese.

P.S. we have had 3 cockroach sitings: 2 belly up in hotels in Mendoza and Puerto Iguazu (what do you expect for US$16-20/night?) and 1 unfortunately under our half eaten pizza, which explains the half kilo of gelato-- it was the safest thing we could think of consuming!!

P.P.S. True or false: We had a near cat experience... with a puma! Un animal mysterioso del norte!

Day 10, 11 and 12 Upsallata, Puente del Inca and back to Mendoza - Andes, crosses and snow

We arrived in Upsallata in the late afternoon after our relaxing day in Cacheuta.  Upsallata is a small pueblo in a valley between the foothills of the Andes and the Andes.  It is a little oasis of green poplars in a desert of barren hills and valleys.  Our hotel was the Gran Hotel Upsallata, a hotel built in the 1950s by the Peronistas.  The hotel was complete with a bowling alley (non-functional), swimming pool (filled with mud and rain water) and disturbingly wide hallways. We stayed their primarily because our guidebook told us it had a bowling alley and that if one stayed there, they should pretend that ´it was the 1950s and they were rich´.  We did pretend, still the hotel wasn´t great and our primary enjoyments were the second day in a row with a real mattress and a balcony with fine views of the mountains and poplars in the valley.

We walked into Uspallata and asked if there were any hikes in the area.  We were told to walk up a road about 2 km and to look for three crosses.  Then, when we found the three crosses, we should turn left, keeping in mind that the mountain of seven colors will be to our south.  Once we had found the three crosses and the mountain of seven colors, then we would find our trail.

This felt very Indiana Jones-esque, especially because the following directions were relayed to us by two different people, in Spanish.

So we walked for 2 km, and found the three crosses and gazed at the mountain of seven colors.  They were beautiful. And it turned out that the three crosses marked a challenging trail that followed the stations of the cross.  Upon reaching the 15th station, we came to the summit of a tall hill on the east side of the valley, all of Uspallata was below us, the Andes to our west.  It was gorgeous.

We woke early the next morning to catch the bus to Puente del Inca.  Puente del Inca is a natural bridge formed from mineral deposits from a thermal hot spring.  It is also the major base for climbing Aconcagua (6962 meters), the highest peak in South America and the highest peak in the world outside of the Himalaya.  Since the seasons officially starts November 15th, the town itself was a rather quiet and did not offer much, but we were able to hike from the town to the entrance to Aconcagua National Park through a deep valley, surrounded by enormous mountains.  There is still a lot of snow from the recent winter, we hiked past deep canyons and tall cliffs and several lakes.  Our hike ended at a suspension bridge over a rushing river, brown with dirt picked up from the spring melt.  Ancocagua was an enormous mountain to see; there was a glacier on right shoulder, it ended on a large cliff. The ice wall dropping off into the cliff was 300 meters high.  On our walk back to Puente del Inca we were joined by a mangey Saint Bernard.  It walked back to town with us, waiting to make sure we went the right way.  As soon as we arrived in Puente, it went its own way.

If you want to see what this place looks like, watch Seven Years in Tibet.  Much of it was filmed here.  It is probably easier to film a movie about the Dali Lama in Argentina than actually going to Tibet...

The next day we rode the four hour bus to Mendoza and spent our afternoon planning our trip through Brazil (and writing our blog).

Day 9 and 10: Nov. 1 and 2: Cacheuta, ARG-- The Thermal Waters

We left Mendoza by bus early in the AM, only to step off 1.5 hrs later on some deserted road in the mountains. We followed a dirt road past abandoned shacks and surprise--surprise some lounging stray dogs, to what Olivia calls ¨her heaven on earth.¨ Oh my.

 

We knew we were in a good place when we entered the hotel lobby and saw people in terrycloth robes. We were guided immediately to the thermal baths and instructed to spend 10 minutes in each place. First was the introductory thermal spa-- protected by the strong sun by a whitish translucent rooftop, a cozy circular hot spring bath with a dramatic stream of water filling it, which made for a nice natural massage when we lingered under it. Then 10 barely tolerable minutes in a sauna. It was literally blasted out of the hillside rock, was dark and a little too hard core for our already weary and somewhat dehydrated bodies. Then we were led to the mud pit where we played like pigs, from hair to heels. We dried in the sun, and ended up resembling the weird street performers that paint themselves all gold and stand unhumanly still on the street. We rinsed and enjoyed a soak in the more extensive hot springs in the fresh air, overlooking the river running thru the canyon, wild flowers and poplar trees aplenty. Ahhhh.

