Manaus and the Amazon: Where the Wild Things Are

The last thing you want after you´ve rushed to the airport is to find out that your flight (which was already supposed to get in after 1am) has been delayed. Gail and I ended up spending three hours in the Rio de Janeiro airport before our flight finally *left* just after one, pulling into Manaus somewhere in the 4am hour. We got to our hotel and settled in for a good ``night´s´´ sleep. Fortunately, we didn´t have much on the agenda for that next day, anyway. This is Monday the 25th of February we are talking about.

We woke up to a torrential downpour and decided against doing our Meeting of the Waters tour, opting instead to save it for the following day. Thus, we put on our big rubber boots, which we had brought along for the Amazon, got ready to brave the outside, and here was our mistake for the day: dressing for the way the weather was instead of the way the weather was going to be. We went into town and walked all around, checking out sidestreets, the supermarket, and having a picnic lunch in the plaza right by the Teatro Amazonas , the opera house located in the heart of Manaus. During our walk around town, everyone loooked at us and I´m sure immediately recognized that we were tourists. As soon as they looked down and saw our big rubber boots, however (by now the rain had more than stopped), I´m sure they thought lots of other things. Guess those boots were not made for walkin´! After our picnic lunch, we did a tour of the operahouse (apparently, one cannot effectively ``do´´ Manaus without checking out said operahouse -- I suppose that´s true, but I wouldn´t say that that´s because the operahouse is the most spectacular tourist attraction on the planet) and then went back to the hotel. We were also told that it might be a good idea to check out ``the boardwalk´´ right outside the grounds of our hotel, so we walked along that strip and found some native dancers doing their version of a dance. Amusing, to say the least, but not worth sticking around for.

Tuesday morning we were able to capitalize on the cloudy (but not rainy) weather and do our tour of Meeting of the Waters. What this means is that we went to see where the black waters of the Rio Negro meet the brown waters of the Rio Solimões, the river that turns into the Amazon River. Our tourguide drove us to the port, where we picked up a boat and went to the place where the waters meet (kind of anti-climactic), and then we got out and went for a swim. The strange thing is that the black water is warm and exactly where you cross into the Solimões River, it becomes really cold. Needless to say, we didn´t stay in that part for long. So, we got back in the boat and watched dolphins circle nearby instead! We got back to the hotel in time to have lunch and get a cab to the airport. Just our luck, however, that the taxi driver brought us to the *wrong* airport. Fortunately, the airports are around the corner from one another, so we hopped another cab and made it to our flight with a few minutes to spare.

This flight was going to a town deeper into the Amazon called Tefé, but we were just going there en route to our final destination. Once we landed in Tefé and picked up our luggage off the -- yes, it´s true -- luggage bench, we went to the port, where we picked up a boat that took us an hour and a half even *deeper* into the Amazon (who even thought it was possible at this point?), to our final destination: a place called Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá (Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve). We stayed at a place called the Uakari Lodge -- a floating lodge in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There is no television, no internet, not even a singular telephone. The whole place is run on solar power, and though we had a bathroom with sinks and showers with running water and everything, water was to be kept to a minimum so as not to run out of hot water. As for drinking water, we had two small pitchers in our room of potable water. Our beds were encased in mosquito nets, but that kind of became a moot point when the screens in our little huts had larger-than-regular-screen-size-holes in them (and if you need to get out of bed for any reason, you have to pull your mosquito net up, thereby letting in all the bugs, who, fortunately, weren´t our sleeping companions since we lathered up well with insect repellent before settling into our generally bug-free slumber). But anyway, where was I?

After we arrived at the lodge (all six of us, thus making seven tourists total staying there), we met the staff and then had dinner. Food there is prepared by the same chef all week (though chefs rotate from week to week), and the food consists of only local products, which means it could be fish, chicken, rice, beans, local fruits, etc. This was the first time I was in Brazil and there was no red meat to be found. Imagine! After dinner, we watched a BBC/Animal Planet DVD on the Amazon to get an idea of what we might see, and that was the evening´s activity. Fran, the guide in charge of our group all week, told us that sometimes at night (but during the dry season, so not now) it is possible to hear caimans under your huts. That would have been cool! (Of course, it is easy to say that now, since I didn´t have to try to fall asleep to that.)

On Wednesday morning, we had an early breakfast and then headed out in a small motorboat to hike a trail in the várzea (flooded forest). After the trail, we took another boat ride to look for animals and such. (It is not possible to go anywhere without taking a boat/canoe.) All in all, during this morning, we saw: coatis , cicadas, a frog, howler monkeys, a lizard, three-toed sloths, and jaguar footprints. One of our guides said that the footprints we saw were fresh and belonged to a jaguar who had run away because of being scared that we were coming. After the trail and boat ride, we returned to the lodge, where there was still enough time for a nap in the hammock on the back porch before lunch. It turns out the schedule that this lodge follows is great, because after lunch, we had a couple of hours of free time before our next activity. So, I returned to my hammock (which was perfectly elevated so I kind of had to climb into it) for my afternoon soneca (nap).

That afternoon, we took our motorboat to a little house a few riverbends away (cue Pocahontas song here: ``Just Around the River Bend´´), where three people run a project called Project Boto. These three people live in a *tiny* house and have nowhere to go but out looking for dolphins, as their project is to collect data on and to study dolphins, or botos , in the Amazon. Being in their little house was like being in an episode of Lost and seeing what one of the projects was like. Either way, that house was *tiny* and the people who work there really have to be dedicated. It was tough enough sitting through the presentation of 45 minutes or so and then going out looking for dolphins for an hour or so. Don´t get me wrong -- it was fun when they popped out of the water, but I´m sure that novelty wears off when you have to collect data on them for months and months. After we got back from the boto house, we had dinner and then listened to Fran give a presentation on Mamirauá (the reserve) and all the work they do there. A couple of the more interesting things she mentioned was that 1) mamirauá means ``baby manatee´´ and 2) among all the aspects that they are studying at the reserve, it is difficult to study the impact that we have on the environment.

