Merry Christmas

Foz de Iguaçu

So we have not had much internet access for the past week but have had many adventures. After leaving rainy Belo Horizonte we landed in the scoarching sun of Foz de Iguaçu, the Brazilian town on the border with Argentina where the famous Iguazu falls reside. We stayed at a quaint hostel with lots of character and a whole bunch of friendly Europeans (Finns, Dutch, Israelis, etc). The falls (while expensive to enter the park) were absolutely stunning. I have hesitated to post this blog because I wont be able to include the much needed pictures since we are at an internet cafe. The falls dwarf Niagra (says our book), and I fully believe it. They are surrounded by lush Brazilian flora and fauna. There is a park on both the Argentina side and Brazilian side which give you a three hundred and sixty degree view of the power of the water. We even went on a boat ride right up to three of the 247 water falls to ´see´ them from below (but the spray/shower is so strong you can just sort of scream and close your eyes). We hiked around and saw thousands of butterflies (borboletas in Portuguese), giant lizards, and coati mundi (a racoon mixed with opossom looking creature that has no fear of humans).

Currently we are in Curitiba, the capital city of (the state) Parana (400 miles away from Foz). This was the city that mom was trying to convince Abba to stay at for sabbatical. (And she still thinks it would be very livable). The city has this great expansive car-free street with restaurants and street vendors and christmas decorations (including a christmas tree made of recycled two liter soda bottles). Picture to come for this as well. Today we went to Vila Velha--a ´stone city´ where these crazy geological sandstone pillars tower over you.

Wishing everyone Boas Festas (happy holidays). We will be flying on the 24th to Pernambuco to meet up with Moms cousin and spend time at her beach house

Rain

The rain continues to fall heavily so after lunch we took a little break at the hotel and I decided to update again. This morning we walked around the Municipal park in Belo Horizonte and then headed to a museum to get out of the rain. We had lunch at "Bem Natural" which had a wide/varied selection of great vegetarian food by the kilo. And I had an entire delicious meal without cheese (which seems to be the staple of all other meat-free diets in Brazil).

Last night we also went to a really nice dinner at Vila Arabe. There were two waiters doting on us and would even tuck you into your chair. We had no clue what was going on because they began bringing us food (falafels, pitas with cheese oregano and tomatoe, vegetarian kibes, etc) before we had even started ordering. It was a delicious meal. After dinner we walked around Praca da Liberdade which is absolutely adorned with Christmas lights. Every tree is intertwined with lights as is the gazebo. They made a huge archway down the center paths of lights as well. Unfortunately we didn't have a camera on us to capture the magic.

Monday Monday

...so (not) good to me. In Brazil the world SHUTS down on Mondays. EVERYTHING is closed. We left Ouro Preto this morning and took a two hour bus to Belo Horizonte. We wanted to go to this National Park nearby but it is also closed on Mondays. It was pouring rain all morning, finally the rain began to let up by afternoon. Belo is a bustley city. We are staying at a high-end hotel right on the main street. Prepared for rain we rode a bus to the outskirts of the city to a neighborhood called Pampulha. Not knowing where to begin we continued riding the bus to the end of the line and then started randomly walking. We walked around this HUGE man-made lake. We saw an entire herd of Capibarra (largest rodent on earth, see picture below), and a Crocodile.The lake was pretty dirty (brown water and FILLED with trash along the shores) from all the rain earlier today. There were also some vultures feasting on some carcasses but the pungent rotting smell kept us from approaching to see what they were feasting on. Our long walk culminated at this (closed) Church designed by the famous architect Niemeyer.

Here are some photos:



Oh and here are some good photos from yesterday's travels. We went into a gold mine that plunged deep into the earth. It was basically like Gringotts on this rickety cart (unfortunately vault 364 was empty).






After the mine we went to town Mariana and checked it out

Ouro Preto

Ouro Preto:


We arrived this morning at 7:30 (by night bus from Rio) to Ouro Preto and walked around town for 8 hours. We had this tour-guide who approached us at 8am after we dropped our bags at a cute little pousada, and offered us a little explanation of the town sights. Little was an understatement. He could talk for days about the city and would even chastise Nina and I if we weren't paying close enough attention. He offered us a tour in Spanish so that we would all understand but actually spoke Portanol (Portuguese + Espanol). But even though this was easy for me to understand my head began to hurt after about hour 3. We went into numerous churches and adjoining museums, climbed up and down the steep cobble stone streets of the town and even got to tour a small gold mine. I learned cute love stories about a Portuguese judge and a Brazilian girl, I know the nuances and characteristics of the sculptor Aleijandinho who had a disease that crippled his hands and feet but could still carve wood and soap stone statues, and I can now compare Baroque gold-plating patterns with Rococo. Even at lunch we got no break, he showed us to a restaurant and sat down and ate with us! (He was shocked to find out that Mom, was related to me, he thought she was Nina and my school teacher).

