Bye Bye Brasil

After nearly 50 days in Brasil I have finally managed to pry myself away and make it to Argentina. Not an easy thing to do because even though I`ve spent a lot of time in Brasil, I feel as though I have only touched the surface of things to do and see. So much so that I`ve already planned out a future trip to Brasil. It will include more kitesurfing up north, a trip to the Amazon (I didn`t go this trip for reasons I won`t get into on the blog), and a visit to the islands of Fernando de Noronha (apparently the most beautiful islands in the world where you can kayak next to spinner dolphins).

After leaving Rio I spent four days on Ille Grande, an island off of the Costa Verde. There I went on a couple of spectacular hikes through sub-tropical rainforest and got met some really great locals. They invited me to play in thier daily soccer game (on a proper grass field) and I got into a few impromptu beach games. Between the hikes and the soccer I could hardly walk by the time I left the island.





Now I find myself on the Argentine side of Iguazu falls. These are known to be the most spectacular water falls in the world - wider and higher than both Niagara and Victoria falls. Unfortunately I arrived in the middle of the most severe drought the area has experienced in 27 years so the falls aren`t as impressive as they could be. I`m trying to take the optimistic point of view and I`m telling myself that I`m seeing rocks that no one has seen in 27 years - a true, rare privilege. Right???



Tonight I get on my first long bus ride of my travels - an 18 hour ride to Buenos Aires. Everyone tells me that the bus system in Argentina is one of the best in the world. I`ve booked myself a seat that is fully reclinable into a bed (full cama). If it`s not comfortable I`ve always got my trusty friend - the sleeping pill. Thanks dad!

A Cidade Maravilhosa

No wonder Cariocas (citizens of Rio) call it A Cidade Maravilhosa - the marvelous city. It has some amazing beaches surrounded by a backdrop of tall mountains covered with lush tropical rainforest. Even though the weather deteriorated soon after I got there (it was so cloudy/rainy on most days that you couldn't see the Christ statue) I still fell in love with the city. Great food, amazing nitelife, friendly locals and lots of fun day-time activities make it a great place to visit.

Hangliding is as close as you can possibly get to combining a terrifying experience with an ultimately peaceful one. The terrifying aspect comes when you realize you are only attached to a peice of nylon held together by a cheap frame and you are about to jump of a platform that juts out over a 500 meter cliff. Then seconds after jumping, as you realize you didn't plunge to your death, you are floating. Not flying but floating hundreds of meters above the earth in the most peaceful way. It is just like a flying dream. I would recommend that everyone does it at least once in their lives.



Another highlight of the trip was going to a Soccer match. I watched Flamengo (the most famous club in Rio) play a team from the south in legendary Maracana stadium. About half an hour before the game started the Flamengo side of the stadium was packed and the Samba drums started. The whole side of the stadium started dancing and singing the cheers in unison. There was so much energy and it was so much fun that I didn't even notice when the game started. Check out this video - the whole match was like this. They put North American sports fans to shame.



Those two experiences aside, by far the best thing about Rio is the Sucos (juice) stands. On almost every corner there is a shop filled with fresh fruit just waiting to be blended into the tastiest, healthiest dring you've ever had in your life. I went at least twice a day every day I was there (eight days in total) and didn't get a chance to try all of the flavours. There were fruits I've never even heard of. This is the lady who served me many, may drinks...

Winter???

I just got to Rio a few days ago and was greeted by extreme, humid 38 degree heat. Do these people really have the nerve to tell me it´s winter???



I discovered an amazing way to increase your running speed and stamina. I think I should market my idea as a training tool. Here´s how it works:

1)Start your jog from your nice, cushy Ipanema hotel (or hostel) at about 5:15pm and head for the 7.5 km loop around the lagoon.

2)At about 5:35, when you are halfway around the lagoon you realize the sun has set and you are in the middle of Rio - very close to the favella (you know, the place where the movie City of God was set).

3) Get scared.

4) Run like you´ve never run before.

I need some updates from home. In particular, what´s going on with the Canucks. Have they signed anyone? Are we going to the cup?

Salvador da Bahia

Salvador is a lovely colonial city about half-way up the coast of Brazil. Unfortunately it´s plagued with the usual Brazilian city problems of poverty and drug abuse so the place feels quite sketchy. I had a very strange encounter with one of the locals late the first night I was there. Don´t really want to go into the details but in the end the whole situation turned out to be harmless.

One charming aspect is a custom where a local (usually trying to sell you something) ties a ribbon around your wrist. You are supposed to get one wish for each knot they use to fasten the ribbon around your wrist. So, when one of the street vendors approached me with her "gift" (I put gift in quotation marks because she wouldn´t leave me alone until I bought a necklace), I happily made my three wishes.



The only catch is that you only get the wishes if you let the ribbon fall off on its own. If you take it off yourself you become cursed - I think the voodoo gods strike you down or something. I didn´t think this was such a big deal because it was a cheap little ribbon - how long could it take to fall off? Well, that night I went out for dinner with some people I had met (shish-taouk for all you Montrealers. One of the guys had recieved one of the ribbons before and had been wearing it since September. Hmmm, the prospect of wearing this thing for a year wasn´t really exciting me but neither was suffering eternal damnation or whatever curse was supposed to befall me if I voluntarily removed the ribbon.

Luckily I didn´t have to wait that long. A mere three days later I was sitting at dinner on the island of Morro Sao Paulo when the ribbon came off. Everyone immediately instructed me that I had to throw the ribbon in the water and my wishes would come true.




Now I´m just waiting for my superhero powers to kick in.