Thursday brought a new day of Amazonian adventures. We started out with an early breakfast, followed by a long hike in the forest (note: during such hikes, I am generally dressed like Kenny , from South Park, so as to avoid as many ´squitoes as possible). During this hike, we saw coatis, a squirrel (they are fewer and farther between in the Amazon than in the U.S.), birds, spiders, etc. The guide said that the trail we were walking on would be submerged in water in one month´s time because of the rainy season. (When this happens, tourists at the lodge can only do the trails by canoe, as it is impossible to walk them.) We got back in time for the now-regular pre-lunch nap, and then following lunch, it was all too easy to jump back into that hammock. (If you had the opportunity to catch up on two months´ worth of lost sleep, wouldn´t you take it?) This afternoon´s activity consisted of a four-hour boat ride, which was broken up by a quick walk in the forest to see a tree called ``Queen of the Forest,´´ and rightfully so, as it reaches heights of at least 250m. We spent the boat ride (as we spent all boat rides) looking for animals. At one point during the ride, Fran said, ``Do you hear that? It´s rain!´´ I thought she was just pointing out that it was raining somewhere else and not where we were. Really, though, it was a 15-second warning before it would be a downpour over us, too. It´s good I was quick to break out the rainjacket; Fran really knows her sounds. We got to one point in Lake Mamirauá where we stopped to watch the sunset, and after that, we took a ride back to the lodge in the dark, looking for animals via flashlight. We had been told that it might be possible that fish could jump into our boat, and we should just throw them back into the water. It was funny when a sardine jumped in right next to me! It was slimy, and I tried to pick it up to throw it back into the water, but then it slid under the floorboards in the boat. I think it slipped through the cracks, though (in a good way), and made it back to the water, because I didn´t see it glistening anymore later on when I checked for it by flashlight or the next day. Closer to the lodge on our way back, we saw a black caiman poking out of the water, which, though we´d seen one before right by the lodge, was creepier this time because it was pitch black outside, and he was just frozen looking at us looking at him (her?). Spoooooky! When we got back to the lodge, we all had dinner and called it a night.

Friday was a different kind of program from the norm. After breakfast, we all got into our motorboat and went to visit a local community, called Boca do Mamirauá. There are 14 families that live there, totaling 56 people. They have houses, a schoolhouse, a shop where they sell beaded jewelry and such, a soccer field, a radio station, etc. At the soccer field (where they bring people together from all local communities to have matches -- both men and women alike), they also have bleachers -- consisting of two benches, one behind the other in stadium seating fashion -- to hold the trophies. According to the community guide, trophies generally consist of a pig or cow or something like that. When we visited the radio station, the community guide interrupted some of your favorite top 40 Amazon hits to introduce some of his new tourist friends, so a few of us took turns introducing ourselves over their radio waves, just saying our names and where we were from. Hooray! I´m famous! 56 people now know my name and where I am from! And now, my 15 minutes are complete and I can rest easy. Once we returned to the lodge, I settled in to my regular pre-lunch and post-lunch routine. The afternoon activity was a canoe ride (as opposed to going out in the motorboat). When we go out in the motorboat, everyone (all six or seven of us) goes. For the canoe trip, however, it was just me and Gail, and the guide (Paulo) of course, who paddled us through the trail. However, he should have attended Fran´s presentation on our impact on the environment, because he would break branches and whatnot so our canoe could get by, otherwise disturbing the very peaceful ride we were otherwise experiencing. It´s amazing how much quieter we were going by canoe rather than by traipsing through the forest on our own feet. When we got back from the canoe trip, we had dinner and then the evening´s activity (that is, if we chose to partake, and we did) was a night hike, so we could experience the sounds of the forest at nighttime. Personally, I think it sounded similar to what we heard from our hut, but that´s besides the point. So we set out in the motorboat while it was lightning to get to the trail to take our 300m night hike (in our rubber boots, since it had just rained...first time we were able to wear the boots!). The guides were leading with flashlights and we ended up seeing a giant toad. We had been told earlier that sometimes people don´t see anything and the point of the exercise is more for the sounds and the experience than to see stuff (I think that´s how they cover themselves in case you see nothing...of *course* you´d see nothing; it´s pitch-freaking-black outside!), but regardless, I made it back safe and soundless to the safety of my mosquito-netted bed.

Saturday was to be our last day in the Amazon. After breakfast, we went on another long canoe ride with Paulo, where we saw bats, monkeys, birds, lizards, and dolphins. When we got back, we had lunch and got everything together to take the one-and-a-half-hour boat ride back to Tefé (which we did in an hour -- I guess our driver was speeding). In Tefé, Gail and I took a 42-seater plane (yuck!) to a town called Coari, where it stopped for about 10 minutes before taking off again and heading back to Manaus. Now, I did not have a choice in the matter as to whether I took this small plane or not (I know, I know -- some of you might be thinking that a 42-seater isn´t so small...). But what I have learned is that the best way to forget about taking a small plane is to do everything you brought with you -- listen to music, read your book, eat the snacks they serve you on board, etc. In fact, the only redeeming part about these two short flights (instead of having a direct flight from Tefé to Manaus) was that they served two sets of snacks! But moving on... Once we got to Manaus, we took the taxi from the little airport around the corner to the big airport, where we proceeded to spend the next six/seven hours killing time until our next flight to São Paulo. Lucky for us, that flight was delayed a bit, too! What already started as a 12:25am flight was now pushed to just after 1am.

When we finally boarded the plane, I thought I would end up getting some much-needed sleep (after all, I had missed out on my two naps for the day), but it turns out that the people I was sitting next to had similar travel plans to mine (and one of them and I even found someone we both know through the ever-so-famous name game), so I ended up talking to them for the duration of the flight. By the time we landed in São Paulo, the sleep level was still at zero, but the tired component was at a max.

At this point, I picked up my bags and said goodbye to Gail, as I had to continue on my way to go check in for my next flight. From the moment I stepped onto this latest plane, it was as if I had already left Brazil. When I had been in Argentina for those two hours when I was in Iguazu Falls, some Argentines had asked me to take pictures of them, and I responded to them in Portuguese, not even bothering to change the channels of my mind from Portuguese into Spanish, because I´d just have to change back at the end of the day. Now, however, it´s time to put Portuguese aside and open the Spanish drawer, since I won´t be going back to Brazil at the end of the day. All I have to say is thank the heavens for the language called Portuñol or Portunhol (Portuguese/Spanish)! The language exists, although in my head, it is more like a frustration that comes when you can hear the radio frequency you want but you just can´t tune the radio to it. Anyway, when I reached my seat on the plane, it turned out that I had finally caught a break, and I had the row to myself, where I was able to sleep for the duration (albeit short, but still duration nonetheless) of my flight to Montevideo, Uruguay.

Anyway, that´s it for now. Hope you´re all well. Be sure to check the weather before you go taking a walk on the wild side.

hasta luego,
missy
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com

A Bird´s Eye View of Rio de Janeiro: You stop running, and we crash!

When you go to some of the heavily touristed cities in a country, it´s not fun to do *only* the touristy things. Personally, after spending so much time going through my guidebook, I started to get burnt out (ok, not ´´started to,´´ as there´s no gradual transition into a burnt-out phase). So by the time I got to Rio, I had no day-by-day agenda, and now that I have left Rio, while there will always be more to see, I can´t think of any one thing that I had wanted to do beforehand that I didn´t do while I was there. Maybe having the laid-back, Brazilian (Bahian) attitude about going about my itinerary was the right way to do it. Scratch that -- it *was* the right way to do it. I´ll start from Wednesday the 20th, the day I got there.

