Rio and beyond

In the last 36 hours we said our good byes to Jesus and tumbled our way across most of Brazil, including a stop in chic Sao Paulo, and a night in Campo Grande, and are now in Corumba where tomorrow we leave for a tour of the Pantanal. Before I get too far from the bohemian energy and salty moist air of Rio I wanted to share a few other thoughts about Rio (and Brazil)......

DOGS: Due to my personal love and affection for my own dog I tend to judge a country by how it treats it's dogs...well in Rio (and it seems most of Brazil) dogs are in and they are well loved. Not only are they well loved but they are well cared for and they get to go anywhere their merry Brazilian hearts desire (the beach, the restaurants, supermarkets, on leashes, off leashes). I think de Janierens are great because of how well loved their dogs are.

EATING ETTIQUTIE: Eating is a very civilized experience. With the exception of french fries every food including pizza is more or less eaten with a fork and knife. Occasionally people eat sandwhiches with their hands but only if they have a napkin to hold the sandwhich in. The service is incredible, they open and pour your drinks, they serve the food onto your plate and they are always ready to help. I think if you asked them to cut your food and feed it to you they probably would.

LEARNING TO SPEAK PORTUGUESE: This has proved both helpful and harmful at the sametime. I have managed to master about 15 phrases, with the correct pronunciation (and according to our hosts I look Brazilian where Mondo looks "latin american"??). This ability to speak is great because people seem to know what I want but then they respond, which is flattering but I have not a clue as to what they are saying most of the time!! I can catch 1-2 words here and there but if a person is not gesturing (which might I say is an incredibly communicative manner of getting your point across) we are in trouble. This trouble led us to accidentally ordering two hamburgers (mind you these were ham sandwhiches with eggs and cheese) with a side of fried chicken (we were only supposed to get one sandwhich).

Now the mis-adventures........

We spent our last day in Rio in the Tijuca Forest. Marcelo brought us there for another walk in the jungle and some climbing. It was a magical day as the weather was cloudy and cool. We climbed only a little and sat a lot (Marcelo had a high gravity day) but it was sooooo cool to watch the trees be swallowed by the clouds, it made everything look magical. That night we repacked, had a great dinner and drinks (at this cool bar overlooking the city) and went to bed so we could catch an early bus to Sao Paulo. And the the following chain of events occured.....

7:41am bus to Sao Paulo,
2:40pm arrive in SP, put bags in left luggage, get on Metro, wander streets of SP, go to museum, have dinner, get on Metro,
7:00pm get bags, get in cab go to airport,
10:00pm get on plane,
10:40 (we gained an hour) arrive in Campo Grande,
11:30pm look for place to stay,
next day 6:30am get bus tickets to Corumba (buy sunglasses and a tshirt)
9:30am get on bus and see AMAZING sceenery, cool birds
4:30pm arrive Corumba, find place to stay, book jungle tour, buy train tickets for Bolivia for the 10th of July.

I am not joking when I said that we tumble across this country. Tomorrow should be great...I am looking forward to seeing some wildlife and too all the adventures ahead!!