Greetings from Brazil

So, as I´m sure you´ve figured out from the subject header by now, I´m in Brazil. Why Brazil? Because United egged me into it by having a great last minute airfare deal, and I still needed to get a South American passport stamp. That´s a good enough reason, right? And since so many of you enjoyed these weekly updates last summer, I figured I´d capture my travels with an encore presentation (I hope I'm not being too presumptuous here). But alas, I´m only here for 10 days, so it won´t last very long. Monday, November 17th Went to work for a half-day this morning (though my co-workers would claim that it wasn´t really work), and headed down to Philly in the afternoon where my overnight journey to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil would begin. Actually, I should be spelling the country as Brasil. How in the world did we manage to mini-butcher the country´s name by substituting a ´z´? Regardless, Brasil has a nice ring to it. Which got me thinking... what the heck does United States mean anyway? Aren´t most countries a group of states that are united? Perhaps it meant something 227 years ago before we were a country that the individual states were united against the British oppression (damn Brits!), but now it doesn´t make all that much sense anymore. I mean look at Canada, even they have a real name (sorry if you were expecting a Canadian joke there, but my new boss is from that village, eh?). In any case, my point is that nothing happened today. The whole country-name thing was simply filler material. Oh wait - I did meet the most obnoxiously rude airline hostess that I've ever encountered in my life. Tuesday, November 18th I actually landed in Sau Paulo first, which is the world´s third most populous city in the world. The view from above confirmed this. I couldn´t spot a park or futbol field anywhere to save my life - the whole landscape was just covered with rooftops, even up and down hills. Really strange. After catching the connecting flight to Rio, I decided to take the city bus to my hotel. I´m always a little leary as to how to get to my hotel in any new country, because I know that there are a ton of airport scams. And since I had absolutely no clue where I was in relation to my accomodation or how much it should cost, and I couldn´t really converse with any of the natives to figure it out (everyone speaks Portuguese), I took my chances with the $0.75 city bus, which would also give me a nice tour of the city in the meantime. Well, at least, that´s what I thought. I got a good tour of traffic jams. It took about 2 hours, I think. Since I don´t wear a watch, keeping track of time has been a minor recurring issue this entire trip. So Rio is pretty darn hot. I got off the city bus in the Copa, Copacabana area (yes, the same one of Barry Manilow fame) and walked about 6 blocks in the oppressive heat to my hostel. By the way, before I forget, oppressive is the word of the day, so every time you read it, you must scream as loud as you can, as if I were Pee Wee Herman and this were my Playhouse. Yes, I stayed in a hostel in Rio. Since I´m traveling alone, I had no idea how I´d meet up with anyone unless I did this. It was a good choice. Everyone there spoke English and was really really friendly. The place is called Newton´s Rooftop Hostel, and ran me a whopping $8 per night. It´s pretty neatly decorated and has a deck on the rooftop where all of the backpackers hung out at night, speaking English and drinking beer. I even had dinner with them up there - we ordered out for some Domino's! Let me tell you - Domino's makes a mean margherita pizza down here with fresh basil leaves. By the time I got here, it was already late in the day and it was crazy hot. So I just stayed here and chatted with the other backpackers. Yes, that was lame and very un-Paraag like. However, I chalked it up to my required "adjustment period". The rooms didn´t have air-conditioning, so I didn´t sleep very well. Neither did my three hottie female roommates (2 Austrians, 1 Hollandaise?). Because of the heat, okay? Because of the heat. The oppressive heat. Wednesday, November 19th After waking up in the morning and peeling out of bed - it was sweaty-sticky, you know, from the heat. Really, from the heat. I mean seriously folks, get your minds out of the collective gutter. Can I continue here? As I was saying, after I got up and had a shower and a basic breakfast, I wandered over to a few travel agencies to set up the remainder of my itinerary. I really had nothing planned at all when I left and tried to figure it out on the plane. Unfortunately, there was no way I could really do any hiking in the Amazon - it´s too far away. And besides, I didn´t get a yellow-fever injection or the remainder of my Hepatitis injections from last year. Bad Paraag. One of the things that I booked was a half day tour in Rio today. We saw the Maracaña Stadium, which is the largest futból stadium in the world, holding close to 200,000 people in it. That´s pretty large. But the highlight of the trip was the double cable car journey up to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain (Pao do Açucar). From there, you can see the entire city and realize what an odd selection of locations this is to have a city. There are mountains everywhere, and the city pretty much exists in all of the valleys. So, some of the areas are only connected by a few tunnels here and there. Kinda neat. While I was up there, I saw some dark clouds coming in from the horizon and tried in vain to catch a bolt of lightning in a picture. Of course, then the thunderstorms hit us on the mountain and we were stuck for about an hour. But the rain was a welcome addition after the oppressive heat (are you yelling yet?). I met a guy from New York during this trip - he was wearing an NYPD shirt similar to the one my brother owns (as well and millions of others), but this guy was actually NYPD. And he added another example to back my long-held theory - most policemen are arrogant, egotistical jerks. Perhaps they have to be, though. The only policeman I've met personally who wasn't a jerk was one of my techs (ex-police) in Cape Girardeau, MO. But then again, I was his boss... In the evening, a few of us from the hostel went out to a restaurant to get some of the local food. Most meals here in Brazil are pretty darn large and are recommended for two people. That really sucks for me since I´m traveling alone. But in this situation, it worked out well - two of us split a filet mignon platter. So, I was expecting something like 10 oz for each of us or something like that. Rather, it looked like each of us got about 24 oz of beef - a filet, no less. It was even better than Outback Steakhouse. I had a hard enough time finishing off the beef