I am thankful for my North Face jacket

Thank you to the good folks at North Face for producing clothes for extreme weather conditions. Also thanks to my parents for purchasing such a fine piece of clothing for me in Seattle, days before my trip. You may have noticed that I am wearing it in every picture since Rio, not just because it is soft and comfortable and oh so fashionable, but because it has been so cold! If only I had known. All we heard, weather wise, about Iguazu Falls, is that it is humid and hot because you are practically in the jungle. It is absolutley FREEZING and everyone here, locals included, are freaking out about the weather. Let me tell you about the last time I was warm..

We took an 18 hour bus ride from BsAs to Porto Iguazu. In case you noticed, the number of hours increased since the last blog, but I am not exaggerating. We left at 6pm and arrived at noon the next day. I know what you are thinking, how terrible! I will tell you right now I would pay to get back on that warm and cozy bus. I guess I did pay, so my wish will come true tomorrow on our return bus. The seats are big, they recline really far and even have a foot/leg cushion that folds down so you are almost at a full 180 degrees. We were in a ´cama´(that actually means bed) and there are buses that have a ´VIP cama´for more money of course, but that one really does recline into a full bed. Well, we did just fine with our cama, fleece blanket and quadrangle pillow. My friend had a European math teacher in college that called squares quadrangles and it just stuck with me, I like it. Well, the fun doesn´t stop there. We were on the second level and greeted by a nice young man who gave us some welcome-on-board treats. Shortly after our departure, a movie started, followed by dinner (that was interesting), another movie, sleepy time, breakfast (very interesting) and then..our destination! Let me explain why the meals were so very interesting. Dinner was a cold chopped potatoe with one green olive (yuck - to the olive), three little previously fried but now cold balls of an onion tasting like thing (haha don´t ask, we didn´t want to know), breadsticks, and a bread roll. While curiously eating, the nice man brought us a hot item. How exciting! That other stuff was just an appetizer. Well it looked like mashed potatoes..interesting..I guess it was a Shepard´s Pie. I have no clue what that even consists of. I like berry pies. Moving on to breakfast. It´s a good thing I enjoy carbs more than the average carb-a-phobe because breakfast consisted of: a croissant, a roll, a muffin and some crackers. I´m not joking. All on one individual tray. Not even a little fruit? Oh well, we made it safely and let´s all hope that they switch up the menu on the return bus :)

We found our hostel, dropped our bags off in our private ensuite (that means our OWN room and bathroom, yes!) and talked to the lady working the front desk about getting to the falls. She said Brazilian side is quicker so go there first and save the Argentinian side for Friday all day. Done. It was cloudy and cold but we were used to that in BsAs, AND I have a North Face jacket. Well after taking about 3 different buses, getting our passports stamped again, we were back in Brazil and ready for some good views. WOW WOW WOW. The falls are incredible. The Brazilian side is a little lower so you can go out on these walkways over the water and you get pretty wet from the spray. See picture. We didn´t stay long because it was getting late in the afternoon and since it´s getting to be winter here, it gets dark early. We were freezing after getting sprayed, so we couldn´t wait for 3 different buses before turning to ice, so we took a taxi back. We stopped at a little vegetable and fruit store to get some local produce to make pasta. We were probably his biggest spenders of the day (10 pesos, so a little more than 3 dollars) so the little old man threw in some tangerines for free. Nice people in Iguazu. We made a great dinner, watched some Seinfeld on my mini DVD player and got a knock on the door from the hostel lady saying that our friend was at the front desk. Um, that´s great! But, we don´t have any friends here..?? She said, ´he said his name is Lenny.´OH, another one of Kristen´s friends that she had us email. The last I heard from him he was out of town visiting his girlfriend, but I told him we were staying and Resedencial Uno and I guess he really wanted to be our tour guide. He was showing us on the map all the things we could do on the Argentinian side, so we made plans to meet early the next morning and head out.