I left Iguazu Falls in the morning (not having paid any excess baggage taxes, by the way) and arrived in Rio mid-day. By the time I arrived at the hostel, Sheberon (Sweden) was already there. When I had planned to go to Rio, I was expecting to be there by myself, but fortunately, Sheberon was traveling on her own, too, and it just so happened that our Rio trips overlapped, so we arranged to stay in the same place. So in the afternoon we set out to explore. We got lunch at a pizzeria in Copacabana by the beach and then went for a stroll along the beach, before hopping the bus to go see Pão de Açúcar, or Sugarloaf . We had heard that the best time to go was at sunset, so we went with enough time to get there by then. From the top of the mountain, we had spectacular views of Corcovado, also known as the Christ the Redeemer statue, who seemed to be just peeking out of the clouds. Afterwards, we took the cablecars back down (the same way we got up the mountain -- you actually need to take two sets of cable cars up; one to Morro da Urca, and then another one to Sugarloaf), and then found our way back to our hostel. We hung out in the neighborhood, getting some dinner and some açaí and then we hung out with some people in the hostel, where there seemed to be a large concentration of Israelis. We talked to these two girls in particular who were traveling for several months after having gotten out of the Israeli army last year, I think it was.

Thursday, Sheberon and I had a full day ahead of us. We had seen a couple of advertisements in the hostel for some interesting things to do in the city. The first activity sent a car to pick us up at 10am. We had about a 25-minute car ride to Pepino Beach, where we had to sign a couple of things, and from there we got into another car, where we drove up into the Floresta da Tijuca, or the Tijuca Forest. We stopped right by Pedra Bonita, where we got out with our bottles of water in this lush national park. There were lots of people gathered atop this big rock, but we ended up hanging out there for the next two hours or so. You see, the wind wasn´t right, and when the wind isn´t right, and even our guides say, ´´I´m scared to go,´´ you do *not* strap on the harnesses and go flying into mid air. And for this reason, we waited until the wind *was* right. And when it was right, Marcos, my co-pilot, harnessed me up, tied me to the hang-glider, and told me, ´´Now, when I say go, you just run. Just keep running. You stop running, and we crash!´´ And those were my instructions. We had a couple of practice runs beforehand, and then since the wind wasn´t right, there was more waiting time. And then when it was our time to go, since we had been waiting for awhile, I asked him if we could do one more practice run, and he said there was no more time to practice. We just had to go. (There was a line of people behind us waiting to go.) So, we got ready to go. He said, ´´Go!´´ (I had asked him to give me instructions in Portuguese, as his Portuguese was easier to understand than his English -- and there was no room for miscommunication!), and we went running, running, running down this platform (maybe 20 feet or so) until the platform stopped and we were hang-gliding -- flying, really, over the city down below known to all as Rio de Janeiro. What a *fun* seven minutes those were, even though it felt like much longer! We went over a favela, over buildings, over the water, and then doubled back and ended up landing on Pepino Beach, right where we started.

We then got the car back to the hostel, where we had five minutes or so before our next car picked us up for a tour of two favelas: Vila Canoas, and Rocinha. Vila Canoas is a smaller favela, and here we visited an after-school program that is partially funded by the tour we went on. There are 63 children enrolled, and they had a couple of classrooms, games, etc. After we visited the school, we walked through some of the favela streets, which were very small, and though we didn´t go into any homes, since the streets had a more alley-way feel to them you could kind of get a glimpse into people´s lives without walking through their actual apartments. We then continued on our way to Rocinha , the largest favela in Brazil. We walked through one of their main marketplaces, stopped at place where local artists were selling their works, etc. The whole tour lasted about 3 hours, and it was definitely worth it. When I was in Salvador, I had had discussions with people on several occasions about visiting favelas in Rio and doing a tour to see what they´re like, and people always seemed to have mixed feelings. Well, wait -- let me rephrase. People wouldn´t have mixed feelings. Different people would think differently. Some people had the attitude of, ´´the only reason for going would be to know how much better your life is and how awful their lives are.´´ Others thought, ´´what´s the point? You know how it is. You´ve seen ´City of God [a movie based on a Rio de Janeiro favela of the same name].´´´ Well, yes, I have seen the movie, but how many times have people told you that the media doesn´t accurately portray real life? Am I actually to believe that every single favela is the same? Every person is a drug dealer, every person owns a gun, it is a miserable existence, etc. etc. etc.? Confucius once said, ´´I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.´´ While I am not a philosophy buff or anything like that, I am a firm believer in having to see things in order to believe. You never know unless you try. Now, I did not bring a camera on this tour -- I did not snap pictures of the locals and put a lens in their faces, even though some locals might not have minded. Sometimes the eye is enough to capture the image of a place. Of course, having pictures of the tour would be a great reminder of where I was, but had I brought my camera for that reason, those motivations would have been purely selfish. Impressions of people in the favelas, though? Kids were laughing, the marketplaces were running, Rocinha operated like a small city (it had buses and everything), and honestly, had I not known it was a favela, I just might have wandered into there on my own. Just because the economic situation isn´t the same as the rest of the country (where, remember, it´s mostly extremes anyway -- the rich seem richer and the poor seem poorer), doesn´t mean that everyone mopes around all day, every day and doesn´t appreciate what they do have. Now, tell this to the British lady on my tour who wore her British-brimmed hat (lined with her straight-out-of-a-movie-British accent, of course) and her best jewelry ...what a riot she was! She was a character everyone would have gotten a laugh at -- both people from inside the favelas as well as from outside. Some things are just universal.

At night, Sheberon and I met up with a Brazilian friend of mine from summer camp, whom I had not seen in over a decade. Lisa is from São Paulo but is living in Rio de Janeiro now, so it was great to have a quasi-local to show us around. We went out to an area called Lapa, where we went dancing (samba, forró, etc.), before calling it a day (and what a day it was!).

Friday morning, I went to the beach with Sheberon, and then I moved out of my hostel because my cousin flew in from New York to come meet up with me in Brazil for just over a week. So I went to meet up and move in with Gail (USA) in Leme, at the end of Copacabana beach. After meeting up with her, we went out for a stroll along the beach and walked from Leme to Copacabana, where we picked up Sheberon and went to get lunch. Later, Gail and I continued walking along the beach and walked all the way to Ipanema, people-watching all the while. For awhile, we couldn´t figure out while everyone was suddenly wearing zungas (speedos) and looked all glam, and then the lightbulb went off: we had stumbled into the gay beach! Since that wasn`t our final destination, though (well, we really didn`t have one), we continued along our way. We ended up going to a bar called Garota de Ipanema, the bar that was made famous by the song of the same name (``The Girl from Ipanema´´), because the song was written there. Afterwards, we walked around Ipanema for a bit, and then later on, we met up with Lisa and Sheberon. We returned to Lapa, but to a different hotspot, this time where there was more traditional dancing. This place, called Democráticos, was straight out of a movie from several decades ago. It felt like we were in a ballroom, and though there was samba and forró dancing just like the previous night, you had to know the steps (and if you didn´t, there were people to teach you). Contrary to the previous night, this spot was absent from tourist radar, so it really felt like an undiscovered hole-in-the-wall place...that is, if holes in the wall have super high ceilings and people who *know* how do dance.

