it´s been just about two weeks since i have been to brazil and it seems like forever. honestly.... three days feels like a lifetime when you´re traveling. and don´t ever ask me what day of the week or date it is cause i have no clue. i just realized that today is friday. crazy!!
anyway... brazil before i forget. i had a crazy long layover in lima (where i currently am actually)... so i got to know the lima airport pretty well and i pretty much read over 200 pages of my book. so i got to brazil in the morning, but my friend friederike was working so she suggested that i go to avenida paulista. it is a busy street with shops and places to eat. luckily i was able to leave my bags in a locker at the airport and walk around. i swear i overpacked. BUT... i´ve used/worn everything i brought. so that´s good. it´s hard to think back to quito and how we´d walk around in our jackets in the apartment... it is so freakin warm here... esp in brazil, buenos aires and iguazu falls. but anyway.... brazil....
so i eventually got to see friederike and that was so nice. we basically just caught up that night and i was crazy tired so i went to bed pretty soon after i saw her... sometime around 9... and i slept until 11 the next day. i guess the layover in lima caught up with me. basically the next day i watched some netflix, and uploaded photos... check my prior postings for entries. it was raining so i didn´t feel bad about not doing anything. it was nice actually. that night we were going to maybe meet up with claus but he wasn´t feeling well... the next day we went to an area that has lots of shopping and frederike bought a skirt for carnaval.
we headed off the next day for ihlabela island which is about a 5 hour drive from sao paulo with a 20 minute ferry. it was very warm... like 40c... which is about 100. the pousada that we stayed at was basic but since it was carnaval, it was pricey. the house across the way was rented to a bunch of guys who like to play crap music all the time. boo. earplugs def. came in handy there. we met up with her friends the next day at the beach. all of whom speak german. so... i didn´t understand much but all was okay. friederike would translate for me every once in a while. i think 3 out of the 4 spoke english. they all spoke a bit of portuguese too. i´m the only one who speaks one language. yet again a realy why you should all keep up with learning another language. i feel so much like an ignorant american not knowing another language... and some know... 2 or 3 or 4... it just feels lame.
at night we went out for the carnaval parades called blocos. please note that this is also the time which boston got 2 feet of snow. it made the news down here. crazy. it was weird to look at photos on facebook while i´m sitting there sweating my ass off... but anyway. so yeah... during the nights we went out to see the blocos. people really are passionate about this. the costumes are great... and everyone sings along with the songs. people dress up. there was even a bloco where the guys dressed up as women. they were fun actually. but yeah, everyone´s out. kids don´t go to bed til adults go to bed. everyone´s up til the early hours of the night. we left at 3am and there were people just arriving. different life there i guess... plus it´s carnaval.
the last day we headed off to the other side of the island where we also did a hike up to the waterfall. i didn´t realize we were doing a hike so i was so not wearing the right footwear. i had on my havaiana flip flops... which i had to take off since they were getting stuck in the mug. and if you´re on facebook you know that i slipped during the walk and cut my foot. yikes. it is okay and healing now but it was a little painful the first couple days. luckily there was a nice guy to help me along. he didn´t speak english and i don´t speak portuguese... but... he was able to help me anyway... on the rest of the way up and the whole way down. super nice guy. when we got to the waterfall.. i ended up talking to his wife.... who i had to use spanish with but she understood me. she was nice. portuguese is so much different than spanish. it´s so similar written, but it so is confusing when spoken. the beach on the other side of the island was gorgeous. so nice compared to the other beaches. just a lot more untouched.
we left early in the morning the next day just so i wouldn´t miss my flight. but there ended up not being a lot of traffic so that was good. but that meant i just got to hang out in the sao paulo airport a lot longer than i would have liked. sad to say goodbye to friederike but... it was a good time in brazil. so short. not sure why i didn´t even think about traveling around more... ah well... whatever... maybe someday i get back there but... not sure on this trip...
i will update on argentina including buenos aires (awesome awesome city... i fell in love with it the second i left the airport) and.... iguazu falls (which is an awesome awesome site). and... i am thinking on heading back to argentina after peru sometime.... we shall see. it´s a great country. i will update later though cause i just don´t feel like sitting at a computer anymore.... :) i hope you all understand.
ciao!
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