After more bread at breakfast, Lynne, Lenny and myself took a bus into the National Park, followed by a train and then A LOT OF WALKING. The views, I thought, were even more incredible. The first walkway we went out on was directly over the biggest fall, Garganto, or something to that effect. We were above it so we didn´t get wet, and even though the sun came out for us, it felt even more frigid than yesterday. But the blue sky with the glistening water was just really really beautiful. I´m sure the pictures don´t capture it, but at least you can see where we were. We did the Devil´s Throat walkway, the Upper Circuit, Lower Circuit, and San Martin Island (the boat ride across a small channel was included in the entry price to the park). Some crazy people paid even more for a 10 minute speed boat ride right up close to the falls and they came back drenched from head to foot. It was hard to feel sorry for them because they willingly paid for it! Lynne felt sorry for them because she thought maybe they didn´t know how bad it would really be. Well it was bad, and they all went over to San Martin Island afterwards, where the sun was hitting, to dry off. Good luck drying soaked denim.

After leaving the falls, but still inside the park, we found a hiking trail. It was a nice leisurely hike, but we were getting pretty tired from all the stairs, ups and downs, and circles we did near the falls. We hiked for about an hour, saw a weird flat nosed animal, some monkeys, coatis, one butterfly and many amazing views!

You can see from the first picture that Lynne is very happy our room is an ice machine and I am very upset. Cut out of the picture is my tiny bed, which is why I am sitting on her bed fit for a Queen, or maybe it was just for the pictures sake. I am getting really good at setting the timer to take our picture. I bet you guys thought we just hired a personal photographer to follow us around. I know, you can complement me later :) My hands are turning purple and typing is getting difficult. Goodnight!

Where IS everyone!?

We are leaving Buenos Aires today and unforunately I can´t say I´m upset about that. For a couple reasons: We are going to Iguazu Falls on an overnight bus (so I´m really excited to spend two and a half days there!) and nothing has been easy here (to be continued..). I think maybe a big attraction to this city is the night life, that doesn´t start until after midnight, but Lynne and I are grannies and don´t feel like staying out drinking until 7am.

When we arrived at Hostel Clan our first night, they told us that Monday night is the best drum show EVER. I don´t know if he really said that, but it is a popular local thing to do. Even though we weren´t staying at Hostel Clan, he invited us to go with their group and we accepted. We mentioned it to Agustin the next day and he had never heard of it. We couldn´t remember the name, la bamba del...la bumba de..still Agustin looked at us like we were making it up so we started thinking that guy from the hostel was making up the drum show. That day we got lunch at a great place and Lynne ordered lomo which is a super delacacy here for less than $10! We ended up getting more info on the drum show so we decided to give it a whirl. I´m SO glad we did. It is a group called La Bomba de Tiempo, with about 15 guys, mostly different types of drums but other instruments as well. Most importantly, the cow bell, you always need more cowbell. The coolest part was that it´s improv. They have a leader who flashes some hand signals but other than that it was just amazing talent. It was an outdoor, covered stage that felt like a gutted warehouse. I´m sure everyone was on drugs and loving it even more than us and I´m also sure we looked a bit out of place but that really didn´t matter. We had a good time and saw a great show in Argentina!

Over the past few days we have been deciding on a plan for the upcoming week. We originally wanted to take a boat to Montevideo, but we were told to go to Colonia instead. It is a shorter and cheaper bus ride and took the advice. We strolled around Tuesday morning before our departure in a desperate search for milk. Why was it desperate? We bought some cereal and milk in Rio and while I thought it tasted like hay, Lynne made a sad face and said it tasted like barn. I am not sure what either taste like really, but you can imagine, not good. So, all the little corner stores carried leche entera (whole milk) but I have a hard time drinking cream. We were killing time so it was worth it to us to fulfill our craving. Of course when we decided to go over a block and head back in the direction of the boat, we found it. Ice cold, leche parcialmente descremada, bingo! We were obviously pretty excited so we took a picture in front of a flowe display. Oh the simple things in life that make us smile. So, back at the boat headquarters, we increased the number of stamps for our passport, Lynne passed out on the amazing couches while I watched a Victoria Secret like photo shoot on their 16 flat screens. Very strange choice if you ask me. What do they think? Small children and women don´t go to Uruguay I guess. Well, minority or not, we boarded the luxurious boat full steam ahead to Uruguay. We really were full steam because there is a slow boat that takes 3 hours, and OUR boat that takes 50 mins. Lynne passed out again and I finished my book, onto book number 2! (The frequent comments about Lynne sleeping is so my lovely friends who think that is all I do can realize that other people, Lynne, enjoy sleep as much as I do. And that´s how we became friends...)