than to even begin worrying about the creamed rice that came with it (eww...). And it was gooooood (like Jimmy Dean). After our marathon meal, we strolled over to the Copa, Copacabana waterfront at one of many small stalls set up there and had a few rounds of the local favorite, caipirinhas. It had a few different liquors in it, so it kinda resembled a long island ice tea. Except that a small glass was all of 3 Reals (= $1 USD). That´s almost as cheap as New York City bars. But hanging out on the beach, sipping some drinks, and chatting with other English-speaking people was really awesome. Thursday, October 20th Peeled myself out of bed this morning and headed down to the Copa, Copacabana beach. It´s pretty long. Around the corner from the Copa, Copacabana beach´s end is the Ipanema beach (as in that song "The Girl from Ipanema"), but I didn´t get that far. I simply strolled around, enjoying the cloud cover and medium heat, people-watching, and making sure that I wasn´t being robbed by the "accidental bump" move. There were plenty of people playing beach volleyball - but not normal beach volleyball. This futból crazed place was playing with futból rules - no hands or arms, including the service. It was pretty darn cool. I thought to myself, "I can´t do that". I also had the pleasure of seeing the sasquatch himself cruise down the beach on a bike. Twice. After a few hours of strolling, I headed out on my first adventure. An 18 hour bus ride to Foz do Iguaçu. Or at least my travel agent said it was 18 hours. The good book (a.k.a. Lonely Planet travel guide) claimed that it was a 21 hour ride. There were no flights available for a few more days, and they were pretty darn expensive anyway. Surprisingly enough, the bus was really really comfy - much better than any bus I´ve seen in the US in fact. Attached to the back of the seat in front of you is a pull down cushioned pad to bridge the gap between the edge of the seat and your footrest. And the seats reclined a ton too. It was like having a Barc-o-lounger in the bus. You remember the oppressive heat I was complaining about? Well, the Brazilians go all out with the air-conditioning. Before long, I couldn´t go to sleep because my knee-caps were frozen (really). It took a while to muster up the courage to charade my way into explaining to the driver that I was freezing my knee-caps off and needed to get into my bag to get some cloths of warmth. Friday, November 21st So I'm still in that gosh darn bus. Until 2pm or so - that ended up being 23 hours. I was in a great mood. Fortunately, I had purchased a package tour that included a tour of the Brazilian falls and 2 nights at a hotel - a real hotel. After a wonderfully refreshing shower, the tour guide took me on my own personal tour of the Brazilian Iguacu Falls - the Falls are split between Argentina and Brazil. But before seeing the nice birds-eye view of the falls, I took a different 2 hour tour that culminated in a boat ride into the spray of the falls. It was incredible - we got absolutely soaked from the spray of the waterfalls. It was so intense that you couldn't even open your eyes to see the falls. So as I was saying, the falls are split between Brazil and Argentina. But much like Niagara falls, this split is not even. Most of the falls are on the Argentinian side, but Brazil has a nice overview of the entire thing - they built a walkway out on top of the river to the tip of the falls to give some nice close-up views. Regardless, the Niagara Falls (and even the Victoria Falls in Africa) pale in comparison. These falls are much much taller and 10 times wider. Simply breath-taking. No amount of time would have been enough to let it soak in - it was that amazing. I'm really at a loss for words to describe it - I'm just glad that the imagery is still fresh in my mind! Saturday, November 22nd Today, I took a full day tour of the Argentinian side of the Falls with my hotel tour guide and a few others. We had a few hikes to get to some amazing vista points of the Argentinian side - spectacular. It's kind of like how the Canadian Horseshoe Falls are so much more impressive than the US Niagara Falls, and then multiply that by 10. And I guess that I really can't call it a hike so much - all the walkways were comfortably paved so that anyone could do it. This was good for my tour group, since the others in the group were all over 60 years of age. But similar to the Brazilian side, these paved roadway did extend out to the edge of the falls. Regardless, I was a bit bummed since I was hoping to do some real hikes and see some of the wildlife as well. I came away with the realization that any time I go and see a natural wonder like this in the future, I should do it on my own terms if possible such that I can sit and stare for any amount of time I want. But, I did see a toucan. I named him Sam. He's my very bestest friend. For dinner that evening, I did something that I probably should have regretted. I had sushi in a third-world country. Probably not the best idea I've had so far, but then again, considering the lack of pure adventure on this trip thus far, perhaps it was necessary. Though it's well past Saturday, I'll split this up into two e-mails and finish the rest later when I get home. As I've said already, this trip has been very much Kix-like: mom-approved. There's been no rolling down hills in large inflated plastic balloons, no go-carting steep slopes sans railings, no jumping off of cable cars with a rubber band around the ankles, no riding on top of a truck (no seatbelt!) through curvy roads, and no near death experiences by scooter. I'll try to change that by the next e-mail. Tidbits: 1. Pregnant women here walk around with their bellies hanging out. Not that this is wrong or anything, it's just something I'm not used to seeing. I suppose it's seen as a natural stage in life that doesn't need to be hidden. In fact, one of the very attractive Brasilian MTV VJ's was very noticeably pregnant. I don't think this would fly very well in the US. 2. Now I'm as much a Telemundo fan as the next person (just ask my new roomie Steve of Brit-land), but some shows were just not intended to be dubbed over in Spanish. Like Spongebob Squarepants. 3. Lastly, if anyone wants a soccer jersey, let me know soon and I'll try and get you one. They look pretty darn authentic down here, and there's a multitude to choose from. Let me know if you have a specific team that you want and I'll see if I can find it tomorrow. My guess is that they are running less than $20 (probably $15). 4. Brits and Aussies (and perhaps all Europeans) go to the store and buy a slab of beer. A slab is pretty much a 12 pack. So, the conversion factor in use here is 2 slabs = 1 case, or 1 slab = 0.5 cases. Let me know if you need more time. - Paraag