When you get home at 4:30am, it´s a good thing not to have a strict schedule to follow, so the following day, when it was too cloudy to go visit Jesus on the mountain (Corcovado), Gail and I met up with Sheberon and Lisa to go for a bike ride. We went to Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas , where we rented bikes and went on an 8km path around the lagoon. Sheberon and I even tested out corn on a stick before the bike ride, and that was mm-mm good! Following the bike ride, we all went to the botanical gardens, which turned out to be closed, so we hopped the bus to Leblon (Lisa´s neighborhood), where we walked around there for a bit and got dinner, before catching the bus to Ipanema, returning to Garota de Ipanema and then hanging around Ipanema.

Sunday marked Gail´s and my last day in Rio, which meant that was our last chance to see Corcovado. We got up early to meet Sheberon and go, but since there are few buses that run there on Sundays, we got a taxi to take us, and though it was very misty, we made it up there no problem. It ended up being neat to be up there when it was kind of cloudy/misty because Jesus would be fogged in one second and then totally visible the next. Once we left there, we went for a quick drive through Santa Teresa (a neighborhood known for being bohemian, but in our case was just rainy), and then Sheberon and I left to go to the championship soccer game between Botafogo and Flamengo in Maracanã , Rio´s 100,000-person capacity soccer stadium, making it the largest in the world. Botafogo and Flamengo were the two teams in the finals last year, so now it was time for the rematch. Sheberon and I decided to root for Botafogo (the underdogs). We ended up scoring tickets when we got to the stadium, and something interesting about stadium ``seating´´ there is that *no one* sits down. Everyone stands on the seats the entire time. Nor do the ``assigned´´ seats matter. Soccer (``futebol´´) games in Brazil are out-of-this-world. Just the crowd, for starters. We made friends with some people next to us, and one of those guys had a little radio, who was listening to the commentary as the game progressed. Anyway, Botafogo scored the first goal (hooray! our team was winning!), and then in the second half, Flamengo tied it up. In the injury time, however, just a few minutes before the game would go into overtime, Flamengo scored the game-winning goal, making it 2-1 and, thus, a heart-breaker for all Botafogo fans. It was a sad, rainy Sunday, and an unfortunate way to end the Rio portion of my trip. We got the subway back to town, however, and I said goodbye to Sheberon. Then, I met Gail, so we could hustle to the airport, only to find out that our flight to Manaus was going to be delayed by said rain -- delayed by the tears of Botafogo and probably Jesus on the mountain as well (who I´m willing to bet is also a Botafogo fan and, therefore, caused it to rain over Rio).

´til next time,
missy
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com

Iguazu Falls: Mission Possible

I know, I know..it´s been awhile since my last entry, but when you´re on the road, there are lots of things to do, and also, consistent email access is hard to come by. On Tuesday, I spent the day in Iguazu Falls (Foz do Iguaçu), a town that borders on Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, and has waterfalls that border on Brazil and Argentina. Originally, when I had planned this portion of my trip, I had decided to spend one full day there, but after talking to people after I started my trip, I soon realized that one day wouldn´t be enough. I came to this conclusion because there is a Brazilian side and an Argentine side of the falls, so I kept asking people which side I should go to in my 24 hours in the town. Most people said the Argentine side, since there was more to do there (you really get to go down into the falls, whereas on the Brazil side, you get more of a panoramic view of the falls), but given my time restriction, I wouldn´t have time to do that, so I should just stick to the Brazil side... but since my flight was supposed to land in the morning, I ultimately figured that I would just decide on the day of, depending on how quickly I could get to my hotel, drop off my bags and get moving.

By the time I got everything in order and was ready to get out the door, I was told that it would take me two hours to get to the Argentine side if I were to take the bus, as opposed to 40 minutes by car. Thus, in an effort to see what I wanted to see, I managed to get a decent price with the hotel tour company (a small tour company), and in no time at all, I was out the door in a big tour van, just me and the owner of the tour company, who had otherwise planned to take the day off. First, he drove me across the Argentine border to the falls on that side, where we hiked the Upper Circuit of the falls, which provide a closer look at some of the falls. After walking along that path, we then walked the path called ´´Garganta del Diablo´´ (Devil´s Throat), where I got a great view of both sides of the falls. After that, we walked back to the car and drove back across the border (thus crossing a time zone) to Brazil, where we hiked 1km or so along the scenic route of Brazilian side, and by 4:30pm, I had completed my mission that none of my interviewees had previously thought possible (the Argentine and Brazilian parks close at 5:30pm and 6pm, respectively). One thing I learned from my tourguide was that with bigger tour companies, when clients have such a limited time in Iguazu Falls (as I did), they don´t offer tours to both the Brazilian and Argentine sides -- rather, they just have to choose one or the other. Lucky for me, timing (and staffing) worked out in my favor.

By the time I got back to the hotel, I was exhausted (eight cookies is not really enough to tide you over during the day, even if they are dulce-de-leche-flavored), but I didn´t want to go to sleep, so I decided to walk around the hotel and see what else there was. I ended up finding a pool, gym, game room, etc., and once I found that, I ended up going swimming for a bit and then catching dinner at a churrascaria later on at night. But don´t worry, I did not eat the chicken hearts or turkey testicles that they had advertised on their pamphlets (among other choice meats).

The next morning, it was off to Rio de Janeiro, where I am now...but there´s no time to write about it now, so when I have some time, I´ll fill you in on the latest.

´Til then, though, be well and maybe go against the odds -- after all, who knows? It might just work out after all.

abraços,
missy :)
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com

Sampa: no rest for the weary

São Paulo has now come and gone, and it seemed like a quick three days. Friday night a bunch of us went out for my (and two other girls´) last night in Salvador. First, Greg (USA), Salvador (USA), and I checked out the weekly Friday beach party down in Barra. Apparently, every Friday, around sunset, there´s live music on the beach. Definitely a relaxing end to the busy week. After that, we met up with Amy (UK) and Natasha (UK) and went out to dinner, where we also met up with Jamilly, Jamilly´s sister Amanda, and Tatiana. We then decided to hit up this nearby bar, where we ended up staying well into the early morning hours. By the time we all walked up the hill toward our respective homes and said our goodbyes, I didn´t end up making it home until about 3:15 or so. Normally, that would be fine, but in this case, what felt like 45 seconds of sleep was 45 minutes, since I had to wake up to catch my taxi to the airport. Since I was so tired, though, it was one of those days where I hit snooze without realizing and woke up on my own 5 minutes before taxi-time. Hence, no time for showering (drat!), I grabbed my stuff, said more goodbyes, and headed to the airport (where I surprised myself in my super tired state by talking the airport attendant into charging me only half of the cost of ´´excess baggage´´ for my luggage). Just my luck, though, that one of the Carnaval bands (Cheiro de Amor [Smell of Love]) would be on my flight and waiting to board right next to me. And hooray for me, I figured out who they were! (Admittedly, the T-shirts some of them were wearing with the band´s name on it did help some.) I ended up making it to São Paulo just fine, but very tired. Another reason for the tiredness could be because of the thoughtful women sitting next to me on the flight. There I was, peacefully sleeping through the flight and the announcement that a light breakfast was to be served (I was too tired to care). However, when someone taps you on your arm repeatedly until you wake up to tell you that you have to put your tray table down if you want to eat, all you want to do (ok, all *I* wanted to do) was tell this Brazilian woman where the exits are located on the aircraft. She also didn´t seem to understand when I put my ipod headphones on that I did not want to be talked at (yes, talked *at*), so I thanked my lucky stars I had an aisle seat instead of a middle seat and went back to sleep (until she told me, ´´you aren´t supposed to have that device on...oh no, that´s just cellular phones, never mind.´´... and the sleeping became a lost cause)....Welcome to São Paulo.