Colonia, Uruguay. Love it. We were told, ´go for the day, love it. Two days, start to hate it. Three days, find a gun and shoot yourself.´I did love it and I agree that three days would be too much. We sat by the water to eat the sandwiches we made and then did our standard ´walk the city.´ We went up the lighthouse (picture attached), went to an amazing hand craft market where I wished I could have bought and bought. It was just a SUPER cute town that is much much cleaner than BsAs even though there are stray dogs everywhere. Cobblestone streets, tiny old cars, scooters seem to be the main form of transportation and just very different from BsAs (in a good way). We walked forever and stumbled across a huge cemetary. I have probably only ever been in one or two cemeteries when I was young, so it was pretty creepy and cool at the same time. We had a great dinner with an amazing blue cheese toast appetizer, salad and pasta, AND a bottle of wine for 14 dollars each, total! The one thing I could NOT figure out was why the streets, shops, and restaurants were soo empty. Total ghost town (May/June is their slow season) so it was actually a nice change of pace from Rio and BsAs, but we sat at dinner for almost 2 hours and were the only ones the entire time. Question of the day: Where IS everyone!? End of the day, I highly recommend Colonia, but remember not to stay there more than a day!

The other nice thing about spending the day in Colonia was that we were able to forget about the stress of getting to Peru. We were planning on flying into La Paz, Bolivia and taking a bus through the towns along Lake Titicaca. Then we heard you now need a visa to enter Bolivia. We got visas in the US for Brazil and it wasn´t THAT easy so we figured it would be the same process for Bolivia. Agustin called the Consulate for us and found out that we would need a copy of our passport, our itinerary, a hotel reservation confirmation, flight confirmation, a photo, etc. We also talked to someone who was on a bus going from Peru to Bolivia and he just had to pay $100 on the spot for his visa so we wanted to go to the Consulate ourselves and see if we couldn´t just get it. Like I mentioned earlier, nothing is easy here. Without getting into the last couple days, I will just describe to you our morning.

We got the addres to the Bolivian Consulate from a travel agency. We wanted to go at 8:30am this morning when they opened, in order to look extremely punctual, reponsible, and smart, but most of all TIRED. We left the house at 8 to catch the the subway line C and transfer to line A. Once we got to line A, it was closed from a power outage, of course, so we started walking. I wish we had a pedometer. We got to 1886 Aldolfo Alsina at 8:26. No Bolivian Consulate sign, pretty standard for BsAa, but we buzzed anyway...nothing..again..nothing..waited about 10 minutes. We went across the street to make sure that was the right place and a guy said they moved to 2300 block of another street like 3 blocks away. More walking..get there..nothing..we ask..no one knows..we find a call center so Lynne calls the number we got from the travel agency and of course the phone number is wrong too. We find out how to call information and Lynne gets through, yes! They are on the 2800 block. We were chasing a goose all morning. More walking. We find it..yay! We wait our turn and the lady says we absolutley cannot get it that day (totally expcted) but still bummed. Lynne said something to the effect of, ´we are flying into La Paz and continuing to Peru. The lady said ooh so it´s in transit? Ok well you just pay at the Airport. $100 dollars. We are a little shocked that after all that it could really be that simple? Then what´s all this paperwork? She explains to us that is more formal, so if you have all the info great but you guys obviously don´t so you will have to pay at the airport. As if it was a bad thing. Umm, no, much better! So we jet home to buy our tickets online, saw Barney on the way, and the web site we have been using won´t allow us to buy a ticket within 4 days of departure. We went to the airline website itself (a South American airline) and after entering all our information is just sends it to their ´people´who contact their ´people´and some other ´people´will get back to us in 24 hours. Weird. So, we may or may not be flying to La Paz in 4 days. I´m hoping for the former.