Videos

I´ve been trying to figure out how to save the videos that I´ve been taking so I can erase them from my camera. I´m going to start storing them on youtube so anyone can watch. So far, I´ve only had time to upload one but there are more to come.

Check out Craig take out his inner rage on a bag of Sunflower seeds.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ptfrohlich

Jericoacoara

Jericoacoara (prounounced je-ri-kwah-kwah-ra), simply referred to as Jeri, is on the North-East coast of Brazil in the middle of endless sand dunes. It´s an idealic little beach town with sand streets, really chilled-out locals and great nightlife.



I spent a week there but by the end I was very happy to leave. The party scene is so good that it was almost impossible (well, for me at least) to go to bed before 5 in the morning. By day four I was feeling sleep deprived and by days six I was starting to get that "I´m getting sick" feeling.

There are a ton of activities in Jeri. While there I tried sandboarding down the dunes, lazed around on the beach, spent a great day on a dune buggy ride with a danish guy and a dutch-german girl (who is doing her Phd at Oxford - small world), and then, finally I tried to go windsurfing.




People from all over the world come to Jeri to windsurf because it is reknown for its strong wind and big waves. On the day the I went out the waves were only moderate in size but it was blowing 35 knots - offshore. For those of you who haven´t sailed or windsurfed, when the wind is blowing offshore it is difficult becuase if you are having any trouble you will be blown out to sea - in this case the Atlantic ocean.

So, in those conditions, not having windsurfed in 10 years I confidently rented my gear and headed for the water. It was a lot harder than I rembered and it was way windier than anywhere I´ve windsurfed before. I spent the first half hour flailing around in the water trying to waterstart. By the time I got up and had my first ride I was completely exausted. All I wanted to do was to head in and have a rest and a drink to get the salt water taste out of my mouth (I had swallowed quite a bit of water at this point). Unfortunately, I had spent so much time flailing around in the water that I had been blown well, well downwind of the beach. The only way to get back was to start sailing upwind. How the hell was I supposed to do that? The wind was so strong that I could hardly get up on the board. That´s when I had, what I would classify, as a mild to moderate panick attack.

Luckily, after a few minutes I calmed down and my old skills started to come back to me. I spent the next six hours (it was really only half an hour but it felt like six) sailing upwind back to the beach. When I finally got back to the beach I was completely drained and had to lay down for while. I later found out that the rental place was keeping an eye on my through binoculars and had a boat to rescue me if I was in trouble. Questions to ask before the next time I rent.

I kind of wish that I hadn´t gone windsurfing. I used to windsurf a lot - in fact I spent most of every summer of my late teens and early twenties windsurfing before I gave it up about 10 years ago. I have fond memories of it and, in my mind at least, I remembered being quite good at it. Well, this humbling experience shattered any remainder of that illusion.

Photo: me, exhausted but happy to be back on shore.

My Camera´s adventure

This guy stole my camera...



Well, stole might be a strong term. He actually borrowed it for a few days without my knowledge or my permission.

I was out for dinner the night before I was set to leave Cumbuco. After dinner I went to a bar down the street where I realized I had left my camera on the table at the restaurant. About thirty seconds after my realization the owner of the restaurant walked into the bar to have a drink. I explained to him in hand gestures and broken Portuguese that I had left my camera in his restaurant and was set to leave the next day. He was very friendly and wanted to help so the two of us jumped in his car and went back to open and search the restaurant. Alas, the camera was nowhere to be seen. He made a couple of phone calls but couldn´t reach any of his staff. The restaurant was set to be closed the next day so he told me come back two days later to see if the waiter had it.

The next morning I thought about leaving Cumbuco and buying a new camera enroute. The
problem was that the Brazilians try to protect their domestic economy by slapping huge tariffs on imports. A digital camera is about three times as expensive as they are at home. So, I waited two extra days in Cumbuco because I didn´t want to press onwards without a camera.

Two days later I went to the restaurant at lunch time and the waiter who had served me was there. He immediately recognized me because I had eaten at the restaurant about eight times in the previous three weeks. When I asked him about the camera he claimed that he hadn´t seen it. He went to the owner, who also recognized me and we had a long discussion. Unfortunately, the entire discussion was in Portuguese so I had no idea what he was saying but it was clear they didn´t have the camera. I did hear the word "polizia" about a dozen times and they kept pointing out the door. I thought maybe they were getting mad that I was accusing them of taking my camera so I said, "no problemo" and sheepishly walked out.

I was now in a bad mood because I knew that I would probably have to spend about $700 for a camera that would cost about $250 at home. I packed up my stuff and was getting ready to leave town when the owner of my pousada came to me with a plastic bag containing my camera. He said the owner of the restaurant tracked him down and told him that they found it behind the table at the restaurant - it must have somehow slipped down while I was eating. Right on, I got my camera back and it looked to be in good shape except the battery was drained so I couldn´t turn it on. Hmmm, that´s curious because I rembered charging the battery the afternoon I lost the camera.

The next day when I reached Jericoacoara and had a chance to charge the camera I was treated to a great laugh. I turned on the camera and found about fifty pictures of the waiter and his friends partying and posing for pictures. There´s even a few shots of some random women ( I really hope it´s not the waiter´s girlfriend) in some sexually explicit positions. You should really check them out, they´re pretty funny.





I´ve had a few days to think about the whole thing. I´m glad he took the camera (now that I got it back) because he clearly had a better time with the camera for those few days than I would have. I also now have in my possession authentic pictures of Brazilians in thier natural habitat. After I post this blog I´m going to head over to the photomat and get them developed. I´ll mail them back to the restaurant so he, and the owner, can have a look at their photography skills.