Paraty

(Pronounced “Para-Chi” in Portuguese… don’t you feel cultured)

I know you all are dying to know… Yes it was raining when we arrived.

Devon and I went to Paraty to sit on the beach, relax, and tan before the craziness of Rio de Janeiro and Carnaval. One could say this little trip was meant to be our “Calm before the Storm.” Unfortunately Paraty is right next to a small rain forest thus it “stormed” everyday. Who would have guessed that it would rain a lot by a rain forest? Because of the stormy weather… we did very little calming (tanning, reading and relaxing on the beach), and a lot of storming (dancing, singing, limbo-ing, partying on pirate ships, and everything else that “storming” involves).

I think it’s time for a detailed list of the 5 best parts of our “Calm Storm” in Paraty.

5. Trinidade

Trinidade (Pronounced Trini-dajee in Portuguese… Cultural Lesson #2) is a gorgeous beach town, conveniently located right next to our beach town. The water was crystal blue, the views were astonishing and the waves were epic. I know this might sound crazy… but I did not pass my time in Trinidade tanning, from the minute I arrived to nearly the minute I left, I swam in the blue ocean water trying my best to body surf the occasional huge wave that passed by.

4. Power Outage

After a long cloudy and rainy day on the Pirate Boat, the pirate boat adventure will be developed later in this top 5 list, I jogged home, actually it was more of a trot, in anticipation of taking a nice warm shower then sitting in a hammock and reading. My hopes and aspirations for a hot shower and a nice relaxing book reading session were squashed because all of the power had gone out in the hostel. When I arrived in the hostel, the staff was lighting candles and strategically placing them in various nooks in the hostel to provide sufficient light to safely walk around the hostel.

Normally a powerless hostel would make my face look like this : ( because power is essential to many important hostel activities… like hot showers, and light for reading books in hammocks, however we took our lemons, (the power outage) and made really good lemonade, (a huge dance party). Now I know you might be wondering how we had a dance party with a power outage. Don’t you worry I will explain.

Background- Devon’s lady love, Manders, gave him an i-pod speaker that runs on the power of AAA batteries, so while we were sulking about there being now power. Devon grabbed the i-pod speaker, be gifted to him by Manders, and his i-pod, made everyone sit in a circle and choose two songs to play through the speaker. At first people were modest with there song choices, for some reason everyone is so self conscience about what music they like… until they find out that everyone likes their music, then they are an expert on just about every music genre there is. Anyways, finally a guy we’ll call T-Bone, decided to break the trend of people trying to play hip modern songs, and he played “Rocket Man” by Elton John. The initial reaction was… “Are you Serious?” Then the “Are you serious?” Turned into a small head bop, which turned into a knee stomp, which turned into me kind of singing the chorus, which finally ended with everyone belting the chorus and dancing their little hearts out. After “Rocket Man” everyone unleashed and started playing the cheesiest songs from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and today. Shout out the Manders for gifting the i-pod speaker to Devon.

3. Music Festival

Paraty hosted a huge music festival the last two nights we stayed there. Funny enough all the bands we saw played cheesy American songs from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and today, as well as American blues. A huge group of us went to the concert and danced for literally four hours straight it was awesome. This Awesome-ness of the concert dance session we had, solidified the formation of Team Rum.

2. Team Rum

Rum was the drink of choice in Paraty… well I had Cuba Libres minus the rum and lemon. If you haven’t tried this mixed drink, I highly recommend it, seriously it’s so good you cannot even taste the alcohol. Anyways since Rum was being consumed like Pirates, T-bone decided to teach a group of us, excluding me, a song he wrote about Rum. This song brought the start of something beautiful… Team Rum.

Team Rum is a group of worldly travelers, who dance, sing, and from time to time consume rum, or Cuba Libres sin el rum y el limón. Team Rum… I will miss you.