When I arrived in São Paulo and had to wait forever for my luggage, the only saving grace was that there were TVs attached to the baggage carousels showing soccer games. Why did I have to come all the way to Brazil to see that? Everyone should have that! And after I got my bags, I was on my way.

In São Paulo, I have been staying with the family of my friend Luciana, my Portuguese teacher from New York. When I arrived at the house on Saturday, I had to take a nap in order to recharge a bit, and after that, it was time to hit the town. I went out with Matildes and Luis (São Paulo host parents) for lunch in the middle of the afternoon to a place that I can only think to describe as an all-you-can-eat-buffet crossed with a dim-sum-like churrascaria. What does that mean, exactly? That means that, in the center of the room, there is a big round table that is self-service. All-you-can-eat. Then, when you are back at your table, people come around to your table, offering you different kinds of churrasco (Brazilian barbecue) and you can say yes or no to the various meats. There is this also this little gadget on the table that when you don´t want people to come to your table, you turn it so the red side is facing out (red light means stop! no more meat!), and when you do want visitors, you have the green side face out (bring it on, meat!). It was quite a tasty lunch. And then when it was time for dessert, that was a cart I couldn´t refuse. The woman said I could create my own plate of sample bites if I didn´t want want a big piece of x, y, or z cake, and eventually, I came up with the perfect dessert. I told her, ´´Ok, ok, I figured it out, but I don´t think it´s going to be possible.´´ I ended up asking her for a small piece of this flan-like dessert and this big white chocolate crumble that was on top of this other cake (the crumble looked a lot better than the cake). She said, ´´how can I do that, guilt-free?´´ Needless to say, I ended up with two pieces of cake, and my cake instincts were right -- flan, gooood. Crumble -- goood. Crumble cake -- uhhh...needed a little work.

After lunch, we drove all around the city, and Matildes and Luis showed me various tourist spots -- important praças, parks, a flower market, a pedestrian street, the Teatro Municipal, etc. We tried to catch the sunset at Praça Pôr-de-Sol but it was too cloudy. Oh well.

At night, I ended up going out with my friend Michelle, the girl I met in Chapada Diamantina who hails from São Paulo. I went out with her and a few of her friends (Ricardo, Rogerio, and Lillian) to this place that played live music -- forró , maracatu , etc. It ended up being really fun and we stayed there until 4:30am. Running on a total of about two hours of sleep, it only got confusing once I found out that after just having set my watch forward an hour when my plane landed, I would have to change it back in the middle of the night because of daylight savings. But, when in São Paulo...

Sunday was kind of a lazy day with a late start. I ended up spending the day with Luciana´s sister, Daniela, and her friends (Cristina, Priscilla, Fernando, Pedro, Renata, and Pe). We had lunch at home and then drove around the city to some places I hadn´t been to on Saturday, with our final destination being being an apparently famous sorveteria (ice cream place). I got yogurt/strawberry (that was one flavor) and cookies (that was another flavor). Yum! Then they showed me around town some more (I must say, I am very thankful to have local guides to show me around...especially ones who have cars!), and we ended up at a pizzeria for dinner. The way this pizzeria functions though is also like dim-sum. People come to your table with various kinds of pizza slices on a tray and tell you what they are, and you just pick what you want. Then when you are done eating the savory pizza slices, you tell them, and they clear your plate and bring you a new plate. That plate is your dessert plate, which you can fill with a slice of dessert pizza. For example: Coconut pizza with chocolate sauce (that was surprisingly delicious), brigadeiro pizza (not surprisingly delicious), etc. (It is important to note here, that for the dessert pizzas, they are not cheese pizzas with these ingredients on top; rather, they have the breaded consistency of pizza with the aforementioned ingredients on top. Thus, if you like the dessert itself, and you like a light serving of bread, there´s nothing not to like.) São Paulo, this could be beginning of a beautiful (and dangerous) friendship...

Monday (today), I hit the Mercadão, better known as the Mercado Municipal, with Matildes. It was a rainy day, so it was good to be inside for most of it. I had some açaí for the second time in Brazil (deeeelicious), and I ate it with strawberries, bananas, and granola. Then, for lunch there, Matildes and I ate pastel de bacalhau, kind of like a codfish empanada. It is typical of the market there, and it was good! After that, we walked around a bit before the rain came back and then we headed home. Matildes´ cousin was celebrating a birthday today so some of the family came over to the house for a bit and then eventually we went to their apartment in a different neighborhood. We stayed for dinner (homemade pizza), and then later on at night, I left to go meet up with some friends. I met up with Michelle, Ricardo, and Estevan (another friend of theirs) and hung out with them for my last night in São Paulo. Hard to believe that two weeks ago, I didn´t know any of these people.

Tomorrow, I leave Sampa in the early morning hours (aka in a few hours) for Foz do Iguaçu (Iguazu Falls). The falls have an Argentine side and a Brazilian side, and I have only 24 hours in the town itself (and even fewer hours to see the falls, since the last bus out of the park leaves in the early evening). So, who knows? Maybe I´ll go to Argentina for lunch and falls tomorrow. We shall see.

In the meantime, it´s time to catch some z´s. See you on whatever side.

missy
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com

Time to move on, time to get going

Well, it´s time to move on from Salvador, but before I do, I´ll give you the lowdown on my last week here.

Monday, I started with a new teacher at school, making it my third teacher since I came here. This one is Edna, and no, she is not 138 years old, as someone with the name ´Edna´ would usually connote. At night, I ended up going out with the guys, as it was Jaime(Spain)´s last night. It was a fun, low-key night hanging out with Jaime, Greg (USA), and Salvador (USA), and we alternated between speaking English and Spanish. Also a bit strange because low-key nights don´t seem to come around all that often.

Tuesday, after class, I headed to Pelourinho and spent some time meandering around there. Pelourinho: where the people-watching is always good, and the stores all have the same thing as the store next to it. I looked for a CD of ´´Songs Missy knows from Carnaval 2008´´ but no one seemed to carry it. Humph.

