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!