1. Pirate Boat

It was a cloudy, cold, and rainy day so we decided the best thing to do would be to spend five hours outside on a pirate ship and island hop around Paraty. We mustered 12 backpackers from our hostel, and hopped aboard Favio’s Cruise Ship and explored the beautiful islands around Paraty.

Straight up the weather was awful… I was freezing from start to finish of this paradise island hopping adventure. Nevertheless we managed to have an absolutely amazing time. Here are the top 3 reasons why the Pirate Boat adventure was the number 1 activity of my top my top 5 activities in Paraty.

1. Favio- When you hear the name Favio I know the first thing that comes to mind is a beautiful image of a muscular model with long blonde flowing hair, complemented with a seductive accent. Our Favio was a beast, not in a jacked and tan threatening kind of way; he was a big fat hairy sweaty beast. This short man weighed no less than 350 pounds. Although Favio was a whale of a man, he sang like an angel. He entertained us with soothing Jack Johnson esque songs throughout the entire boat trip, and from time to time he would stop his lovely singing to explain important facts in both Portuguese and English of the different islands we passed. All in all “Fabs” was a great man

2. The Deck- The upper deck of our ship was high and large enough to dive off of. So we spent every minute we were stopped jumping off the top deck, into the gorgeous blue ocean. The deck made the bad weather much more bearable.

3. Life Jacket Mega Fun- After being on the boat for 4 hours everyone started to literally freeze so our group decided to camp out in the kitchen area of our boat. While we were shivering in the kitchen, two little Brazilian girls grabbed two life jackets and started playing with them. Devon quickly noticed how much fun the girls were having and declared that we needed to put on lifejackets and have a little bit of fun. After 10 minutes of entertaining the idea we all decided it would be a good idea to see just how fun these lifejackets were. Let me tell you, everything is better in a lifejacket. We danced, sang, waddled, took photos, and even blew the whistles attached to the life jackets. Next time you are freezing on a pirate boat, definitely play with a life vest.

Sao Paulo

Sao Paulo is a Huge city.

The Lonely Planet, a guide book that has every piece of information you would ever need about a country, city, or continent and can travel probably travel for you, does a nice job of portraying Sao Paulo as one of the most dangerous places in the world. The Dangers and Annoyances section of Sao Paulo reads, “Crime is a serious issue in Sao Paulo. Be especially careful in the center at night and on weekends. What out for Pickpockets… For drivers, be aware that car-jackings and red-light robberies are not uncommon; in fact it’s legal just to slow down at red lights late at night.” I think they should just make the Dangerous and Annoyances section short and sweet by saying, “If you go to Sao Paulo you are going to be robbed. Guaranteed. Cien por ciento” I am happy to say I was not robbed in Sao Paulo nor did I ever feel unsafe during the few days I roamed around the city.

Onward.

Guess what happened when we arrived in Sao Paulo? It rained. I seriously hate rain.

Despite the rainy conditions Devon and I decided to walk around the city to pick up a few things that were highly recommended to me by my Chilean family members.

1. Guarana
2. Mangoes
3. Grape Fanta, Fanta Uva

We successfully picked up all these items. Here is a breakdown of what I think of them.

1. Guarana- It’s delicious.
2. Mangoes. Devon and I had no clue how to cut open a mango… so we tried to force it open with a beastly knife… We later learned that was not the proper technique to cutting open a Mango. Our first Brazilian Mango experience was quite the disaster.
3. Fanta Uva- It tastes exactly like grape soda.

We spent the next two days exploring as much of the metropolis as we could, after looking at a map of the city, we literally saw nothing.

The highlight of our brief stint in Sao Paulo was the Japanese Market. Side Note- Sao Paulo has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan.

Here are some reasons why I liked it.

1. It smelled great.
2. The food was great.
3. The food was cheap.
4. The blended juices, Sucos in Portuguese, were great.
5. I bought a really neat necklace, which has already fallen apart, but I thoroughly enjoyed the necklace for the 5 days it lasted.

