Week 3: Caparinias, Carne and Coaties

Rio De Janeiro: Brazil

Our Brazilian adventure began with a red eye flight from Cuzco to Lima to Rio.  Being a bit tired from our whirlwind trip through Peru we opted for a much lazier time in Brazil. In Brazil we would visit just two cities,  Rio de Janeiro and Iguazu Falls and spend much of our time drinking Caparinias, reading books, visiting the sites and eating lots of meat.  One of our must do activities was, of course, having some Brazilian barbecue at Barra Grill.  Having been to a few in the states we knew we would need to prepare and spend the whole day fasting. When dinner time came around we avoided the open buffet of breads, cheeses and potatoes opting for a minimalist salad of lettuce to help counterbalance the avalanche of meat. What we weren't prepared for was the aggressiveness of our waiters. After our first heaping plate of meat was carved by our waiters, they were on constant patrol with their meat skewers. We flipped our place cards over to show the large red hand symbol indicating that we had more than enough meat and the waiters could temporarily halt their patrols.  These signs were completely irrelevant it seems as nothing would stop the tidal wave of meat.  While we didn't speak any Portuguese we have determined that "No thank you" means "yes, I want more meat",  "No quiero" means "I'd like a huge slice of meat,  please" and "Please no more" means "Give me every sausage on your skewer". 

Sorry, no pictures were taken of us gorging ourselves with meat in Brazil, but we'll have a few meat pictures for you when we are in Uruguay and Argentina.

Outside of our meat eating marathons we spent our days exploring Rios many parks and beaches, heavily leveraging our good friend Google Maps which in Rio had all the local bus routes programmed in which makes traveling around really easy and crazy cheap, with most bus routes running about 50 cents and at least an hour long ride. We made all the obligatory stops at Christ the Reedemer, Sugar Loaf,  Copacabana and Ipenema.  At Christ the Reedemer, Nate made the unfortunate mistake of trying to take a decent photo of the Christ statue for some tourists which requires essentially lying on the ground to get a good angle.  Once one group saw he was willing to do this he had a line of requestors and spent a good 10 minutes snapping photos.  We were not as lucky in finding a willing photographer so settled for some solo shots ourselves.

At Sugarloaf, where you can see panaormic views of Rio, we finally saw some wildlife - monkeys. We have no idea what the monkeys are actually called, so we ended up calling them "pocket monkeys." You can fit one in your pocket if you decided you wanted to sneak one back home. They spend their days roaming around the trees in family packs, eating fruit and grubs. Sarena had great fun peeling fruit for the monkeys and leaving it on branches for them to eat. We found pocket monkeys all over Rio so the are probably viewed like squirrels in the US,  but we thought they were much more fun.

Most of the rest of our time was spent by the pool or walking the beaches. On the beach we saw everyone playing a hybrid of volleyball and soccer.  The rules are essentially the same as volleyball but you don't use your hands but kick or headbutt the ball like soccer.  All in all it was quite impressive.  The one other notable thing about the beach were the prostitutes.  Perhaps this was a signal that we weren't staying in the best part of town but every night on our walk back to our hotel we would pass dozens of hookers hanging out on each street corner.No pictures of the prostitutes, but here is a nice picture of Copacabana beach.

Iguazu Falls: Brazil and Argentina

After Rio we hopped a flight to Iguazu Falls on the border of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.  We spent most of our time on the Argentina side since the Sheraton was right inside the park (I think by the end of our trip we'd probably have made it to Platinum status based solely on the number of award nights we spent at SPG hotels).  The falls are quite impressive and visible from our hotel room. Outside of the single worst hotel dinner we have ever had (avoid the chicken risotto at all costs if you stay here),  the facility itself was excellent and we got a welcome bottle of champagne.

Devil's Throat

Before we wore our rain gear...we were quite wet. Umbrellas do not help

After the first waterfall, we promptly returned to our hotel to change into our water proof gear.  All in all we'd say our  waterproof pants were outstanding, but our lightweight rain jackets came out a tad bit soggy.

The park was filled with all sorts of wildlife including coaties, armadillos, alligators, monkeys and all sorts of birds.  The warning signs against feeding the animals were hilarious and included a cartoon of a coatie steeling an ice cream cone and strangling his other animal friends.

Our plans to make a side trip to Paraguay ended up getting squashed by logistical complexity and badmouthing from the locals.  Everyone we asked for directions to Ciudad del Este gave us confused looks and asked why in the world we would want to go there.  Apparently the city was dirty, dangerous and the only reason anyone would go there is to buy cheap black market electronics. Instead, we stopped by the Paraguay border at the city of Porta Iguazu and grabbed Pizza and Empanadas for dinner where we were kept company by a small pack of stray dogs. We are pretty convinced that Pizza is the staple local food in Argentina as you find it absolutely everywhere.

Before heading off to Buenos Aires we had a final morning in the park to explore some of the less traveled hiking trails. The last trail we took we renamed Spider Web path as it was overrun with really large spiders 5 or 6 inches long with elaborate webs spun across the trail.  The best part of our last hike was our run in with a clearly blind armadillo. While most of the other animals we ran into were quick to run away our little armadillo friend came ambling down the trail directly at us.  Only when he got within a 2 to 3 feet away did he sense something was amiss.  After sniffing the air and clearly discovering a foreign smell did he spin around and start high tailing it in the opposite direction. Once back from our hike we hopped a cab to the airport to and headed off to Buenos Aires.