Gooooooaaaaaaaal!

Day one in Rio was spent on a sightseeing tour, with the highlights being the views from Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain. Rio is best seen at a distance: the vistas from the mountaintops are beautiful, but when you get down into the city it is quite hot and crowded.

Day two was supposed to be slower but filled up pretty quick. In the morning we spent some time on the famous Copacabana beach, though found it too hot (32C) and the water too choppy to stay for any length of time.


In the afternoon we had tickets for football. It was the championship game for the Rio province league so there was quite a buzz. The far-and-away favorites, Flamengo, won on a single goal by their superstar Ronaldhino. Given the reaction from the crowd, they appear to have also cured cancer and solved world poverty as well.


Now we're waiting in Sao Paulo for our flight to Manaus. Unfortunately, we're pretty sure that the customs officials here screwed up and took away our immigration forms when they were not supposed to when we connected through the international terminal, and now we'll need to see if we can talk our way out of a fine when we try to leave the country next week. Otherwise we have to pay a $100 fine. :(

Rio, baby!

Paraty is an anagram for "a party", but we didn't really.

(Brief post today since we've got little time.)

Paraty is a small, coastal town that got frozen in time when the gold route between Sao Paulo and Rio moved inland. Beautiful, cobblestone streets felt authentic and had only a spattering of tourists on them, and then locals do not practice the aggressive, hard-sell vendor tactics you normally find in this sort of tropical resort.

For Jessica's birthday, we took a boat tour of some of the surrounding islands and beaches. The weather held up perfectly for the tour, then clouded over the moment we finished.

For dinner we were taken to a local families historic home in the old district of Paraty for a traditional Brazilian barbecue, but everyone bailed early because it had been a long, hot day and we had to be up quite early to get to Rio at a reasonable hour.

Today, Rio...

If at first you don't succeed (at landing a jet aircraft with hundreds of people on board), try try again.

Today was mostly a travel day, getting from Iguassu Falls to Paraty (on the coast between Sao Paulo and Rio). The one interesting bit was the landing in Sao Paulo, which the captain decided to abort when we were only a hundred feet or so above the runway. He then gunned it and we flew off again and spent thirty minutes lining up for another approach. Very exciting in a "I wonder if we just nearly died?" sort of way.

Here's a picture of me back at Iguassu Falls to calm your nerves:

*Do* go chasing waterfalls.

Holy crap! Iguassu Falls are like Jurassic Park meetings Disneyworld meets Universal Studios. We spent two days going over, around, & into the falls and the awe never wore off. Looking back it's almost difficult to remember that the falls were not CGI special effects; this is a real place on Earth and not some Avatar bullcrap.

Unfortunately, I (Andrew) left my favorite hat on one of the boats at the falls. I bought that hat for the World Ultimate Championships in Scotland in 1998, sewed the Canadian flag onto it with care, and it has been all around the world with me.

Now it's gone.

The vacation is ruined.

Does Russell know about this?

We're 90% sure that our driver here in Iguassu is Boston Rob from Survivor:

Too old for this crap.

Not much time to post right now. We're in Brazil and are out to see the Iguazu Falls today.

We got in late yesterday evening (Jessica's visa worked!) and were taken to a party at the house of one of the tour operator's brother-in-law's house. Quite fun but most of the attendees were from a "twentysomething backpack your way through South America getting drunk and having random sex until dad's money runs out" tour and they were much rowdier and more energetic than we were.

Our group is a little older (we're the "youngest old people") and once we got fed (fantastic Brazilian barbecue) we promptly hinted to our guide that we wouldn't mind a ride back to the hotel, just as the young people were taking off their clothes to frolic in the pool.

(The debate is whether our operator drew the long straw or the short straw to get our tour group - yes he would get to party with the nubile, young, beautiful people, but they get to our next stop via a 22 hour bus ride whereas we get to fly.)

Don't cry for me, stinky kitty.

After a long day of travel and a good night's sleep (no jetlag when you go straight south!) we spent most of the day today on a tour around Buenos Aires. The highlight was Recoleta Cemetary, entirely above-ground consisting of rows and row of mausoleums, decorated with dozens of stray cats passing the day snoozing in the sun. The most famous resident here is Eva Peron. (Admit it, you know nothing of her history other than what Andrew Lloyd Weber told you; neither did we.)

English-speaking service has been rare and has led to some miscues. Last night we ordered enough pizza to feed the Argentine army (albiet you need to define pizza as a piece of pita bread with eight cubic meters of melted cheese on top of it - cheap at about $8 CAD though); today we managed to only order one entrée for lunch between the two of us. Luckily, we did manage to figure out how to order beer in moderate quantities:

Tonight we're off for Tango lessons.

(DISCLAIMER: Spellcheck insists on running in Spanish so I am nor responsible for all my terribly spelling and grammar in this or any other post.)

Not chilly in Chile.

Hey look. I'm in Chile. Can't you tell?