Wednesday, in the morning, the juice of the day was grape juice. It was like going to Hebrew School but without the orange tic-tacs. After that, I went to class and then to the beach for a bit with Greg, Salvador, and Salvador´s friend. I had made plans with Eliene and Greg to go to this market, though, so Greg and I stopped off at home first, where we ended up having a (post-lunch) feast of chocolate nut cake and passion fruit mousse (think frozen sorbet). We then went to the market and meandered around there. Afterwards, we hopped the bus back and stopped off at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia. People say that that is one of the best places in the city to see the sun set, and Eliene said that I couldn´t leave Salvador without seeing it. Lucky for us, by the time we finished the museum, it was about that time. One sunset later, we were back on the road. On the way back home, we stopped off at the apartment of the mother-in-law (age 86 or so) of Eliene´s sister (sibling #5 of 12...I always ask the number when she mentions her siblings). It was funny -- she served us Coca-Cola and cookies. And then later on we hung out with Auana at home. It´s funny how after only 6 weeks living with Auana and Eliene, it has become so easy to talk for hours with them (each of them).

Thursday was a day of taking care of odds and ends, seeing an old Spanish movie (I wrongly thought there would be Portuguese subtitles -- read: a linguistic disaster waiting to happen), etc.

And here we are at Friday. I have had my last class, and tomorrow I will leave Salvador for São Paulo. People always say that right when you start feeling settled in a place is when it is time to pack up and leave. I think that whether I would have stayed 6 weeks or 6 months, the idea would be the same. In my case, though, I think what has made my Salvador experience especially memorable are the people I have met through my program, the other like-minded travelers who I will undoubtedly come across again in some other corner of the globe -- maybe later on in this adventure, and most certainly on another.

For now, though, seeing as it *is* my last day here, I´m going to get going. It´s been real, folks. See you in São Paulo.

****
´´It's time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It's time to move on, it's time to get going...´´
~Tom Petty, ´´Time to Move On´´
****

Abraços,
missy
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com

But wait! There aren´t any more steps!

We always knew that we´d have a week off from school during the end of/after Carnaval. A group of us thus decided to take a trip out of Salvador in order to wind down and relax after all the partying and neverending-ness that came along with the festivities. So, six of us ended up getting tickets to go to a national park six hours away, in the interior of Bahia, to a town called Lençois. Lençois was founded by diamond miners in the mid-1800s and the word itself means ´´sheets´´ -- when the pioneers came to the town, the white tents of the miners looked like sheets that were stretched out to dry. We ended up using Lençois as our base camp to explore the nearby national park, called Chapada Diamantina, which has lots of trails and waterfalls, as well as other adventures that were eagerly awaiting our visit.

Even though Carnaval went through the middle of Wednesday, we left before then, because we had soaked up enough of Carnaval´s music and whatnot (you hear the same songs all day, every day) to last us until who knows when. Three of us (Greg (USA), Jamilly (Brazil), and I) took a night bus on Monday night and arrived in Lençois around 5:30am on Tuesday morning. The other three people in our group had Carnaval plans for Tuesday, so they (Tatiana (Brazil), Sheberon (Sweden), and Sheberon´s friend, Kim (he was visiting from Denmark)) came on the night bus on Tuesday night.

Tuesday morning when we got to the place we were staying, since our room wasn´t ready (all the people there for Carnaval brought the pousada (bed and breakfast inn) to full capacity), we had to wait in the outdoor lounge area, which, fortunately, had comfy chairs. It wasn´t until people came down for breakfast that we woke up. We got to eat breakfast there, too, and it was a total feast! Lots of different kinds of breads, juice, jam, cinnamon-ey things (does it really matter what the ´´things´´ were?), and lots of things you feel no guilt about eating because you know you´ll work it off later. After breakfast, the three of us ended up walking around the town and spending a few hours out and about. Then we came back to check on the status of our room, and since it was mostly ready, we dropped our stuff in the room, got lunch in town and headed out for our first official hike. Many trails in and around Lençois require a guide, so we went on a nearby hike that we could do ourselves, which led us to Cachoeirinha, a ´´large and impressive waterfall with a wide and swimmable pool,´´ according to my guidebook. In other words, it was a pretty basic hike and the water felt great! On our way back, we stopped at this 5-star hotel for ice cream (which was, as to be expected, delicious), and then later on at night, we out for a pizza dinner in town.

By Wednesday morning, our group was complete, and after our regular feast of a breakfast, we were all ready to go. After all, we had quite the hike ahead of us. 7km (~4.35 miles) there, 7km back. Our destination was Cachoeira do Sossego (Sossego Falls), which are located on the same river as the Ribeirâo do Meio rock-slide. This hike consisted of about two hours of hikehike (through trees, ascension/descension, etc.), and then a little over an hour of climbing over and around big boulder-like rocks. You need a guide for this tour because there is no clear path and it is most certainly *not* well-trodden. We got to Sossego by about 12:30pm/1pm or so, so it was the perfect time, in the heat of the day, to jump off a cliff into the water below, and then climb on some rocks behind the waterfall before going swimming again. Then after awhile at the falls, it was time to take the same path back. Toward the end, though, was the rock-slide. What is a rock-slide, you may ask? Well, you know what rocks are. And you know what a slide is. Now, imagine going down a slide of rocks. Okay, it wasn´t exactly a slide of rocks...It was like one big rock, actually, and most of it was smooth (some parts, though, were not). It was, to say the least, an experience. Well, I´ll be honest with you. It was *two* experiences (I went down twice). By the time we made it back to the pousada, we were all worn out, but not enough to keep us from going out and having a delicious Italian dinner. (By the way, another new food I´ve tried is this yummy dessert called brigadeiro. It is a little ball of chocolate icing with a liquid chocolate center. Total decadence and totally deserved!)

It´s important on trips like these (not just the mini-trips, but all trips, all the time) to make them worthwhile and to make every moment count. You never know if you will be able to go back to a place, so if there is something you want to do when you are in a place, though the phrase is super-clichéd, the oft-heard ´´there is no time like the present´´ rings true. Thursday was another full day of touring. We piled into this big truck (not a Carnaval truck -- and don´t worry, there were seatbelts) and spent the day seeing various caves and grottos. The first stop was a place called Poço do Diabo (Devil´s Pool), a ´´deep basin at the bottom of an imposing 50m waterfall formed by the Rio Mucugezinho.´´ I didn´t know the name of this place when we got there, and maybe it´s for the better, because I partook in all of the available activities there (well, perhaps I shouldn´t say ´´all,´´ as I suppose people are always jumping off of random surfaces at high altitudes and coming up with new extreme sports). There was, for example, a zipline ride that started at an altitude of 18m (59 feet) and went straight into the water --> did that (super fun!). Then, after I got out of the water, the head of the adventure tour company (who had come along with our group and had brought his kids) told me to come rappelling with them. And, strangely enough, I said ok. The older son (who had gone before), went first. The younger one (age 11), who had never gone before, went next. Then, it was my turn. Knowing it was an altitude of 22m (72.18 feet) didn´t help matters any, and this rappel wasn´t climbing down rocks; rather, it was more like being suspended in mid-air and just lowering yourself using a rope..still being alongside a rock, but not running the risk of bumping into it. After a five-minute-or-so lesson of how rappelling works, it was go-time (or not-go time). So, the guy in charge told me to turn around (you have to go down backwards) and to put my foot on this little step below the top. I did that, and then he told me to put my other foot there, so I did that. Harnessed in, with my helmet and gloves and no other questions to ask the guy (I had already asked, for example, ´´Is the rope going to break?´´ and of course felt a little bit better when he said no), I then said, ´´But wait! There aren´t any more steps!´´ And he agreed and said, ´´Right! There are no more steps.´´ And the only things left for me to do, as per his instructions, were to lean back, take my feet off the ledge, and start lowering myself down. I did just that, and after about 15 seconds of thinking, ´´What the hell am I doing suspended in a cavey place hanging on by just a rope?´´ it all of a sudden snapped into a, ´´Holy **** -- this is *so* cool....I´m suspended in a cavey place, hanging on by just a rope!´´ And the rope spun a little bit (slowly), so I wasn´t facing the wall anymore, but was facing the whole rest of the basin and seeing all the people down below, who had been waiting for me to take those final steps to go off the edge (and go off the edge I did!). 22 meters later, I stepped out of the harness and jumped into the water, feeling as refreshed as ever.

