I fell in love with Rio

I fell in love with Rio. Everyone must go to Rio. So much energy, so much life, sounds, colors, passion, and contrasts. Rio puts your senses in overdrive. Breathtaking beaches, mountains, great samba everywhere, beautiful expressive and animated people. The streets are intense and the drivers are completely reckless. But we were safe! And no holdups or robberies, despite the many warnings we got. I think you just need to be smart, and listen to suggestions about where to go and what to bring (or leave at home). Don´t let the stigma of danger associated with Rio dissuade you from checking out this amazing city! I definitely want to go back for Carnaval.

Favorites of Rio:

* Favela Tour - amazing, eye opening experience. Causes you to realize favelas aren´t just filled with drugs and violence, lots of very nice people are there (they´re just poor)

* Friday Night Run - started raining mid run, pouring... then lightening and thunder!

* Hangliding - awesome rush and views, a must do in Rio

* Cristo Redendador (big Jesus statue) - amazing 360 views of this ginormous city, our camera died ;(

* Hoppin live Samba clubs. Rio Scenarium in Lapa was a cool old mansion turned venue

- Leblon - phonomenal beach, and great SAFE neighborhood, stay here

- Ice cold choppe (draft beer, cold tall glass, with at least 2 inches of foam) helps cool you from the heat any hour of the day

- Suco shops - they serve every frush fruit jiuce you can think of. Maracuja (passion fruit) was our favorite, and also acai, which is served in a frozen yogurt like form, but more icey no creamy.

First Week in Brazil

So far we've been to Lima (for 7 hours), where we met a wonderful family who treated us to a wonderful chicken rotisserie lunch (more expanded story another day). then 5 nights in Ilha Grande (pronounced Eee-la Gran-jeee), a beautiful island off the coast of rio with beaches and wonderful boat trips and mosquitoes that have left my legs attacked, but also provided a great tan!!! then now Paraty, a unesco site which has a charming colonial centro- cobblestones, white buildings with colorful doors and windows, antique lanterns.

so what's Brazil like so far?... i'll share a few of the biggest impressions from small town Brazil (Ihla Grande and Paraty). remember these are pre-Rio. so i'm assuming i'll have a fair amount to add in a week post Rio.

* first the heat, its really hot and humid here! i mention this first only because during our first 12 hours in Brazil, the heat actually was most impressionable. after 23 hours of airplanes and airports, we arrived in Rio at 5am. we stood foot outside and almost broke a sweat. our first destination was Ihla Grande, not Rio yet. so via cab, then 3 hour bus ride, then second cab, we made it to the dock at Angra Dos Reis, where the ferry was to pick us up and take us to our island getaway. one catch here - we arrived at the ferry at 10am, but the boat didn't get us until 4pm. now at this point, we're a bit tired as you can imagine, a bit hungry, and certainly ready to get there. but we had time to kill, so we dragged our bags around this small city until we found our hangout - an outdoor bar with red umbrellas which seemingly would provide us with some shelter for our wait. well, at 11pm it was hitting 90 I'd say, with NO wind. mclure decided a few beers and a coconut milk (which they do serve out of the coconut with a straw, which is pretty cool) would help to cool us. they did.... for about 20 minutes. but then it got hotter, and hotter. and we no longer felt any benefit. so another round or two later of beer, coconuts and hamburgers, we were sweltering. too hot to read, or talk or do anything productive. all i could think to do was walk around the 5 touristy outdoor shops that were attached to the bar, and then visit the ladies room to splash water on my face.. every 30 minutes. so if you calculate that out, i'd say i took that lap about 8 times, before i drove mclure mad. we finally realized we needed a change of venue for the second half of our wait. so we moved under a tree in the park, where we watched little kids play on jungle gym. much cooler, finally found a breeze. (if you're looking at our picasa photos, towards the beginning there is one of us laying down, then another of a lush tre with red flowers. delirium).

