El Calafate: I'm on a glacier!

Patagonia is not the land of the ice. haha. Obviously I did not do enough research about this area.  It does have glaciers and is quite windy, but the weather is actually pretty decent down here. The landscapes are stunning--mountains, lakes, and even flamingos!

I paid a fortune, but the coolest thing I did down here (the only thing actually) was stomp around on the Perito Moreno glacier for 3 hours. And it was not easy at all!! Got up to start my day at 7am, and hopped onto a bus that took us to the boat that would take us to the glacier.  But we stopped off at the national park first to get some photos of the glacier from a distance. After that, we hopped on a boat and got to the zone of no pollution where the glacier was.  That basically means any trash we bring onto the island leaves with us, and no smoking allowed!

I got fitted from crampons (yes, crampons) which are what you wear on your shoes so you can walk on the ice properly.  They didn't seem to fit right, but the guy seemed to know what he was doing when I said something so I figured it was all good.  Then we basically hiked up a mountain for 45 minutes and I was basically dying because who can walk up hill for that long!? It wasn't even a steady grade..this was like 60 degree climbing and at a really brisk pace.  I had lots of layers on thinking glacier = cold, but I was so wrong. I was hiking on this plush green mountain while I stared down onto a glacier. It was unreal, and sweaty.  By the time we stopped to give me enough time to take some layers off, we were basically at the glacier so I left them on.

We therw our crampons on and got to stepping/stomping on the glacier and of course, within 5 minutes, something is wrong with my set, and I fall way behind my group and hold them up for 10 minutes while one of the guides tries to fix it.  But it was so not my fault. Basically there was no fixing it, and unless I wanted to hike back down the mountain to do the smaller glacier trek, I was shit out of luck.  So I just sucked it up and stomped around that glacier for 3 hours, walking up and down hills (bc the tour guides seemed to want to just waste our time on the glacier..why we had to go up and down constantly was beyond me--why couldn't we just go around those hills?). My knee killed, but it was SWEET!!! OMG, I was on a glacier!! Not just any glacier, one of the only glaciers in the world that is still growing!! COOL!! Pretty much one of the most amazing things I will have done on this trip.  And at least I got to see a glacier before it melted so much that it causes Maldives to become flooded and sink below sea level.  There was even a mountain in the distance called Lion's Head, bc. you guessed it! It looks exactly like a lion's head. Nature at it's best. 

Besides seeing the amazing glacier and some flamingos (who knew they were in Patagonia?) I did some chocolate eating and I met some really fun people.  Met some Irish brothers on my shuttle who ended up stopping by my hostel just to hang out bc they knew I was traveling solo. So considerate! Then I randomly ran into a girl who I had seen at my first hostel in Salvador, Brazil, and after staring at her for a really long time, I finally remembered where I had seen her, and basically made myself out to be a little stalkery when I met her, but now we're super good friends! haha. We are actually going to head over to Chile together to go trekking for 5 days at the Torres del Paine.  I am not sure what that entails, but I am pretty sure it should be fun. Keeping my fingers crossed!! 

Buenos Aires, te amo!

BA BA BA BA BA!! I LOVED Rio de Janeiro, but Buenos Aires is a city that I unexpectedly fell in love with! I can't even understand it myself, how I came to enjoy the city so much, but I think the combination of people, beauty, experiences and history in the city really just made for the perfect combination.

Right...so I wrote that paragraph about 3 weeks ago, and I can barely remember all of the things I wanted to write about this city!! Arghh! I'll try my best to remember what I can about what I did..

Friday:
Got into the city after a ridiculously long bus ride that actually played some good movies (Crossing Over or Crossing Borders is a recommendation I have--it's just like Crash except it has to do with immigration).  Got to my hostel and after settling in to my dorm room where I was the only english speaking person, I realized that Coldplay was in town and I could still get a ticket!! A miracle!! I bought an insanely expensive ticket from my hostel and ended up convincing a Brazilian guy, Vinny, to get ripped off as well and he came along with!  An amazing night minus the fact that I could barely see the band unless I watched the screen or Vinny picked me up!  I do think that Coldplay needs to step it up a bit though since the show hasn't changed much since the last time I saw them.

Saturday:
A day of shopping on the famous Florida Ave.  Not very impressed but I managed to buy some things and all at great prices since the currency exchange rate is amazing here. I spent the day on my own just walking around, taking in the sites and sounds of the city.  At night I met a great group of friends--2 americans, 2 english, 3 israelis and 2 aussies--to go out with for a night on the town in the famous BA.  Unfortunately for us, BA actually enforces building code regulations and the clubs we tried to get into were full.  So no crazy night out for me.