Thursday´s tour then continued to the Gruta da Pratinha, where a bunch of us went snorkeling. This was pretty cool because it was so dark in there that we needed flashlights, but I think I shined my flashlight in the wrong places, because I saw the most fish when we came toward the light at the end of our swim. That water also connected to this huge lake where the water was bright blue. There was a zipline there, too, that I had originally decided I wasn´t going to do since I had already done the other one, but once I saw the water, I quickly reconsidered. (It just looked too good to pass up.) This one was at an altitude of 12m (39.4 feet), and, okay, okay, I ended up going twice. Afterwards, our tour group had lunch and continued to our next destination: Gruta Lapa Doce, which has a lot of stalactites and stalagmites. I also learned the difference between a gruta and a caverna. Apparently, a gruta (grotto) has an entrance and an exit, whereas a caverna (cave) only has an entrance (which, I suppose, would also be the exit). Once we left Lapa Doce, there was one more place left on the agenda: Morro do Pai Inâcio. We were headed to this plateau-type place to see sunset, but we got there 20 minutes too late for the cut-off time (but still before sunset). The guards wouldn´t let us go by to do the 15-minute hike up the mountain, so we piled back into the car and headed back to Lençois proper. A frustrating end to the tour, but when you put it in perspective, it´s not the end of the world. The six of us ended up going out for dinner in town with the other two people on our tour (from São Paulo), and now I have two new people to hang out with when I head to São Paulo next week!

Friday morning, Sheberon (Sweden) and Kim (Denmark) left on an early bus back to Salvador because they were going to take a weekend trip, so that brought our group down to four. Jamilly (Brazil) and Tatiana (Brazil) decided to have a low-key day, so they stayed in Lençois during the day. Greg (USA) and I decided to go on another hike and we ended up going to Cachoeira da Fumaça. It is possible to do a three-day hike to get to the bottom of this 340m (~1,115.5 ft) waterfall, but our group drove a good ways away and then we did a 6km (~3.73 mi.) hike to get to the top of the falls (and then, of course, we hiked back). From our vantage point, though, once we got to the top of the falls, it was so much higher than the falls that the falls looked like a mere trickle of water that it was hard to believe that there was actually a huge waterfall down there. To get to the edge of this cliff to look down, I decided to lie down on the ground and crawl to the edge (more like shimmy, really) because there weren´t any railings and one slip of the foot, well,...let´s just say that since I didn´t have my harness, it felt safer to stop, drop, and *not* roll. After we left Fumaça, Junior (our tourguide, who had also been our tourguide the day before) said that if the group picked up the pace, we might be able to get to Pai Inâcio to catch sunset, so everyone hustled down the mountain and the climb that had taken us about 2 hours in ascension took about 1 hour and 25 minutes to descend. By the time we got down, however, he was skeptical that we would make it in time, and ultimately, Junior ended up deciding that we wouldn´t make it in time. So, we ended up going to Rio Mucugezinho (the same river I rappelled/ziplined into, but a different part of the river) and going for an evening swim there before heading back to town. When we got back to town, we met up with Tatiana and Jamilly again and headed out for dinner at that five-star hotel (at the restaurant) to celebrate Greg´s birthday, replete with chocolate cake and all. The version of ´´Happy Birthday´´ that Brazilians sing has several verses, it´s really incredible! I didn´t know the words, though, so I made up syllables on the spot. Sure beats memorization. After dinner, there wasn´t too much time to spend in Lençois because Jamilly and I caught the midnight bus back to Salvador.

We got back into Salvador on Saturday morning at about 6am or so and this weekend has been all about the relaxation that last week was supposed to be. It´s all good, though, because that trip was well worth it. Last night, I went out with Sheberon (Sweden), Kim (Denmark), Sheberon´s host sister, Paloma (Brazil), Sheberon´s Brazilian friend, Jaime (Spain), and Salvador (USA). It was a low-key ´´out´´ night and sometimes I played translator (Portuguese-English) for Kim and Paloma, which was fun.

That´s basically been my life for the last week or so, but before I go, there´s one topic of conversation that really piqued my interest on Friday´s Fumaça tour, so I thought I´d share. Two Canadians on our tour, who were also staying at our pousada, are traveling for the next seven months. Mike and Gina have been planning this trip for a fair bit of time and when I was talking to Gina about it, she was explaining the trip as her ´´first retirement.´´ I asked her where she got that idea and she told me that she learned about it from a book she read. Now, since I haven´t read the book, I´m not going to insert a shameless plug here for said book (besides, if you were really so curious, I´m sure y´all could figure it out on your own), but the idea is one that I would like to subscribe to -- or rather, continue to subscribe to. The idea is that, instead of waiting until hitting 65 to retire and travel and do all the things you wish you could have done when you were younger and had time, money, etc., that you have little retirements along the way. For example, you work for x-amount of time (say, 2 years) and then you take a few months off and travel or volunteer or do whatever you would want to do during your ´´retirement.´´ This, to me, sounds like a good idea. Of course, it isn´t for everybody, but from the sound of it, it *is* for me.

So, I leave you with that. Discuss amongst yourselves.
Happy retiring, whether you are 25 or 105.

missy :)
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com

It´s all really just a little Carnavalesque

Carnaval week -- so much to say and yet nothing to say! But then, this would be a pretty short entry, so I guess I better find some words to explain it.