Yum-O

Farewell... Mi Gorro

Thus far, I have lost a lot of trinkets on my epic adventure. It is hard to say how I lost most these things… well actually it’s easy to say how I lost the stuff I did, because 9 cases out of 10 my items have been left in a hostel bathroom, dorm room, or common room.

Here is the Damage:

3 Pairs of Sunglasses
2 Bottles of Shampoo + Conditioner, the hybrid.
2 Towels
2 Locks
1 Mate Straw or a Bombilla
Lots of Socks

Although losing all these goods didn't make me happy, I really did not care about any of my lost possessions until... I lost one of my favorite belongings, my Size 7 ¼ all black Rockies hat, that after weeks upon weeks of sitting on top of my head, fit my the contours of my dome piece perfectly. This hat had become part of my Identity… I wore it almost everyday. Mostly because I don’t like to shower in the morning and when you put on a hat people really can’t tell if you have showered or not. Except now all of you know that when I am wearing a hat, most likely I have not showered that day. Also, when I wore this hat people could tell I was an American rather than a German, Dutch, or Swiss person.

As you can clearly see this hat made me very happy.
Side Note: I also lost the sunglasses displayed in this photo.

Either way, losing my hat was 100%, cien por ciento, my fault. After packing up all my stuff, including my hat, before our 10 o’clock check out. I decided to take my hat out of my huge backpack, because I didn’t want it too lose it’s shape, which was shaped perfectly to my head. Well… I somehow managed to never put it on my head or in my bag, thus the hat was left in Iguazu. I would normally not dwell on losing a hat as much as I am right now but there are a couple reasons I am sad my hat is no longer with me. 1. I have to shower more often 2. Now most people think I am German. 3. If I want to get a hat by the same company down here, it will without a doubt be a Yankees hat, because the Colorado Rockies are a terrible baseball team. 4. That hat seriously fit my head so nicely.

Clearly you can see I am sad without my hat

Chau mi gorro, me he disfrutado el tiempo hemos pasado juntos.

Las Cataratas de Iguazu

An Israeli girl I had a nice conversation during a rainy day at our mega hostel and she this to me, “Iguazu falls is how I pictured heaven to be.”

That is a perfect description of one of the seven natural wonders of the world, Las Cataratas de Iguazu. I arrived in the Parque Nacional de Iguazu with the expectation that the sight of the enormous string of water falls was going to rock my world. It’s safe to say after one look at the falls my world was rocked.

We occupied nearly six hours in Iguazu Park by walking around and looking at the falls from various angles, trying our best to take a National Geographic-esque photo with our compact 7mb digital cameras. Rather than boring you with a step by step explanation of our un-adventurous adventure through the National Park. I will describe the different ways we experienced the falls.

I wanted all five senses to experience the falls, because a true experience involves all five senses. So Devon and I took the necessary steps to let our various senses indulge in the wonders of the falling water.

Here are the ways our senses went to work.

1. See- We definitely saw a bunch of waterfalls.
2. Hear- We listened to the waterfalls. Seriously, the sound of the water crashing against the cliffs and the river below was phenomenal.
3. Touch- Devon and I forked over 75 pesos to take a nice little boat trip around the Rio de Iguazu, after snapping a bunch of photos of the cascadas from a “different” angle the boat eventually went “into” the falls. When the boat finally ventured into one of the waterfalls, we touched the water, and the water also touched us.
4. Smell- Right before we entered the waterfall in our little boat, Devon and I took a good sniff of the tumbling water. In case you are wondering, it smelled like water.
5. Taste- Now I know you all are thinking… Taste… Taste? How does one taste the waterfalls? I’m going to let you in on a little secret. When our boat made its entrance into the waterfall, Devon and I tilted our heads, opened our lips and let the Iguazu nectar tumble into our eager mouths. Once we had a sufficient amount of Iguazu water in our bocas we swallowed the water. I know this probably wasn’t a good idea, but I am a fair person, and I didn’t want my Taste sense to feel left out. Also, neither Devon nor I got sick so… it was totally worth it.
6. The one thing Devon and I didn’t experience at the falls, was love, so I took a picture of two lovers kissing in front of the waterfalls in front of La Garganta del Diablo. If this picture doesn’t make it onto the cover of the next Romance Novel written by Nicholas Sparks, I don’t know what true love is.