Sunday:
Spent the day with two californian girls I met in my dorm room in the posh neighborhood of Recoletta.  We hit up a hippie market for the afternoon looking through stands of hats, pants, matte cups, shoes, and every other kind of trinket available in the world.  After that, we went to this huge metal flower that opens and closes with the sun! Pretty neat, except I think you would have to sit around all day to watch this thing open and close, and I am not sure I have the patience for that.  Then we went to this huge cemetery that was basically like a neighborhood of coffins. Creepy but cool in a way.  But also a huge waste of space. I really think cremation is the way to go.  Wasn't a huge fan of these girls from Cali.  They tried to pretend like they were European too much.  SO ANNOYING!! Just accept it ladies: you're American.  No cool accent or funny ways to talk.  Just plain old American.

Monday:
My first day of Spanish classes started today! I signed up for one week of class to try to pick up the language.  First class went really well.  I am definitely the star pupil in the class. =)  After class, I just relaxed a bit and caught up on some picture transfers and I got a ticket to go to a show called La Bomba de Tiempo.  Super cool drum show where a lot of people were most certainly getting high, but the beats were awesome and it was definitely a good time. The hostel provided a crazy party bus back and there was party that night, but I ended up missing it bc I booked my Inca Trail trek that night!

Tuesday:
Second day of class--one of the German girls has a tattoo of two squiggles on her finger that look like a mustache when she puts her finger under her nose. WOW. I just had to share that. Not sure why someone would get that kind of tattoo, but then again I have heard of worse (i.e. a Lays Chip on a shoulder..chip on your shoulder..get it??)  After class I headed down to Puerto Madero and walked endlessly and in the relentless sun basically wanting to fall over and die because I thought I would melt.  The port had a cool retro looking ship, and if I had waited to go by a day or two, I would have seen a lot more bc BA was celebrating it's 200 year anniversary.  While doing my homework that night I made my new best friend for the week, a guy named Daniel from Australia.

Wednesday:
Today in class my teacher told me not to talk during an exercise.  Seriously?  Yup.  She wanted to give the other 3 girls in class a chance to answer the questions.  Not cool.  She was totally holding me back. After class I met up with Daniel and he took me to San Telmo, another cool neighborhood of BA, and he took me to some great shopping places!! Oh this city totally made me go broke. haha.  Spent the afternoon walking about the neighborhood shopping, and just hung out at night. It's too hard to go out at night when you have to get up for class in the morning. What was I thinking??

Thursday:
Another day in class.  But I've made a friend from a different class who I might hang out with later. Spent the day with Daniel again in San Telmo.  I really like this neighborhood even though I heard of some people getting robbed here. We spent a lot of the day just trying to find an ATM for him to get some money out of bc he wanted to buy a painting.  A waste of the day for me?? Kinda.  But I didn't mind.  It's nice to have someone to hang out with. Decided to go out on the bar crawl my hostel was advertising.  Omg. Met up with my new spanish class friend, but he was definitely interested in me more than I was interested in him.  So the night was mostly spent artfully avoiding him or trying to hang out with as many people as possible, which was do-able since we met this great group of Aussie girls who managed to rescue me anytime I needed it. Got home in time for sleep for about 2 hours before heading to spanish class.

Friday:
Last day in class was a nightmare.  I could barely stay up and I'm pretty sure everyone could tell I was a little hungover. Or just extremely tired. What a bad day to not bring my A game to class--we were learning the verb 'tenir.' haha. After class I realized that I only had one full day left to see two more neighborhoods in this amazing city so I skipped the nap and headed straight to the super ghetto neighborhood of La Boca.  Ghetto because if you walk of the one main street you are pretty much guaranteed to get robbed. That is why there are police at every side street telling you not to go down the road. The main street is awesome though! The buildings are so colorful and beautiful, it's hard to imagine that every other street is so crime ridden.  Sad. After that, I hopped on the subway and headed to Palermo, the land of beautiful parks and good shopping.  I got off the incredibly hot and sweaty, non-airconditioned subway and walked into the first park I saw.  I was met by an entire population of stray cats that scared the crap out of me and a swarm of mosquitoes that basically ate my alive.  The mosquitoes here are rabid! I swear! They are HUGE and I was killing them while they were biting me!! So horrible! I basically ran out of the park only to see a sign about Dengue Fever at the entrance.  Fantastic! I basically upped my chances of getting Dengue fever and have no vaccination for that. I got back to the hostel bitten up thinking about the relaxing evening I was going to have, but somehow got convinced to go out with two of the guys who worked at my hostel and their friends.  So I hop into a car with these two guys and their friends and the driver is doing some questionable things while driving and I am not so sure about what I've signed up for since the other 3 ppl invited from the hostel are in cab, but we manage to make it to the club in one piece.  After a night of dancing the guys, Guestan and Ale (short for Alejandro) took me to the park next door to the club where I managed to get 65 (not exaggerating at all) mosquito bites in 15 minutes. Probably the worst ending to my stint in BA, considering I already had 10 dengue fever bites from that evening. I got back to the hostel in time to shower and hop into a cab to catch my flight to the next part of my trip which was El Calafate in Patagonia.