 

We breaked for lunch, the most amazing buffet which had everything imaginable grilled (meats and vegetables of all kinds) as well as an extensive dessert bar. In the afternoon we digested poolside. The larger pool for swimming is set higher up from the baths, the same level as the hotel. Although there were many sunbathers, there were few people frolicking in the pool, which made for ideal leisurely lap swimming. The front crawl was a challenge (hard to have your face in bath temperature water for too long), but other strokes were a delight, especially being able to view the mountains and sky during the back stroke.

 

4:00 was massge time. Although relaxing, our solo complaint was that the promised 40 minutes turned out to be more like 25 or 30... oh well...

 

More hot spring enjoyment before and after dinner, despite the chilly temperatures and brisk breezes after sundown.

 

Happy hour was particularly fun when we chatted with a Rosita and Carlos, a couple from Mar de la Plata, a coastal city south of BA. Again, we have found the people of Argentina quite lovely (with the exception of that thief of a taxi driver and some bitch Olivia was sitting next to just now at the internet cafe), and Rosita and Carlos were the nicest of the nice. They invited us to visit them and vice versa... someday...

 

And finally-- our first night sleep on a real mattress!!! Down with FOAM, up with SPRINGS!!!

 

The next day, until 2:30 was more of the same heaven on earth. And then we adventured deeper into the Andes...

Day 8 Mendoza, Argentina - wine, bikes and olives

It is sunny and dry in Mendoza. There are huge trees in the streets and vineyards and olive orchards surrounding the city, but this city is a desert, in the rain shadow of the Andes, and the green is here only because of very extensive irrigation.  Deep and narrow ditches are carved into the sidewalks, a concern for the over-Malbeced pedestrian. That said, we are quite weary as we write this entry, because we road bikes on Mendoza´s Camino del Vino (Wine Road) al day long.  So we´re tired.  But we´re also happy.

 

We woke early this morning on a mission to find the Camino del Vino.  We´d read about its existence in the US, and, as this is our only full day in Argentina´s wine country, we wanted to be sure to explore some wineries. 

 

We managed to buy some city bus tickets and find the correct bus that took us out of the city into one of the many wine regions surrounding Mendoza.  There we rented bikes from a man who looked a bit like Weird Al Yankovic but was 100% a Latin Bob Marley. He owns a business called Bikes and Wine.  He serenaded Olivia with reggae (in Spanish) as he pumped up our tires.

 

Our first stop was a very old winery with a the largest wine museum in Latin America.  We learned about wine making in Argentina, from simple wines made by the Jesuits 500 years ago to the ¨modern¨ techniques introduced by Spanish and Italian immigrants in the later half of the 19th century.  This winery (La Rural) sells a wine in the US under the name Trumpeter.  We´ve purchased it in Madison, if anyone reading it is interested, a Trumpeter Malbec will be what we had.

 

Our second stop was at a very new building that was part of a very old family winery.  We were lucky enough to have the great-grandson of an Italian immigrant show us their Malbec vines, explain the wine making process and show us their in vitro methods for quickly growing vines with superior qualities (their focus is on Malbec).  We enjoyed a bottle of wine on their back deck in the bright blue day, vineyards and olive orchards stretched out before us, the snow covered Andes to our West.  It was, without a doubt, very, very nice.

 

Chris then got a flat tire. After our reggae bike-man fixed the tire, we went to a few more wineries, finishing at a winery where we had some lunch and a fantastic white wine.  I can´t say the varietal because they didn´t tell us, in fact, there was no label the wine as they had not decided where and how to sell it.  Again, meeting the owner was a highlight.

 

We finished our day with a tour of an olive oil plant.  It was very interesting, and the olive oil delicious, though the tour was all in Spanish, so we missed much of it.  We will have to tour an olive oil plant in California when we return.  It seems to be a very interesting process.