Off to catch a bus. Hope to blog from Iguazu Falls, can´t wait! I don´t really have a choice though since the bus is 16 hours..woo hoo :)

Our First Mini Adventure, oh !

We just had our first full day in Buenos Aires. We flew in late last night on GOL Airlines where the flight attendents wear white t-shirt turtlenecks with white arm bands from wrist to elbow. They must think that a full sleeve would restrict their overhead/side to side movements. Bottom line, I felt like we were flying into the future, only to find out we really went back in time. I´m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain how we almost ended up in Paris. Not really, but seriously though..

We packed up at Hosel Copa Praia, clearly not an easy task, and headed down to the beach for a couple hours until we caught a bus to the airport. We knew our flight boarded at 3:40pm out of gate 10, but we saw people lining up at our gate at 3:20 so we figured that was first class. Keep in mind there are no scrolling signs or flat screen TVs that tell you the flight number, destination, weather, the most recent celebrity to get arrested, what state won the biggest cookie contest, or anything that represents useful information. At about 3:30 the line of what we thought was first class multiplied and started moving quickly through the doors so we followed with no problem. The line entered a hallway with multiple jetways to our left. We were getting closer and closer to ours when we heard an announcement that the flight to Paree (Paris) was boarding. Umm wait a minute, we did jump the gun a little bit. Next announcement, the flight to Buenos Aires was moved to gate 11. Ah yes, step out of line, no big deal, people are looking at us, it´s ok. Gate 11 is in the same hallway just past the line to Paris. Come on, it´s not like we would have actually made it on the plane and not realized everyone was greeting us with Bonjour. We just slowly approached our jetway, first ones there, and were escorted onto the plane. They loved us, and I loved their forearm bands.

SO! We got some sweet snacks on the plane, I listened to my rockin´Ipod, almost finished The Color of Water (so good) and landed safely in Buenos Aires. The Paris of South America. Our friend from Santa Barbara, Kristen, has mucho friends in BsAs (short for Buenos Aires and what I will use from now on because this keyboard is sticky), and she gave us their contact info. One guy, Agustin, owns a Bed and Breakfast in San Telmo (a district in BsAs) and told us he would give us a deal since we are Kristen´s friends. May and June is a really slow time for BsAs so I don´t feel as bad about paying hostel price for a B&B, it is quite nice and I recommend it for anyone who plans on coming here. It is Republica San Telmo. As of yesterday afternoon we hadn´t heard from Augustin or any of the other contacts so when we flew in, expecting a driver in a little suit with a sign for Lynne and Kelsey, we unfortunately did not find such sign. Our other friend Jess, holla!, told us about this crazy fun hostel called Hostel Clan so we decided to get dropped off there. I felt, at first, like we were driving into San Francisco, but then when we turned down a small alley and the cab driver stopped, I felt like we were in Harlem. Neither of us have been to Harlem, so really, I have no clue what it felt like, but it was late and we just wanted a bed. Hostel Clan was full so the nice man helped carry my bag, sorry Lynne, down the street to another Hostel that had a private room available. A good night sleep looked promising! Well, there were about 6 guys who were drinking 40´s and had plans to go out at 12:30am. Fully aware that we were going to bed (I think walking to the bathroom with toothbrushes in hand gave it away) the music seemed to be getting louder and louder. Even though we were on some tiny side street, I swear we were on the Las Vegas strip. I am losing interest in sleep anyway. Hot tea and breakfast was waiting in the morning as well as an email from Agustin so we were excited for a new place to stay.