Even though I basically almost got dengue fever or malaria or yellow fever (extreme exaggerations) from my time in BA, I still loved it there!! I didn't blend in as well as I did when I was in Brazil, and old Argentine men were quick to tell me they thought I was pretty...ew. Don't they have wives?? But I learned some espanol, and I met some amazing people, and I definitely got to experience what Buenos Aires has to offer.  I am happy excited to see a new part of South America though when I go to Patagonia.  No more cities and pollution..just nature. It's supposed to be like another world. Can't wait!

Iguassu Falls, HOLY COW!

Iguassu Falls  = AMAZING.

Seriuosly. Niagra Falls has nothing on this place. In fact, Niagra is more like a tiny trickle compared to Iguassu..alright, fine, it's still really big, but comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges.

There are two sides to the Falls: the brazil side and the argentina side.    

The brazil side was basically like jumping into the river since the mist the falls were shooting up basically drenched anyone who didn't have a heavy duty rain coat on. The falls seemed pretty spectacular from the Brazil side but I knew the argentina side was supposed to better, although I wasn't sure how it could get better than walking on a walk way out over the river into the mouth of the falls.  I was soooo wrong though!! I spent my time at the falls with an aussie I met, who was not as cool as I thought she would be, but oh well. I`ve learned that meeting weird people is bound to happen on a trip like this, especially when you're traveling solo.

We spent the night at a hostel called Hostel Sweet Hostel. I should have known better than to stay there based on the name alone. The place was so gross--I`m pretty sure there was mold growing on the walls in my room and there was a really weird smell in my room, so I might have inhaled some fungal spores.  Another backpacking experience that I expected, but was hoping to avoid. haha. Oh well. No bed bugs, so I can't complain too much because I have heard some horror stories.

The next morning my aussie friend and I went to the Argentine side of the falls, and it was like a completely different world! The Brazil side is supposed to be really good for panaramic views, but the Argentina side has a lot more to do at their park, so it is wayyyy better! They had three different trails that took you to different parts of the falls, one of which was called Devil's Throat which was basically a HUGE basin where humongous waterfalls emptied.  It was loud and completely amazing! I want to upload video on to facebook of it, but stupid facebook takes FOREVER to upload things down here, and at internet cafes, that is extra dineiro I need to save. haha. I'll give it a shot though!

One of the cool things I got to do on the Argentina side was take a boat ride up into the falls! He took us right underneath two falls and obviously we were drenched, but it was so fun and felt amazing since it was so hot outside! I feel lucky in terms of weather on my trip so far. Nothing has been ruined because I haven't had bad weather at all! I need to knock on wood though. Hopefully the luck lasts. I know I am not in many of the pictures I am putting online--kinda hard to have pictures of yourself when you're out and about on your own. Also, I have gotten such a HUGE tan, that unfortunately, I need to use the flash to even show up in pictures. lol. Unfortunately, I am being completely serious. I'm going to avoid the beach for a few countries. haha.

Next stop, Buenos Aires!  Argentina buses are supposed to be great though since they give you wine and cheese and food on your bus. I don't think I will mind the next 20 hours if I get some good Argentinian wine! :)

              

Floripa, I will conquer your waves!

Florianopolis affectionately known as Floripa to Brazilians, is set on the coast in south Brazil, and is like a completely different world in Brazil if you compare it to Rio, Salvador, and Sao Paulo. The other cities I traveled to in Brazil had crime and danger lurking at every corner whereas Floripa was as relaxed and as safe as any other place in the world.  A complete 180, that was wonderfully welcomed by me because I was finally able to walk around the streets at night or during the day with any electronics and any amount of money without feeling like I had to hide things in my bra and constantly look behind me. haha.

