Coração

Brazil
12/17/2008

Coração, Corazón, Heart, or Soul. Whatever word you use, Brazilians have it. Once I was on a bus, and as you know I can´t speak portuguese. The bus driver knew I couldn´t speak and He smiled, and help out with our bags, and gave me a big thumbs up, as is so common here in Brasil. The overall feeling I have gotten from brazilians is a true happiness to be alive, and have a good time. All of our friend we met along the way were always looking for the most fun thing to do that night, even if we were tired. Both of us will really miss Brasil after these last 12 days.

Today we had a slow day, still recovering from the long bus trip from Paraty. We woke up to a delicious breakfast, bread, cheese, coffee, and sweetbread. It was very sunny, and I changed my clothes in to a bathing suit. There is a nice small pool here that I jumped into and took a quick swim. The sun was so hot, that I quickly dried off. Later this evening, we are going to the Rodeo! Feste Country Avaré! After a late lunch (lasgna, steak, rice and beans) and a shower we headed to a city, Avaré, 15 minutes away from Cerqueira César. The Fairgounds were bustling with the typical style, we even have in the US. Even after a while summer in Idaho, and a few trips to the midwest, I have never sat through a whole rodeo! We walked around the fairgrounds, got some wine (which they mixed with sweetened condensed milk!!!) and beer. Then we went to the Crepe stand. They fry crepes with cheese inside on a george forman type of grill, very good, but interesting. We tried to sound the bullhorn trumpets, but were very unsuccessful, I will post pictures. Then the rodeo got started. It is now 10:00 pm! When would a rodeo START at 10:00pm? Only in South America.It was very exciting, many bull riders, and bucking broncos, loud sounds of american pop music (rolling stones, Eric clapton) sung in Portuguese! In between riders small dogs in costumes ran around the stadium. Oh yeah, Of course there is also the fog shrouded jesus, emerging out of a globe... Very interesting. The Rodeo ended and A concert began, It was good, but much more pop then any of the other brazilian music we had listened to (samba, bossa nova). Around 2:20 AM the concert was over, and we headed home. This part of brazil is very much a country side, with many plantations of Soy, corn and Coffee. You can see very far, even at night as we drove home. We went to bed and slept in big time.

We woke up at around 1 pm. Long story short... We said our sad goodbyes to our host family, and got on the very long bus ride(s) to Puerto Iguazú, Argentina.

Brasil was a very exciting, fun country that we would reccommend anybody who has the time to travel to. In 12 days we spent 1500R, about 640$ for two people. In reality it is not that expensive, 320$ per person. We could have spent more, but we could have spent less, we splurged a little. However, if you do go to brazil, plan to spend more time in Rio de Janeiro then 5 days, You could easily spend 10 days without getting bored. Our next trip to brazil will be to Fortaleza, and exploring the north coast, it is supposed to be amazing, for brazilian standards.

So that was the end of Brasil, and now we are in Argentina, and we will be here for about two months, expect to hear more about Argentina as we learn about it!

In response to questions:

It is hot here! very hot! from 80-90 Degrees during the day. We have a few scary times, not that scary though. a guy followed our very large group when we were in rio, but then stopped. We saw a very scary dead snake, but it wasnt poisonous, it was the kind that squeese to death, and it was very small. and thats about it. We have met many people along the way, very excting people who are fun to travel with. Right now we are headed to our friends house to be with his family for christmas. Laina doesnt want to write, she is happy i am. She helps me come up with ideas.