October 6, 7, 8

Rhia:

First things first - Ilha Grande is completely amazing. We did a crazy hike today and then lots of beach time. I´ve got the camera downloading here so hopefully I can get a good chunk of the photos into flickr.

I had a general Brazil observation to make, but I´ve forgotten it, so I´m going back to the chronological. I can´´t beleive we still haven´t even been gone a week!

For the record, if you see this ~, it´s an apostrophe. The apostrophe is somewhere else entirely on the keyboard and it~s a trial to get to!


October 6:

This is the day we finally caught our Bonde (bon-gee). It was actually quite possibly the coolest thing yet. It was completely packed with people hanging off the sides all over the place (we found out later that if you don~t sit down you don~t pay.)People loaded their children into wherever there was a seat and then claimed space for themselves wherever - even if it meant being at the front and back of the car! Imagine seeing that in North America. The car rattled and banged all the way down the hill, steep streets, hairpin turns, all kinds of areas we~d still not seen. And most alarming for the people hanging off the sides, it crossed over the Lapa aqueduct, which is about 6 stories high. We tried to get a photo of the return voyage, but we waited around a sort of sketchy neighbourhood for about 15 minutes without catching sight of it and hten decided to stop being conspicuous.

We were on our way to catch the ferry to Niteroi, across the bay, passing by a small flea market near the terminal. It was a nice ride, and we eventually secured a bus from teh other side up to our main target, the Contemporary Art Museum. What a trip! It~s basically a flying saucer on this kind of stem, almost floating in a little pool of water. There~s a 360 degree veiw from inside. There will be photos! The exhibits inside were interesting too, one was all amazing grafitti, one bizarre amalgamations of weird things, and the last a series of photos. John took a million photos of that, too.

When we emerged from the museum one tempertature board read 31C and another 37. We decided to split the difference, and headed for these super-cute beaches we~d seen from the museum. As we sat there we ran into a small band of kids, who seemed pretty excited to see tourists up close. We sent them away with some MOO cards, with which they were thrilled.

In the evening we went to a giant concert on Copacabana Beach. Organized by the Aquarius project, which has been bringing high art to the masses for 35 years, it was a large selection of Brazillian clasicall music and a complete trip. THere were thousands upon thousands of people there on plastic chairs on teh beach. When they played the more popular tunes, people would sing along.

After we stopped at a little neighbourhood bar for a snack and got treated to warnings and scare stories from a grizzled French tour guide.

Oct. 7:

John~s already captured most of this, so I~ll just add a few notes.

We tried to see monkeys in teh back garden after breakfast - the other guys staying there had seen them the morning before - but they were stubborn and didn~t come.

The favela tour was completely fascinating, teh whole anthropology of the thing. It~s built into the steepest part of the hillside, and the house are incredibly sturdy - not shacks at all.

Ipanema was amazing - there were people on the beach to sell you anything you could possibly want. The water was cool but not cold. There was a really cool crafts market where the busses stop.... and sometimes it~s hard to get money from Brazillian ATMs.

I thought Maracana was going to be a horror story for me, but it actually wasn~t that bad. I think teh cohesiveness of the crowd was a big part of it.

Dinner at Bar Minero was amazing. This indescribable dish of chicken and okra, served up with big blocks of polenta *and* rice *and* beans. Yumm.

Oct 8:

This day was really frustrating. We hung around for a while in the morning after breakfast, trying to overcome shyness to ask to borrow a computer to upload photos. Did sneak on one of our fellow guest~s computer for a while, but then teh internet crapped out, so we gave up and headed downtown to get cash. (No bank machines on Ilha!)

By the time we got cash, had a quick suco and a quicker look for a Flamengo Jersey for JOhn, it was well past the time we should have been back at the ranch. Then teh bus to Santa Teresa took a million years. We grabbed our stuff and leapt back into a cab for the Bus station. If things had gonewell, we would have squeaked onto the 12:00 bus with seconds to speare. But no... first tehre was this guy who took a million years to make his transaction. Then teh computer system broke down. By the time we got our handwritten tickets, there were only about 15 minutes to catch the 1 p.m. bus. That bus arrives in Angra do Reis just about when the ferry to Ilha is about to leave.

My smattering of spanish and willingness to holler to other tourists got the whole schwack of us onto the ferry just as it was pulling out, though. And finally we could breathe! Two little girls on the ferry were completely captivated with us. The moo cards came out again, and they were delighted. I gave them a couple of snowy scenes and they were almost beside tehmselves. The older of the two put the picture of me in her purse and I caught her gazing at it later on.

It~s taking a million years to upload these pix, so I guess you~ll have to wait for the first batch til Sao Paulo. I think the net here is all by Satellite so it~s not the fastest. I~ll stick up 100 or so though - they~re already on this computer.