I arrived at my hostel sweaty, hungry and tired only to find out that I couldn't check into my room for another three hours, I wasn't allowed to have breakfast, and to top it all off, there were NO girls in sight. All I could see were burly guys all shirtless with rugby shorts none of which said hi to me and or was talking in a language I could understand. I thought I had walked into a gay hostel. Seriously.  The only girl was the receptionist, and she didn't seem to care about the look of horror on my face.

The only thing I could do was head to the beach because I had no bed yet, so I figured I would kill some time and walk. What a horrible idea.  After about 20 minutes of walking through the intense humidity and heat, I FINALLY saw a sign for the beach only to turn the street corner and see a massive hill for me to climb.  The next sign showed that in about 2400 meters (1.5 miles) I would get to a really good picture point.  At this point, I can't even figure out where the beach would start considering I am walking up a hill.   The worst walk of my life probably.  I was sweating and so hungry and the beach didn't come for another 15 minutes of uphill climb!! Out of control.

The beach I went to, Praia Mole, is surf central! But only for experts.. not me. I spent the entire day  relaxing in and out of the water, until I had a 60  year old-ish senior citizen-esh type French man started to offer to buy me a drink. Um awkward. Didn't take me much time to leave after that.

I finally checked in at the hostel and found out from the new desk girl that there were two rugby teams staying at the hostel (one from Uruguay and one from Paraguay) and I really was the ONLY girl staying at the hostel that night. How does this kind of stuf happen to me??

Luckily I met a guy from Mexico who was doing a study abroad in Floripa so spoke English fairly well. We got some drinks and spent a few hours just talking about all of the food we miss from home. Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, nachos, indian food of course!

I hung out at a different beach  the next day with this guy and we just chilled out. By the time we got back to the hostel some aussie girls had come to the hostel and so had some german guys.  I was somehow the only girl in the room I stayed though..that's the third time now.

I hit up the beach again on my last day with the german guys I had met and I learned how to surf!! No official lessons or anything.  Just those two guys giving me some pointers. Not exactly reassuring, but believe it or not, I got up a few times in the first hour, and since I only had 1.5 hours before I had to leave to catch a bus out of town, I felt pretty good!! Surfing is really fun but   hard! The waves bashed me around a bit and since I was using a long board, I had almost no control of the board half the time bc it was so big. haha. But I am SO HAPPY I tried!! One thing from my to do list in south america is done!

I am heading to Iguassu Falls next. It is supposed to make Niagra Falls look pathetic.  haha. I will see in 14 hours since that's how long my next bus ride is.

Sao Paulo, My ´´Home Away From Home.´´

Last time I came to Sao Paulo, I was lucky enough to have locals showing me around in a car, because I was ultra paranoid that I was going to get mugged or robbed at every street corner. This time in Sao Paulo, I realized as dangerous as Luiz claims it is (which I don´t doubt), I probably won´t get mugged at every street corner. haha. 

We arrived into the city late--like 11pm--so I tried asking the guy giving me my bag off the bus if it was safe to take the metro this late.  It took us about 10 minutes, and me saying every synonym I could think of for the word danger, plus pretending to mug him for him to realize what I was asking, and he laughed, and told me things were perfectly safe.  Then, being like all Brazilians--SUPER NICE--he pointed the way for us to go, and even took us part of the way to where the entrance to the metro was.  I shouldn´t have been surprised when I looked up from the ticket booth and I saw him waiting for us.  He had decided to come and escort us all the way to where we were going to catch the subway while explaining to me how to use the subway and where to get off.  So nice! I mean, at this point I already knew what I was doing, but it´s the thought that counts!! I thought it was such a nice thing for him to do, and a great way to start our stop in Sao Paulo.

What we didn´t know was that Sao Paulo has been experiencing quite the rainy spell--they had had 48 consecutive days of rain before we got there. Fantastic! We go from sunny and clear, no rain in sight, to 48 consecutive days and flooding!  I guess it wasn´t completely bad though, considering I was definitely in need to do my laundry and this weather was the perfect excuse to pull out the only clean clothes I had--longer sleeves and longer bottoms.