* the people are just as beautiful as you hear about. mixed of every beautiful skin and eye color you can think of, brazil holds an eclectic, sunkissed mix of people that leaves you envious. again, i think after rio i`ll have more to say here. in terms of personality and disposition, they are hard to categorize after only a week, give me some time on that one. but most are friendly and happy to help with our 100 questions in a mix of spanglish.

* speaking of language - portuguese is hard! especially the rio dialect. they add all sorts of sh's and jsh`s to words and don't prounounce anything the way it looks. for example, the money here are Reales. you'd think reee-all-les, right? nope. its pronounced - `ghey-ice`. tricky, right? but the language is beautiful and easy on the ears. and they are very happy here to correct you and teach you if you`re interested.

* the beaches, just like the people, are just as beautiful as you`d imagine. While in Ihla Grande, Brazil`s second largest island, we went to Lopes Mendes beach, which is supposedly one of the top 10 beaches in beauty in the world. i agree. its stunning. white soft sand that squeaks when you walk on it, and crystal blue green waters. however unlike any beach i`ve been to, its so hot in the sun that everyone actually sits under the trees in the shade.

Initial Itinerary

Here´s how the agenda looked from the start. We´re hoping to have additions and changes for the better.
Please send on suggestions of any kind!

Part 1 - South America
March 1st- Brazil - Ihla Grande, Paraty, Rio

March 15th - Argentina
Buenos Aires - Punta De Este, Iguazu Falls
El Chalten , Bariloche, San Martin De Los Andes, El Bolson
Pucon, Chile, Mendoza, Salta?

May 1st - Chile - Santiago, Valapariso, Vina Del Mar
May 15th - Peru - Cuzco. Arequipa
May 28th - Machu Pichu Trek

Part 2 - Europe/Africa
June 3rd - London
June 7th - Amsterdam
June 20th - Paris
July 1st - Nairobi, Kenya or Morroco or Croatia?
July 15th - Johannesburg -South Africa

Part 3 - SouthEast Asia
August 1st - Bali, Indo
September 1st - Hanoi, Vietnam
Oct 1 - 15th - Vienetiane, Laos
Oct 15 - 26th - Siem Reap, Cambodia
Oct 26th - Bangkok, Thailand
Nov 24th- Kathmandu, Nepal
Dec 22nd - Australia? New Zealand?

Perito Moreno Glacier is unreal!!

You know when you see something so beautiful you can´t stop staring? You stare and stare, look away, and then look back and its like the first time you´re seeing it? That is what its like checking it out the Perito Moreno Glacier.

First we were bused to the ¨balconies¨ right across from the Glacier, where you can see the entire face of the glacier from land. Its unreal - basically a 600 year old froven river, but instead of settling at water level there is 200 vertical feet of ice above water level, and 3 miles across the river bed - not sure how long. But the total size of the glacier is actually bigger than BA city. One of the biggest glaciers in South America! Anyway, so you´re checking out this massive freak of nature and you wait, listen to it crack and hiss, and then all of a sudden you hear a huge crack as a massive piece of ice slides off the wall, crashes into the water and creates a huge wave. No better word for it than awesome. McLure got addicted to it, waiting for the next thing to crash. He actually didn´t want to leave, it was like pulling a kid out off the swing at the park. :)

Next we took a boat that crossed right in front of the glacier and then got dropped us off on the land right next to one of its ¨banks¨, where we got to hike ON the glacier. We strapped on crampons, which felt like moon boots, and then in single file hiked on the ice. Really cool!! There were little blue streams and holes in the ice - I liked these, took lots of photos. We got to go pretty far in and got some great views and pics and then turned back. Last stop - they surprised us with whiskey on the rocks at a little ¨bar¨aka table with glasses on it, and used the ice to serve up the drinks. McLure, again, was in Heaven.

As I said, it never gets old looking at this glacier- its unreal. We continued our gringo photo session on the boat back to the bus. A day to remember...