After meeting Agustin and dropping our bags, we headed down to the antique street market that so many people had told us about. Lynne got a great scarf, (I guess I didn´t mention that we left 80 degree weather in Rio for 60 degrees and cloudy in BsAs) we got Empanadas for lunch and just walked and walked. We got to the Plaza de Mayo where the ´Pink House´ is (their White House) and a statue with the date 25 Mayo 1810. Anyone? Ok, we didn´t know we were going to be there on the anniversary! Today is May 25th..It is like their Independence Day Anyway, that was cool, a lot of people were protesting something and there were some ponies. We later caught the subte (subway) to Palermo, another district in BsAs, and walked by the zoo, the botanical gardens and through an outside book market. I found Harry Potter en Español :) We went into a supermercado to buy some fruit, water and stuff to make dinner tonight and sandwiches tomorrow. I enjoy grocery shopping in other countries, is that weird? Lynne and I turned on a soccer game, IN Spanish, made some dinner and when Agustin came back we went down to a pub for a drink before he went to play poker with some friends. The pub reminded me of Dargans in SB with their food and pool tables. I liked it. Not the same way I feel about this keyboard. Wish me luck on a quiet night and more fun adventures! I´m excited to be hungry for breakfast in the morning. You guys are really finding out how weird I am, and it makes me laugh a little bit on the inside.

Goodnight!

Beach Day!

I love corn on the cob! The beach vendors sell corn by the truck load. Just think, Starbucks on every corner. In Rio, it´s corn and smoothies. This makes me happy, obviously. The other picture is of me hugging the sunset at Ipanema Beach which is just the next inlet over from Copacabana, where we are staying. We took the bus over thinking it was far but decided to walk back with our corn and it took less than 15 minutes. I´m glad we walked..


I am noticing that all of my titles have exclamation points. I am also okay with that. The excitement might fluctuate though so beware.Today was HOT so we headed to the beach late afternoon to do as the locals do (minus the thong bikinis, which there is no shortage of). A beach towel was a low priority when packing for 5 months, but we noticed the first day that there are a lot of drink stands on the beach that put chairs out in front, so we weren´t discouraged. After relaxing for about an hour a guy came up to us wanting to take our order, so Lynne went up to buy a drink. From a distance I see him holding up a pinapple, a lemon, a bottle of alcohol. I have no clue what Lynne is getting in to but it looks delicious. She comes back with a bottle of Iced Tea and says it is R$10 to sit in the chairs and use the umbrella. It is also R$1 to use the bathroom. I heard South America is cheap! So far, I haven´t noticed. I can´t complain though (I guess not until I run out of money, and then I am asking $3 per blog visit from you guys, hah) because I am so happy to be here and get excited about all the new places I get to see. Getting there is the hard part..

This morning I felt refreshed from another splendid night sleep. Lynne and I planned on going to Iguazu Falls tomorrow so we went in search of a travel agent. We talked to a couple people from our hostel that told us where to go. We felt like we were on America´s Next Top Model when the girls have ´Go Sees.´ I would laugh at how lost they would get, is it really that hard!? Um, yes! There are these things called Galleries, which are basically like a giant hallway going from one street to another with shops all the way through. Some have escalators to a lower level and some, like the one today, have elevators to the upper levels. 608 - Travel Agent was all we were going on. Not really sure what we were looking for, but we saw some signs above the elevators that read 201 - 1001, then 202-1002. So naturally, we take 208-1008 to the 6th floor. We get off into a space the size of a large bathroom with two doors, unmarked. Well, we got right back in the elevator and went back down. Definitely NOT a travel agent! After circling the block a couple times we found it, I knew we would :) I promise not to laugh at the Top Models doing Go Sees anymore. Anyway, this particular travel agent only sold packages, not individual flights. So back to the streets in search of another agent. We found two fairly close to each other so we decided to get prices from both. Turns out, it is a lot cheaper to get to Iguazu Falls from Buenos Aires so we will fly to BA tomorrow and after a couple days there, we take a bus to the falls. Stand by for a full report from Buenos Aires!

Send us a sign jesus!

We were very green today. We walked a LOT. But before I get to the walking, I will start with our night. I was sleeping wonderfully, that is until 2am when roommate #12 came in, lights on and everything. Lynne poked her head over the top bunk and asked me what time it was. We both felt like maybe it was time to get up, so I turn my phone on..it´s 2am! Ok, back to sleep. Roommate #7 wakes up 2 hours later to shower and pack to leave. Understandable, back to sleep. Roommate #3 wakes up, you guessed it, 2 hours later to talk on the phone. It´s now 6am which is really 2am in the States so, obviously, back to sleep. Lynne and I had a pow-wow and decided that in the next city we are getting a double room.

