Last Stop

I made it back to Lima, Peru where we started this trip. I am staying with my friend Francisco who is from here and goes to UNC. This is the city that I know best in South America and its nice to know my way around and especially nice to stay at someone's house and not have to worry about finding a hostel, etc. I leave late tomorrow night, and I both am sad and relieved to be leaving. I am ready to go home, but I really enjoy being here and have adapted to travelling, so I know that I will miss it. Buenos Aires and Rio were my two favorite cities, ones that I can imagine living in. Its hard to know what I have taken away from this trip. I probably wont realize some of them until later, but for now: it was fun and it was an adventure. I know that I have changed and that I will never forget this summer.

Cidade Maravilhosa

Rio was great. For starters, I didnt get robbed or have any other problems. We stayed in Copacabana four blocks from the beach. We saw the Cristo Redentor statue, one of the new 7 wonders of the world and the Sambadrome where the Carnaval celebration takes place every year. The Copa Libertadores final was in Rio, but we couldnt get tickets because it had been sold out for 2 weeks. The maracana stadium holds almost 100,000 people and it was sold out! We took the metro to the stadium 2 hours before the game started to try to find scalped tickets and just to see what was going on. I have never been in a metro that crowded. I was painfully being smashed into a railing the entire time. Our car was totally full, but at every stop more people tried to cram in. The stadium was crazy. There were 40 or 50 thousand people outside the stadium pregaming, yelling, fighting, and singing. It was like being at the game, but outside, flares, drums, flags, everything. We were in the middle of a huge crowd when we were suddenly shoved backwards by the rows of people in front of us. Eight white men were beating one black man, we dont know why. It was terrible, then in the next 5 minutes we saw two more occurences of the same thing. We made it back to our hostel in one peice and watched the game there, the Rio team lost in penalty kicks. The local mixed drink, the caipirinha, was delicious. Lime juice, sugar, and cachaça, a liquor made from sugar cane made quite a tasty drink sitting on the beach. Chad and I went to a churrascaria where we ate to our stretched out stomachs' content. It was all you can eat meat: delicious steak, pork, and chicken along with a full salad bar. And another food surprise; at first I thought I had just eaten a testicle, but was happy to be informed that it was only a chicken heart. I sadly said goodbye to Chad yesterday afternoon when he went to the airport. Ill be on my own for another 5 days. I watched a game of beach soccer/volleyball. Its volleyball without your hands, looks incredible difficult. Then last night some people from the hostel joined some brazilians and played beach soccer. It was awesome, but I am really sore now. I said goodbye to Rio today and took a bus back to Sao Paulo from where I will fly to Lima, Peru tomorrow.

São Paulo

We arrived to São Paulo a couple days ago and are staying with my friend Orlando, who I met in Peru last summer. We have been sleeping all the time, mostly being lazy, resting from travelling. Its really nice. We went out to a techno dance club unitl 5 am on Saturday night, so crazy. I can read most Portuguese because it is similar to written Spanish, but understanding people speaking is very difficult. It is nice being with Orlando because he can talk for us and keep us from getting robbed or something. Last night we drove all over Sao Paulo and stopped at a June Party. This is a thing that the Catholic church does during the month of June. Local food, drink, and tasty desserts. We met some people, I tried to talk in Portuguese with only some success and filled myself with delicious food. We had steak on a stick, sweet rice milk, some tapioca thing with coconut inside. You pay for plastic chips beforehand and then give those to the vendors to get the food. It was really interesting. We will go to Rio in the morning. I hope we stay safe.

Iguazú Falls

Today we went to the famed Iguazú falls and it was unbelievable. I have been to Niagara and this killed Niagara. We walked all over the place and then took a boat ride right up to part of the falls and got totally drenched by the spray. Tomorrow we will cross to Brazil and see the falls from that side and then continue on. Right now the camera card isnt working so I will add a picture later.

Craziness and cultura

One of the reasons for travelling this summer is to speed date Latin America. I think that I want to spend a year or two living somewhere and working in LA after I graduate, so I am spending a couple weeks in each of 5 countries and seeing who I like. As of now, Buenos Aires seems like the place I would enjoy the most. The week was filled with much wine and maté and exploring of the city. We went to the cemetery, a town of tombs creepily filled with hundreds of cats and saw the graves of past presidents and Evita. The highlight was going to a Boca Juniors game and sitting in the crazy hooligan section. I have never been to anything that even comes close to this experience. Flags, smoke, flares...chaos surrounded us. I hadnt seen a goal in all of the three previous soccer games I had been to and Boca won 6-2. It was awesome. Chad got felt up by someone trying to pickpocket him, someone slapped me in the side of head, and Catherine and Brittany P(who joined us for a few days from Uruguay) got lots of comments and attempted pickups. The singing and cheering never stopped, shoving broke out in the second half, and we could barely see the game for all the flags being waved and smoke in the air. It was great. Other things we did besides seeing most of the famous sights were watch a tango performance on the street (which Catherine took part in mostly against her will), went to an antiques street market, and along with a few thousand others, went to a professional drum circle in a warehouse one night. Chad and I parted ways with Catherine at the airport last night and then took a 17hr bus ride to Iguazu, where we will see the waterfalls tomorrow and then off to Brazil we go.

Buenos Aires

If our journey bears any resemblance to Che´s motorcycle diaries, it would have to be called the long-ass bus ride diaries. We just set a new record of 22 hours on a bus. We decided to skip Mendoza for lack of funds and time and come straight to BA. I already have to say that BA is my favorite of the cities I have visited in Latin America. We found a great place to stay, Pangea Hostel. Juanito, you probably never read this blog, but you would love it. We have been drinking mate and walking around the city in the rain. We are hoping to go to a Boca Juniors game on Sunday and see a Tango show sometime soon.

Argentina

We took the most beautiful bus ride over the Andes to cross into Argentina. Apparently my charango was suspicious because the customs guy checked it out really closely. There was snow on the ground, forests, and lakes. We arrived to Bariloche which is on Lago Nahual Huapi, the most gorgeous lake with snow capped peaks all around. We found a great hostel with a view and really nice owners. In the evening, we watched the Argentina game on tv which Argentina almost lost. Then I stayed up playing pool in the garage with three argentine guys and played charango with one of them until 3am. Yesterday we hiked for 5 hours through woods on the border of the lake with great views. Last night there were protests all over the country and the people here drove around honking their horns with their blinkers on. People were banging pots and pans and marching. Apparently Buenos Aires was crazy. We are probably going to Mendoza next, the wine capital...hiccup...