 

All in all, wine tasting in Argentina is a very pleasant experience.  There was no pretension, and wines were fantastic.  The best Malbecs in the world come from here, and it was clear when we tasted them. 

Day 7 BA to Mendoza, Argentina: MALBA and more

Our last day in beautiful BA. It only took a week and we really started to feel at home. We enjoyed un cafe con leche y dos medialunas on a sidewalk facing the main plaza in Palermo, and stayed highly entertained by the numerous dog walkers (how does 1 human persevere over 7 leashes crossing?). And how do they pick up after them while keeping the rest under control? Maybe they don´t...

 

We also reflected on the tango show at Cafe Tortoni that we had watched the night before.  It was sassy and slapstick - what a great combination!  

 

A walk through our favorite park for more feline viewing and to the MALBA: Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de BA. It was fantastic, full of interesting art, possibly Olivia´s first Frida piece viewing, and was in a gorgeous new building somewhat reminiscent of the MMoCA. We said good-bye to our dear hostel and then jumped to plane. Interesting: our less than 2 hour flight was made much more fun by watching silent video of clips of practical jokes from the Montreal Comedy Festival. The whole plane was laughing; we had formed a community!

 

Mendoza is not what we expected in some ways. It is quite commercial with lots of very busy streets with tons of shopping. The metro area of city is 900,000 population, so to get the quaint wine country feel you have to get about 10km away. We had a fab time at an old tavern for dinner, dining on lomitos (steak sandwiches... the meat adventure continues) and drinking vino tinto de la casa from little PENGUINS. Yes, to our delight, the pitches are traditionally shaped like penguinos! So fun we had to get 2.

 

Again, thanks for all the comments. We think of you all often and are so glad to be keeping in touch.

Top Ten Things we love about BA

1. Smoke Free

2. European feel without the pretension

3. The vintage cars and stations of Linea A of the Subte (one of the oldest subway lines in the world - older than Boston´s and New York´s!)

4. The friendly laid-back porteños (people of BA)

5.  Super cool markets with ultra low pressure sales

6. Cemeterio de le Recoleta (before you think we´re goth, you should look at our photos, this place is amazing)

7. Food. Grilled meat

8. Tango

9. Affordability

10. Feral cats

Day 6 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Thank you for the comments, please keep them coming.

 

First, we´d like to discuss the feral cats.  We are staying in Palermo, a few blocks from the Botanical Gardens.  While exploring the gardens yesterday, we were pleased to see hundreds of cats in the gardens, sunning themselves, grooming their fur on fountains, eating food left for them on park benches and stalking prey in the urban forest.  It was strange to see so many cats, but fun nonetheless.

 

Our dinner last night was out of this world.  Here are some actual Olivia quotes, with commentary.

 

On the meaning on our meal:

If I were to choke on some food and die, I would want it to be this food.

 

In a zen-like moment:

I can´t think about anything else except this food.  And maybe you (Chris).

 

We went to an old-school Parilla (grilled meat) restaurant in the Palermo neighborhood of BA.  Our waiter was immaculately professional.  His Spanish was of a sort that was very difficult to understand, the sort of Argentinian Spanish we´d heard about, with an accent one can imagine came straight our of the 1950s.  We ate scrumptious endive and heart of palm salad and shared a bife de ojo (rib eye) steak that was thicker than two decks of cards and pinker than the sunset on the Rio de la Plata.  We had a small bottle of Malbec and finished our meal with Flan con crema.  It was muy fantastico.  And, because we can´t help but report on the price, we did all of this for US$35.

 

Today we visited the San Temlo neighborhood and watched Tango on the streets which brought Olivia to tears and led her to exclaim, I want to give them all of my money! (Chris, cooler head prevailed).  We walked into La Boca neighborhood, one of the poorer neighborhoods in central BA.  For the first time, we saw some serious poverty and urban decay, garbage in the streets, loose dogs, buildings falling down on themselves.  It is sad, but part of any major city. We walked past the futbol stadium a few hours before a game.  We did tailgating BA style with loose dogs, 100s of policia and tasty tasty street meat.

