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.