Jen and I spent the day walking all over the city.  I took her to the main street in Sao Paulo--Paulista Ave.--which is basically the business district.  The modern art museum there had an interesting display of naked women on the ground below the building.  I will never understand modern art. We continued our walk and actually ended up walking through a super ghetto, shady, seedy area of the city where all we saw was grafitti and homeless people.  I knew it was bad, but not until we were well into the walk--so there was no use in turning back I figured.  Luckily for us, nothing happened.  We made turkey sandwiches (hot dog bun + turkey + mutard = turkey sandwich) and had some fruit from a grocery store at what seemed like an ok area (we were wrong), and while Jen was using a pay phone, I sat watching our food and happened to make eye contact with a local who took it upon himself to come sit next to me and just start talking to me. What the heck.  I don´t understand why this keeps happening. haha. In every other city I didn´t mind so much at all since they were either helping or I was not in the ghetto so I knew they were ok people.  Here, this was the ghetto. And this guy sat and talked to me for a good 15 minutes even though I kept telling him I couldn´t understand him.  Turns out, he really was a good guy.  A hoodlum-ish kid came up to us while we were ´´talking´´ and wanted to take my food, and I said no, and then he warned me that there were lots of people who might try to take my food and that I should call the police if they did, and he pointed them out to me, although I already knew where they were.

My new friend finally left, and Jen decided to head back to the hostel, so I went to the Japantown of Sao Paulo because Sao Paulo is home to the 2nd largest Japanese population outside of Japan.  It was a pretty neat area.  There was a really nice church, but a lot of homeless people around, so I couldn´t take many pictures. The bank even looked like a typical Japanese house you would see on tv. Just imagine it because I couldn´t take a picture bc of the homeless. haha.

Back at the hostel, Jen had befriended a set of english brothers who were nice enough to cook us dinner that night.  It was fun to talk to them, although they reaffirmed that Americans more or less stink--at least all the ones they´ve met--and our health care system is absolutely ´´bollucks.´´  Tell me something I don´t know boys. Health care has been an ongoing discussion since I´ve been down here--no one can seem to understand how our system can be SO BAD.  Unfortunately, I can´t really give them an answer. Luiz´s cousin, Eloa, showed up to the hostel to give us some suggestions on what to do in the city at night.  We got some tasty dessert with her, and after getting caught in a ridiculous amount of rain that rendered my umbrella useless, we got ready for a night out with some caiparinhas and headed out to a club called Vegas. The night life in Sao Paulo is supposed to be insane. It seemed kinda crazy I guess...apparently the club we went to was open until 8am.  We left at 4:30am, and I realized the reason why my cough wasn´t going away had a lot to do with all of these late nights. haha.

Next morning, Jen decided she wanted to go to Paratay--a town about 6 hours north of Sao Paulo--so she headed out that afternoon, and I stayed back in Sao Paolo so I could head out to Florianopolis.  I spent the day with the English brothers, Pete and Phil, and we spent over an hour traveling to the Snake Farm in Sao Paulo which is supposed to be this super cool place where they milk snakes and make anti-venom and everything.  I thought it would be SO COOL to see something like this in person instead of on the Discovery Channel, and I figured it would be awesome to tell my parents about.  Well after taking forever and a day to get there, we get into the park and we realize we only have 1 hour to see the museum which was set to close in 30 minutes, and the park which closed in 60 minutes.  Holy crap! We power walked up this ridiculous hill, only to find that no building was marked clearly and the ´´snake pit´´ only had 2 snakes! WTF!  We booked it all over the park struggling to find the snakes, and finally we´re at the completely opposite end of where we started and I ask a woman in ghetto portuguese, ´´Onde feca the SNAKES?´´ with a snake sound effect. haha. She points us back to where we started all the way at the other end of the park! At this point, we´re so sad, because it´s basically 4:30pm, and we feel like there´s no way we´ll see the snakes.  Luck was on our side, and we were the last ones allowed in, but wow, after ALL of that running around, the snake farm was CRAP.  It was just a bunch of snakes behind glass in really small boxes.  WHAT A WASTE OF TIME. I should just stick to the Discovery Channel.  I can´t believe this is a main attraction in Sao Paulo though.