After seeing this I just wanted to be in Love..

Anyways, the beauty of Iguazu more than exceeded my expectations.

Devon and I spent the next two days in Iguazu tanning and reading by the gigantic pool at our mega hostel.

This is a useless Train of Thought… but you should probably just read it. After our departure from Iguazu, I have spent a good amount of time wondering how the first person reacted when they laid eyes upon the beauty of Iguazu Falls. Since I’m an expert in this field I am going to make a very well educated guess and say the person smiled, stared at the falls for a while, splashed a bunch of water on his/her face, stared at the waterfalls for another 3-4 hours, then ran and found a bunch of his/her friends to share the wonderful discovery they just made.

Rosario: Argentina

Devon and I decided to go to Rosario on a whim. We went to the city with one small piece of information; Rosario was full of beautiful people, namely Argentine women. I guess this was most definitely the most important aspect of Rosario, because I asked our taxi driver what the best part of Rosario was, and he responded. Hay Muchos Babies!! This was obviously implying there were many beautiful chicas, ladies, or babies there.

I am about 67% sure a Devon and I are being followed by a large rain cloud because minutes into our arrival in Rosario it started straight up down pouring.

The rain rain did not go away and it stayed around for another day so Devon and I watched a lot of movies and spent a lot of time with a large group of Israelis’ staying in our hostel. We <3 Israelis.

After two days of rain filled nothingness we were finally treated with nice weather, so Devon and I decided to do something fun and different to occupy our day. We went on an Urban Scavenger Hunt.

I’m sure you’re just dying to know what an Urban Scavenger Hunt is… don’t you even worry… I am going to explain it to you right now.

Devon and I pick out a thing we want to see. Then we walk around until we find it.

Our first stop on our Amazing Urban Scavenger Hunt was a park…

So we walked to a park, here is a picture.

Our next stop was the house in which Che Guevara was birthed, before arriving to the house, we broke a huge rule of Urban Scavenger Hunting and we took a detour and stopped in a place called El Palacio de Oportunidades, The Palace of Opportunities. We bought two bottles of lotion, and a towel, for great prices. Since I started using the opportunities palace lotion my skin has peeled more than it did without proper after shower mosturization, and the towel leaves little blue towel pellets all over my skin when I try to use it to dry myself. El Palacio de Oportunidades fue una mentira. It is neither a palace nor a place of good opportunity.

Anyways we finally made it to Che’s House… that was neat. It was white house with a sign next to it saying. Che was born here. Other than that sign the house had nothing to offer… people were not allowed to enter. So I snapped a photo and we continued on our adventure.

Our Next stop was the bus station.

So we walked there.

Next we tried to go to a park but I took a wrong turn so we went to a mall, we walked around the mall for a while, then decided to try to go to the park.

Logically, the next place we went was the park. We walked around there for a while and it was nice.

Next we walked to a grocery store and bought some food for lunch.

Our intense hunt was quite taxing physically, so we took a break and ate lunch at 6pm.

After getting proper nourishment, we went to the Flag Monument, and there ended our Urban Scavenger Hunt.

I know you are all probably thinking, that sounds like the most exciting thing ever. I am sure that right now you are squirming around in your chair, couch, or other sitting device planning out how you are going to go on you own Urban Scavenger Hunt. Before you make too many plans, I want you to know that Urban Scavenger Hunting is not an easy thing to do. It requires a lot of walking and the excitement of going on a true Urban Scavenger Hunt usually causes people to stray from it’s true meaning… to walk around and find things. So only go on an Urban Scavenger Hunt.

Also, as far as the Muchos Babies… they must have been hiding. Maybe they are scared of the rain and Americans on intense Urban Scavenger Hunts.

That is it and that is all!