Needless to say, the town is adorable. The red shingles and brick houses against the hilly lush green landscape remind me of Austria and Bavaria. Gold was found here back in the 1600's and the mines here produced something like the weight of 100,000 cars!

Here we are at the mouth of Jeje Mine

Rio Photos

Uploading photos is not fast at all with this internet connection, but I couldn't help but share with you some of our Rio trip.

Here amy and I are on top of the world with Jesus. The view from the top gives you a 360 of all of Rio's hilly and coastal terrain


We had a picnic lunch amongst the shady foliage of Parque Lage. On the menu was bread and a sun-dried tomatoe spread, mozzarella cheese, a cucumber, with mangos and cookies for dessert.



Despite the prediction of a rainy Wednesday the sun melted us to exhaustion today. Here we are at the Lapa Steps that are tiled and mosaic-ed by a Chilean man Salaron. He was working on them while we visiting and obliged us with a picture. These steps were the inspiration for the steps in San Francisco.

Rio

Greetings from Rio!

This is our third day here and the differences between and Salvador are absolutely drastic. Rio is a metropolitan city compared to Salvador, which now in retrospect is like a small town with three million people. So far the weather has been great, though they predict rain for the rest of the week. It is way less humid than the north and the breeze keeps the 31 degree sunshine not feel too hot.

We visited Christ the Redeemer, spent a quick afternoon on the sandy shores of Ipanema, introduced Nina to Acai (which she now is wants to eat for every meal), we explored by chance the Parque Lage and discovered the coolest set of rock caves, had a picnic in the park, and we hit up the Jardim Botanico. Today we are headed over to the famous Lapa stairs and to explore Centro a little more.

We are staying up at the top of this hill in a neighborhood called Gloria in this funky guest house with a bunch of other Europeans (mostly students or volunteers). There is the cutest kitty, dog, and turtle that live with us as well as an extremely friendly, a little eccentric owner who can speak every language imaginable.

I'll have to post pictures later.

Traveling

Dear Friends and Family,

I had some more posts I would have liked to put up (along with pictures), but, alas, my time has run short (and my suitcase too small). Instead of blogging I've been running around doing other things for my last hours in Salvador. Today I am headed to Rio to meet Nina, one of my best friends from home, who has been studying abroad in Buenos Aires. I am not sure how much internet time I will spend on my travels.

My mom arrives in Rio on December 12th and then we head to Minas Gerais. After a little less than a week we fly down to Iguazu falls and check out Curitiba. Then we will fly up North to Recife and spend the rest of our time at my mother's cousin's beach house there.

I send my beijos and amor.

Boa Viaje!

Lasts

Come Sunday I leave Salvador...so this week has been full of lasts. Last days of class, last finals. A couple of hours ago I just turned in my last paper to officially signify the end of the term. Tonight we have our Despedida Dinner where us students and our host mothers will come together and share one last meal. Last night I went to my last Capoeira class. It was super sweet. In honor of the occasion the mestre had me play everyone in the Roda. Usually, everyone takes a turn and rotates, but they made all the people I was playing rotate while I got to be in the spotlight. Another farewell tradition they have is at the end of class have a "Samba de Roda." This is a uniquely Bahian style of Samba that involves 3 quick and small steps and a lot of booty shaking. Everyone stands in a circle clapping as a few men play the drum, tambourine, and berimbau. One girl and one boy dance in the middle and people rotate through as they wish. The boys get creative with how to kick out the man and do everything from pulling on his corda (capoeira belt) to forcibly remove him or hand him a cellphone as if someone was calling. At the end of it all everyone hugged me and I was very touched by how much everyone was sad to see me go.

I feel a little like I am about to head into limbo. There is still about a month until I return to the US, but only 2 days until I leave the home I have made here in Brazil. I am excited to travel around, especially to meet up with Nina in Rio and my mom on the 12th. But I am not looking forward to the exhaustion of unfamiliar cities and being a lost tourist.