It started with Wednesday..well, no -- technically, Carnaval started on Thursday, but where I left off was Wednesday, and it might as well have started on Wednesday. I ended up going out with Sheberon (Sweden) down to Barra (the neighborhood near the beach, near the lighthouse) and we went to Caranguejo do Farol, the same restaurant I had gone to with Auana and her friends. We were going to go out just for a couple of hours to get a little bit of dancing in and then go home, but we happened to stumble into a street party (go figure) that seemed like a mini-Carnaval (only mini because there weren´t millions of people). The streets were still packed, though, and the music was blasting, and there were still some parades of people passing by, dancing to music that was accompanying them. A few times, since the streets were so packed, the only way we could get through was when a car went through the people (a car went through the people!) and we ran and danced our way behind it. That was really fun because the streets were then lined with people and it would just be the two of us dancing behind the car as the car parted the sea of people. So creative we were!

******
Now a glossary of a few key terms for Carnaval (it is also important to remember that Carnaval celebrations vary from place to place, so my account of Carnaval will likely be much different from that of someone who experiences it in, say, Rio de Janeiro):

bloco [BLOH-koh]: When there is a huge truck of people playing music (called a trio elétrico, even though there are way more than three people) and a lot of people following behind, the group of people is the bloco. (I have referred to this before as ´´parade of people.´´) These trio elétricos apparently started in jest in the 1950s, when two famous Brazilian musicians, Dodó and Osmar, got on top of a truck and started jamming on electric guitars. I realize that `trio´ means three -- the third person refers to the driver of the truck. Since then, however, these trucks have become such big deals that now there are dozens people atop the trucks. And when you decide to do a bloco, there will be at least two trucks -- one with the group providing the music, and the second one that has a bar and bathrooms on the truck (as well as, obviously, people dancing on top of that truck, too).

camarote [kah-mah-ROH-chee]: These are kind of like club seats or VIP areas -- they are stationary areas from which you can view lots of blocos passing by. Camarotes often have open bar, free internet, some have massage tables, and other things going on. The places you might find camarotes could be in restaurants, hotels, etc. along the main routes of Carnaval.

pipoca [pee-POH-kah]: A word that also means popcorn, the pipoca consists of everyone who lines the streets. You don´t have to pay to be part of the pipoca (whereas, you do have to pay for camarotes and blocos), and this one is the most dangerous because anyone and everyone can be part of it.

abadá [ah-bah-DAH]: When you are part of a camarote or bloco, you have to wear a certain kind of T-shirt that identifies you as part of that group (since you pay to be there). This T-shirt is called the abadá. Many people cut the T-shirts to be more form-fitting -- in fact, the norm is to bring the shirts to seamstresses to have them cut them in cool designs and turn them into real-looking shirts. Me, I just cut mine myself (I had two, since a group of us got tickets for one bloco and one camarote).

****** (Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming) ******

Thursday marked the first official day of Carnaval. After class, late in the afternoon, I met up with Greg (USA), Salvador (USA), and Marcelo (Brazil) to walk down to Barra (one of the areas where Carnaval takes place -- there are several). We got there really early, because Marcelo likes to get there early every year to stake out a good spot and to be there when everything begins. It was neat seeing everything before it started and then being there when the festivities kicked off. Also, since we were down on the waterfront by the lighthouse, it was really windy, so it never got unbearably hot.

We also got a great spot on a ledge, near the police tent, so we could see all the blocos passing by and still had enough room to dance (two essential elements of the evening). We ended up meeting a bunch of other people from school later on, so we had a sizeable group. By the time I walked home, however, it took me about a half hour just to turn the corner onto my street because I got stuck in a pipoca. You see, though I live in a good area, perhaps I forgot to mention that Carnaval also takes place at the end of my street. Thus, when I went to sleep, fortunately I was tired enough that it didn´t matter that Carnaval was still going on, but what was surprising (well, in retrospect, it´s not so surprising, actually) was that when I woke up, it was STILL going on...and I couldn´t go back to sleep because of it. Bummer. They finally finished about 8am/8:30am or so. I guess they needed to rest up before starting up again mid-afternoon. Too bad I couldn´t do the same.

The rhythm of Carnaval is such that you rest during the first part of the day so you have energy to go out from mid-afternoon throughout the rest of the night, so when in Bahia....Anyway, a group of us had bloco tickets for a group called Timbalada on Friday, which was slated to start at 4pm. (In that video, you can see the bloco as well as the big truck, which at that moment happened to be stopped in front of the camarote for which my friends and I had tickets the following night.) There could be 20+ blocos in a night, and ours was one of the earlier blocos. The way the bloco works is that the trio elétrico truck follows a 5-6km route and we follow behind dancing the whole way. It takes several hours, and there´s security holding ropes around the group to keep out the people who didn´t pay to be a part of the bloco. It is extremely exhausting, but the only way to go is forward, and since the masses are dancing, you just have to rally to do the same, tired though you might be (and after several hours, tired and hungry isn´t even the half of it!).

During all this time, Carnaval is always still going on right outside my apartment, 23/7 (and that one hour is after I´ve already woken up), and it´s really quite the madhouse. Everyone is clad in some kind of costume, and I would have gotten some great pictures of it all if it weren´t a risk to take my camera out on the streets. On Saturday, a bunch of us got tickets for a camarote called Camarote Skol , which, as you´ll recall, is a station from which you can watch all the blocos pass by. These camarotes, though, are like little cities. They have everything inside. Mine had internet, open bar, a dance club, a beauty salon, a food plaza, massage tables (they said, but I never saw them), etc. And, oh right -- Carnaval was happening outside all the while. (And the best part was, you didn´t have to walk 5-6km at the same time!) Saturday night is supposed to be *the* biggest night of Carnaval, so it was good to watch it from a camarote (and less dangerous, too). You could see fights happen from above, for instance, and see the police march people through the crowds without having to be directly alongside the action (although sometimes that was exciting, too).

Sunday and Monday were just pipoca, pipoca, pipoca. We didn´t have tickets for anything else (tickets don´t run cheap), and everyone can really see the same things at Carnaval -- it´s just a matter of how close you are to the action and the safety factor involved (but the music is certainly loud enough to hear from most places). So during those days, different groups of us met up to partake in Carnaval (you only live once, after all), and that meant checking out festivities in both Campo Grande (where I live) and Barra.

Aside from the craziness in dancing all the time and the music never stopping, though, I´d say Carnaval is much tamer than everyone makes it out to be. I mean, really, you tell me what about the following isn´t low key?
*guys lined up peeing against public walls (while still dancing to the music)...sometimes near/on police tents, keeping in mind that it is highly illegal to pee in public at all
*people dressed in random costumes all the live long day
*one bloco (called Filhos de Gandhy -- Sons of Gandhi) that trades beads for kisses
*the game that some people have to see how many people they can kiss in a day....a *highly* entertaining game to witness
*etc*etc*etc*

And thus concludes the recap of Carnaval 2008 in Salvador, Brasil. Next year in Jerusalem, perhaps? I mean...next year, in Rio?

And now that all is finally quiet on my street and there aren´t hundreds of people blocking the way, I´d say it´s time for that siesta I´ve been waiting for.

Boa noite!
missy :)
http://andsmilestogobeforeisleep.blogspot.com/