 

(No major diarrhea yet)

 

Tonight we go to a tango show at La Tortóni, a classic, 19th century sort of place in the downtown area.  Tomorrow we fly to Mendoza.

Day 5 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Upon further reflection, we feel that our entries have seemed too negative. In fact, we are having a fantastic time. The people of Argentina and Uraguay have been extraordinarily helpful, kind and laid back. Buenos Aires feels very European, but very down to earth as well, a fine mix of old world and new.

However, we have a few more negative comments before we can tell you about the lovely markets, and beautiful gardens, fine restaurants and cute ferral cats.

We´ve been duped. In a Dramamine-induced haze we failed to recall some quite pertinent and useful advice a la Lonely Planet. Caution when giving a taxi driver large bills...they might switch the bills on you and give you a counterfeit bill in return...

um, that´s exactly what happened to us. And we didn´t realize we´d been duped until we tried to tip our waiter at a chi-chi sushi place in Palermo Viejo. We were pissed, and embarrassed. A crime of $30 in pride.

Chris also stepped in dog poo on the sidewalk 2x. But that happens in Paris too...

We´re staying at a super-chill art gallery/hostel. Our room is on the roof in a garden. We breakfasted and lunched in the sun. We explored Palermo, a barrio in BA that is a mix of the Village and Lincoln Park with a flair all its own.

We love it here. And will add more later, perhaps giving more information about the cute cats.

Day 4 Colonia del Sacremento, Uraguay

It rained today and we chose unwisely not to wear our rainpants since we´d be ducking into museums all day. this was a huge mistake. we got totally soaked. then we returned to our hostel and changed into raingear, but decided to have our lunch there and do some more trip planning. By the time we were ready to go, it was partly sunny and warmer... so we changed OUT of the raingear and once again headed to the old town. funny? sort of.

The museums of Colonia are... well, a little odd. Lots of bad taxadermy, random broken glass artifacts and post-impressionist paintings of conquistadors. funny? por supuesto! We also enjoyed our 4x attempt to ascend the lighthouse (they said it was open... we did not push the door hard enough?) and the alley cats. Colonia is beautiful, very historical; however, a bit run down and sad to see so many buildings abandoned still.

We return to our beloved BA this evening.

Day 3 Colonia del Sacremento, Uraguay

We woke up bright and early this morning and 100% of us (Chris, Olivia, Chris´ clothes...Olivia´s clothes) left our minimally functional hotel and boarded the gigantor ferry Eladia Isabel bound for Uruguay. The three hour trip was beautiful, though, despite our 1st class seats, we spent most of our time on the deck, owing to Chris' sea (river, actually) sickness. We may not have brought enough Dramamine...

Colonia is a beautiful ancient city, full of jumbled and treacherous cobblestones, ancient Portuguese forts, blue skies and loose dogs. We're enjoying fine Uruguan wine and our room in a lovely hostel in downtown Colonia. We head back to BA tomorrow night.

Day 2 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Upon Michael Eckblad´s suggestion, we visited a Hole in the Wall of the name El Desnivel in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires (BA) last night. The beef tenderloin was delicious. And only $5US. Thanks Michael!

Today we walked in rainy and brisk BA (its springtime here you know!) and saw Evita´s grave, ate tasty empanadas and visited the National Museum of Fine Arts. Now we´re off to Korean Barbecue, we leave for Uruguay in the morning.

When we return to BA on Friday, we switching hotels. Why, you might ask? Well, our current hotel (Gran Hotel Oriental) comes complete with a room with no windows, loud talkers outside our door and a shower head that empties directly onto the floor between the sink, toilet and bidet. Not classy, just crappy.

Day 1 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Some say that Buenos Aires is the Paris of South America, well, we say that Paris is the Buenos Aires of France. We had a fantastic trip down south (with the exception of Olivia´s generous use of the air sickness bags while landing in DC), 75% of us made it down here (Chris, Olivia, Chris luggage...).

Now we´re off to eat some beef.

Day -1 Greendale, Wisconsin, USA

We are in Greendale, Wisconsin and leave for Buenos Aires tomorrow. It has been a relaxing vacation already and we haven't even left the Midwest.

Please check back to this blog to monitor our progress through Argentina and Brazil.