We spent another hour or so getting back to the hostel, and then I left to stay at Luiz´s cousin´s house since the hostel had no more space for me.  Man, that was the best thing that could have happened to me.  Luiz´s family is absolutely amazing, and his Aunt Sandra heated up rice and beans for me to eat, which doesn´t seem like anything special, but if you remember my turkey sandwich from the day before, you can see how a home cooked meal would be absolutely amazing in comparison.  I got to take a shower without sandals in a clean place for the first time in weeks, and I got to do my laundry (which is good bc I had NO underwear left!), and I got to sleep in a nice bed.  I was living the dream. Luiz´s uncle even made me fresh mango juice before I went to bed. So tasty.

I spent the next afternoon catching up with Luiz´s extended family at his Aunt Terazenia´s restaurant.  Some more amazing food for lunch and fresh mango juice. They spoiled me. =)  I even had a dessert which I actually liked, which means something since last time I came here, his aunt let me try every since dessert from her restaurant and I don´t think I liked any. It was a passion fruit custard or pudding I had--it was sooo good! I´ll have to try to find more of that before I leave Brazil.  I hung out with Eloa and her friends until it was time for dinner with Luiz´s parents.  We went to what was actually one of Lu´s favorite pizza places in Sao Paulo, and we had a good time sending him pictures of the food while he sent us pictures back of being sad.  I ended the blissful day and a half of my time with Luiz´s family by getting dropped off to the bus station by his parents.

 Sao Paulo doesn´t have much to do for tourists in my opinion, and I wasn´t planning stopping there at all because of this (and because I´d already been), but I am so so so so so GLAD I did stop there.  It was absolutely fantastic being able to hang out with Lu´s family, and they are so wonderful for hosting me.  A big THANK YOU goes out to them!

Next stop, Florianopolis--aka Floripa--in the southeast of Brazil.  I´m expecting the 12 hour bus ride to be worth it because I´ve heard nothing but praises for the beaches there. One last set of beaches before I hit the middle of South America. Maybe I can learn how to surf...

Rio is ''litrally mental''

Rio. Rio. Rio. Rio. Rio. omg Rio. I want to live here one day. Or at least have a vacation home here. This city is absolutely amazing, and I don't think I would ever get tired of being here if my life was anything like what it's been like the last week.

The bus ride down from Salvador ended up taking 30 hours. Sounds absolutely terrible, right? The distance is about the equivalent of the distance between New York City and Miami.  Luckily for me, South America is big on bus travel, and long distance buses are generally good, and are definitely fine in Brazil.  The seats are spacious, they recline almost all the way back, provide a leg rest, plus blankets, ear plugs, and movies. It's just like being on a plane, and almost better since planes are so cramped.  I got onto the bus to see that a cute girl was in my seat. I figured it wasn't a big deal, so I went and sat by some friends, expecting that it wouldn't be a problem. But this is my life, so of course at the next stop, a man comes and tells me I'm in his seat so I get kicked out of it.  I move up a few rows and settle into my next seat and within 10 minutes, the guy who kicked me out of my first seat has moved to a new set of seats near me.  What the heck? Ugh. Fine. I let it go. I'm thinking the odds of me having to move again are slim.  Wrong again.  Next stop, I am ONCE AGAIN in someone else's seat.  This time, a friend I've met from Scotland who's been volunteering outside of Rio helps me kick the 5 year old girl out of my seat because I felt too bad doing it.  I settle into my new seat, surrounded by a family of girls who are staring at me and talking about me in portuguese and saying that I don't understand it anyway when their mom scolded them. The mom is carrying an infant in her arms, and it was really cute, but I knew with the way my luck was going, when it was time to sleep, I would not be getting much. They're actually a really cute family of girls, and they offered me a sample of any cookie or snack they were eating.  The first one was horrible, but they got much better once they started eating cookies. They rejected my Soy Joys though. At some point during the trip, I noticed that the girl I was sitting by was breathing pretty heavily and it sounded like she was crying.  I tried to figure out what was going on then because she had a towel up against her mouth and I was really hoping she was just trying not to cough. Nope. She had thrown up or spit something up into the aisle and into the towel she was holding. Ewwwwww.  Thank god her sister cleaned it up asap and she made it to the bathroom before any real damage was done to my breathing space. But 10 minutes after the crisis happened, the mom had the bus driver pull over and the entire family of 5 women got off in the middle of nowhere. So weird! I hope they´re ok.