So, first stop, Jardin Botanico. Translation: Botanical Gardens :) We figured out the bus system, which is just as crazy as driving in a small car. The only thing that makes us feel better is that we are bigger than everyone else. We get dropped off and walk around the outside of the gardens for about half a mile and find a very non-inviting entrace. Well, that´s because it was not an entrance. I read PARA IDENTIFIQUE (or something to that effect) and the security guard did ask me to show him something (I got that from the hand gestures) so I graciously got out my ID to show him (refer back to what I read, makes sense right?) He smiled and said a lot of things I didn´t understand. That´s when a really nice older couple came up to us and in broken english told us we needed a ticket. Ok, where do we get that? The two security guards start pointing in the direction we just came from, but we walked half a mile and didn´t see anything resembling a ticket booth. The couple offered to take us there, we assumed by foot, but they offered to drive us. Lynne and I looked at each other, questionable, made some small talk with these people and decided we liked them. I hesitate while writing this because I´m sure my parents are freaking out, but trust that we are both smart girls. Moving on. The gardens were beautiful. It was nice to get away from the cars and smog and be surrounded by green for acres. I pushed over a tree, because I´m that strong and it took me longer than the ten seconds my camera gives me to do my double-back-spring-twist-flip onto the bench for a picture. We saw HUGE amazon lillies, orchids, many trees from Asia, even a whole Asian themed section. Lynne and I both commented on how strange the Asian infuence is on Rio. Sushi restaurants are everywere. It´s not like Asia is close to Brazil, at all. After walking for two hours we were ready for lunch.

Lunch, seems so simple. We found a place with really cool art, seemed clean, good size menu, just not in english. No big deal, we saw a salad called Graca (we both agreed: Greek Salad, and Falafel with hummus, done. I invite you to take a look at our beautiful meal in the picture attached and tell me what is on top of our Salad. I would love to hear your guesses, and still welcome what you thought, but I have to tell you. Tangerine Sorbet..........!?!? I have no problem with sorbet, I actually would have enjoyed it, AFTER my meal. I am honestly at a loss for words as to why there was sorbet on my salad. Please help me understand. The salad (minus sorbet) and falafel was great, we were now ready to find jesus.

Leaving the restaurant, we had a perfect view of jesus on top of the mountain. If you don´t know what I´m talking about, google it. One of the hostel employees told us that it was about an hour and a half hike. We took a bus to Santa Teresa which is a smaller mountain near jesus. We walked up and up and up and around and up and to the side and backwards. We were not finding jesus or any signs pointing us in the right direction. If only jesus could have sent us a sign, haha. A lot of taxis, buses, and vans were flying by us so we figured we HAD to be going the right way. We sadly gave up after an hour and jumped in a cab. It was probably a 20 minute cab ride up a super steep and winding hill. So glad we didn´t walk! What was that lady at our hostel talking about? The taxi dropped us off and we had to buy a ticket to get on a van that took us to the bottom of the stairs. We climbed over 200 stairs and there he was, with 500+ people. I was baffled by how many people were up there and the lack of public transportation there was to get up there. The view was great as expected and I attached a picture for your enjoyment. We made it back down to the ticket booth hoping we would figure out a way to get back, but I guess the large vans that take people us there are for private tour groups, maybe from hotels or something. So we found a some-what english speaking man to tell us that the only way us regular folk could get up and down the mountain is taking a cab or walk, which is really dangerous and REALLY far. I still don´t get why our hostel didn´t warn us about that. Oh well, we didn´t need a sign, we made it on our own!

There was a street market set up along the beach so we walked through that for a bit, came back to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner and found a great dinner place called Cafeina with amazing looking desserts and carrots, croutons, and tomatoes on our salad, YES!

We Made It!

I decided to keep a blog, partly for myself to read after my trip is over, and then of course for any of you who care. I am guessing if you are willing to read what I have to say, you do care.

So all of my stress leading up to this day, which actually began yesterday, is slowly fading and I am so excited to be starting this hopefully amazing journey! Here is a little recap of how my day started..yesterday..I still don´t even know what time it is..

Tuesday morning I took a lovely ride on the SB airbus to LAX. I quickly rushed from the bus to the Continental check in avoiding the curb side check for one simple reason, I despise LA, only to find out my ID did not match my flight itinerary. It told me to enter the first three digits of my destination city, so I tried Rio, no. That´s weird, maybe it´s one of my connecting cities. New (Jersey), no. Sao (Paulo), NO! I must have had ´that´ look on my face to draw some attention so a kind man tried to help me, but with the same result. He told me to talk to an agent and pointed in two different directions. I expressed interest in having the agent come talk to ME, that didn´t fly. So I gladly took myself out of the front of the line and waited again for my turn. She said my flight was delayed an hour (NO WAY! does anyone else feel like delayed flights are becoming the norm? Why can´t they just tell me that my 9:00 flight secretly means a 12:30 flight. That´s fine with me, I could use the extra sleep) but, where was I? Ok, delayed an hour but they will instead re-route me to Houston and then I will be on the same flight to Sao Paulo to make my connection to Rio. Great! She tells me boarding starts a 10:45 and the flight leaves at 11:20. A little confused, but also thinking I shouldn´t question her, she looks like she knows what she´s doing. After all, I did have to get in a special line just to talk to her. So, I let her put the tags on my bag but decide to say, wait a minute, it´s 11:15, I will never make that. She looks at me like a crazy person, but immediatley takes a step back to look at the clock. Light bulb! She meant to put me on the 12:20 flight. Ok, phew, now I have an hour to get to my gate.

The first flight went smoothly, I think I might have almost slept a little until the man in front of me started whistling to his music. Pretty entertaining actually. He got a lot of looks from the people to his left and right but kept on whistlin´. If this flight were longer than 3 hours it probably would have gotten old but it was worth the funny looks.

Second flight, a little longer. It was an overnight flight for 10 hours so I´m thinking, no brainer. I´m tired from the build of of the trip, already took a bus ride and another flight. I got on thinking I would read for a bit, take my sleeping pills and pass out. Not the case. I don´t get it! I am really good at sleeping, I had everything in my favor, but alas! noo sleep. I did get really groggy though which was probably fun for my neighbor, a 300 pound portuguese business man. I had such a hard time opening my eyes all the way so a movie and reading was out. I tried so hard to sleep but all I could hear was Snoresville in my ear. In the end, I made it and Lynne waited for me at the airport so we could get a taxi together to out hostel.

As expected, taxi drivers/people off the streets/small children are throwing themselves at you to be the lucky driver. The man we chose had a business card and seemed legit so we started walking with him but when we got on the elevator Lynne gave me the ´I´have to tell you something´ look. She said someone pointed at our soon-to-be cab driver and shook their head, no, not him. Oh geez, so we have to make up an excuse that we are going to stay and go to an internet cafe at the airport to get in touch with our huge boyfriends, or maybe we just said parents. He would not accept this so he took us all the way down to the taxi counter at the airport, which didn´t end up working for him because even they told us not to go with him. I´m sure this guy was fine, it´s just that he is not affiliated with the airport, so they obviously wanted our money too. We talked them down though because the guy was offering us less. So we used the airport service and arrived safely at our hostel.

We checked in for 3 nights and went to drop our bags. It is an 8 bed female dorm, there were flip flops the size of this mouse I´m using, a tiny kitchen with the smallest stove you have ever seen and lockers that make me feel like I´m back in junior high. I haven´t seen all 6 of them yet, but I´m pretty sure they are miniature people. I´m not complaining because as long as I´m not sitting up, I should sleep fine tonight. BUT, I probably just jinxed myself.

Lynne and I went to walk around and get a feel for the area. We made it down to the beach, which reminded me a lot of Nice, France. If you are curious, look up Nice and then Copacabana (where we are). We had lunch, tried some new food, and just walked a lot. Tomorrow we hike to Jesus. Actually it´s called Cristo Redendo? I think that´s right. It has the best views and supposed to be amazing at sunset. We also plan on going to the botanical gardens in the morning. I hope you ejoyed listening to my first day, I´m not much of a writer but maybe after 5 months of practice you will see an improvement.

Until next time :)