Just like Salvador, Rio was hot and muggy and just another sweat fest waiting to happen.  I got to my hostel and the first thing I noticed when I walked in was this huge Israeli flag.  I have nothing against Isreal, but I have yet to meet an Israeli who is fun and friendly.  I was so worried that the hostel was going to be full of antisocial Israelis..haha.  It wasn´t though--thank god.  I was actually supposed to be in room 6, but the owner moved me to room 8 because there weren´t any girls in room 6. I thought that was nice of him, and ended up meeting two Swiss girls who I hung out with.  We went to a samba club in Lapa which is where the craziness of carnaval happens.  I attempted to learn how to samba, but I was pretty unsuccessful.  It was amazing to watch the Brazilians go at it though!  They´re so fluid and smooth, and they need at least 6 feet of space all around them.  I think they´re all just born with this innate ability to dance.  Plus they´re born with good looks and big butts.  Nice life. 

Next morning, I was told I would have to move to room 6 but 15 minutes later the owner´s wife, said I wouldn´t have to. Okkkk. Another day with the swiss girls.  We went up to see the Chris the Redeemer statue. It´s really big. haha. No, it´s quite beautiful, and it gives great views of Rio.  Unfortuantely, the Swiss girls stink at taking pictures, so I was really unhappy because they never took a good picture of me at the statue. We spent the afternoon walking around Centro, the business area of Rio (I even saw the library!) and finished off our afternoon with some frozen yogurt from my new favorite place in the world, Yoforia (what an amazing name. haha.) and some time at Copacabana beach. What do you think of when you hear Copacabana?  That fun song?  Really pretty sand and water?  Well my friends, it is not as great as we thought. ha.  It was disappointing actually.  The water was not that pretty azul blue you see in pictures, it was actually a brownish color. I hoped that Ipanema would be better. I didn´t go out on Friday night because I ended up meeting people and talking to them for too long. No worries though.  I met new friends and took a day to recharge myself before the real craziness started.

Saturday morning and the hostel owner´s wife tells me I really do have to switch rooms because they asked someone in my room to switch and the guy had refused.  She said I could talk to him and maybe convince him to move to the room with all boys if I wanted.  Turns out, the guy who I´m supposed to have move is the guy who I just helped out getting settled into the breakfast routine. I was nice to a guy who was retarded and refused to switch rooms with me.  So I moved into a room with 5 guys--3 english and 2 sweeds.  Interesante.  Turns out, it was the best thing to have happened to me.  I hit it off really well with the English guys, and they became my new friends for the entire week.  The hostel owners always saw us together and kept asking if I was doing ok and telling the guys they had to take care of me. It was kinda funny.  We went out that night and were out until the sun came up that morning (our first sunrise of many more to come).  We went to Copacabana on the way home at 6:30am and ended up meeting some others from the hostel and we did a sunrise swim in the ocean. 

I spent my days with the boys just hanging out at Ipanema beach, watching the sunset there, and comparing things back and forth about England and the States.  They thought the way I talked was hilarious, and I had to point out that the things I said were pretty singular to me, and definitely not representative of America as a whole.  I´m pretty sure most people in America don´t say ``What the shit?!`` and ``O-m-g, that´s f´íng crazy!`` or `´j.k j.k.´´  The only thing that ever came out of their mouths to describe anything was ´´That is literally mental!´´ in the english accent of course where the ´e´ in literally is erased.  We went to the Sambadrome one night to watch the samba schools, and it was insane!!! The costumes, the concepts and the floats were absolutely amazing and beautiful!! I befriended the woman sitting in front of us, and she started to teach me how to sing along to the theme song of my favorite samba school whose theme song involved singing about books..haha, why I am I not surprised?  She was impressed with my pronunciation, but grew disappointed everytime she´d tell me to start singing along and I´d mess it up.  I can barely speak portuguese, I´m not sure how she expected me to be amazing at the singing. haha.  I´m bummed my favorite didn´t win--they even had a religions theme segment where they included hinduism. Yes those are Ganesh-es you see. Apparently, the owner of the winning samba school wins $10 MILLION. woah. I have some videos of the sambadrome (there are 100,000 ppl each night!).  Will try to get them up on fb.

I met Jen, my irish travel buddy, at 7am after our sunrise dip in the ocean. She is really sweet, and was super excited to meet me. It was really nice! Unfortunately, that was more or less the most time we spent together the entire time we were in Rio because we were in different rooms and both doing different things. I guess there will be more time to meet her later...the first being our 18 hour bus ride to Florianopolis. I also met 4 Americans and none of them made a good impression on anyone. One of these Americans was indian and our conversation went something like this:

Drunk Indian:  You´re American? Where are you from?
Me:  Chicago
Drunk Indian: Where in Chicago?
Me: Streeterville.
Drunk Indian:  Where in streeterville?
Me: Off Michigan Ave.
Drunk Indian:  Where off Michigan??
Me: Do you want my exact address or something so you can show up at my door? I live near the Water Tower Mall.
Drunk Indian:  Oh but you´re not from Chicago.  I bet you´re from Naperville.
Me:  No, I am NOT from Naperville. I´m from Indiana.
Drunk Indian (sensing the irritation in my voice): Oh I didn´t mean to offend you--you just look like the Naperville type.
Me: What does that even mean? Nevermind.  Nice meeting you, have a good night.
Drunk Indian Idiot:  Oh can I give you some advice?  I feel like I need to give you advice because I would give advice to my sister if she was alone in South America.
Me: No, I don´t want your advice, and I´m not alone. I am with these 3 guys here.
Drunk Indian: I really want to give you advice.

At this point, one of my english friends notices my annoyance and comes over and escorts me away from the idiot.  What the heck was that? And he wasn´t the only american to try to bascially get my address in Chicago by trying to pinpoint my EXACT location in chicago. Americans are weirdos abroad, and so far, no one I have met has made a good impression, and unfortunately, my foreign friends feel the same way about the ones they´ve met. Ugh. Good one America. Way to send weirdos to represent us. (not me though!)

I ended my stint in Rio peeling like crazy (ew), super tired, and with a cough that still won´t go away.  Unfortunately, Jen and I were not able to get a bus down to Florianopolis because there was only ONE seat left...so we´re detouring to Sao Paulo and we´ll head down after.  Overall, Rio was completely amazing, and although I didn´t spend carnaval in an inebriated state like 99.9% of the city, I still had a fantastic time, and cannot wait to come back! World Cup 2014?? Olympics 2016??

Morro de Sao Paolo: Why are there peas in my hot dog?

Morro de Sao Paolo can be summed up into: beautiful beaches with lots of (israeli) tourists.

We just barely made the two hour boat ride to the island, and we showed up with no place to stay and the backup plan of sleeping on the beach if we couldn´t find a place. I figured this might not be the smartest way to travel, but since I was with 4 other people, I could give this a try.  Not having a place would have been no big though.  The place is ultra touristy, and sleeping on the beach would have been completely safe and probably more comfortable than a room without air conditioning.

We found a nice hostel and settled in to lots of fun in the sun. I have sun burn worse than I´ve ever gotten before, but it was worth it. The beaches here look like they are straight from a post card.  I should consider investing in a summer home in brazil. haha.

I zip lined down a cliff that was 300 meters high that ended in the ocean.  Super fun, except when my tush hit the water, my bottom slid right off--not all way since there was a harness, but enough to expose my butt. haha. Luckily for me, only 70% of the people on the beach saw most of which were families, and my bottom was only exposed for about 2 seconds. There were some sleezy guys in the water who also unfortunately got a peek, but oh well.  Note to self for next time: wear shorts even if you´re going to end up in the water.

Hit up a beach party at night, which was lots of fun.  Apparently, Morro is a huge Israeli vacation hot spot. Who knew? My diet has been mostly just fruit for breakfast, and pasta for dinner.  Lunch doesn´t usually happen, but mostly because I am doing things, and my breakfast is pretty filling.  Hit up a beach party and thought I was getting some of home when I ordered a hot dog from the stand. I was wrong. The mustard was flourescent yellow and there was some sort of cheese product gluing the bun shut. My friend got a hot dog that ended up having peas and corn inside amoung other questionable hot dog toppings. Not trying that again...

I missed my bus to Rio, so I´ll have to take one tomorrow.  But I did manage to get to the bus station and get my ticket changed all by myself in portuguese. I wish I had someone around to give me a cookie.  In the meantime, I´m back in Salvador at a new hostel. I met a guy from Montreal at the bus station who helped me out a bit and brought me to the hostel he was staying at.  Nice guy for the help, but overall he´s pretty obnoxious and condescending, and I just wanted to kick him most of the time.  He didn´t help me carry my bags ONCE the entire time we were walking through the bus station and on the streets to the hostel.  All he had was a bottle of water. Idiot.  He did introduce a group of us to some brazilian cuisine called macaquaco which was not bad, but he still doesn´t get points.

There´s always a street festival here in the center on Tuesdays, so I might check that out and relax before my bus journey. Luckily friends from Morro will be on the same bus tomorrow so I´ll have company the whole way.