In Brazil (and Argentina) they mostly drink beer and it is out of a big 600 ml bottle that resembles a 40 oz. bottle but it is not malt liquor just plain beer.  It is poured, shared into these little glasses that look like tea glasses.  All the street corners in Rio have cafes where people snack and drink bear like this instead of having Starbucks on every corner.

 

 

I have owned this book for 3 years but could never make it past the prologue.  But once I did the book´s story went in a completely different story line, mostly, and the book became interesting.  Had a sort of Fight Clubish begining then just trashy fun for the end.  Good for a trip or the beach.  At the end of the book was the first chapter of the author´s next book.  Dirty trick since I can´t buy it now and I´m out of books.  :(

2 more nights and 3 more days to go.  I have not had much time to blog lately but Jing is making a call home so I have a few minutes now.

We will land in Seattle on 12/30 at 10:30 PM.  We should be home by 11:30 PM.  From there we will decompress with a pizza, Caipirinhas, and the last 5 episodes of this season´s Survivor.  Please feel free to stop over and join us.

The 2nd day here we went to Sugar Loaf, Corcovado, Lapa.

 

Sugar Loaf was a very touristy thing to do and just ok.  Corcovado was also touristy but very cool to see.  I tried playing with the camera´s advanced setting and took some pics that I was very happy with.  I do recommend Corcovado and we are thinking of going back.

 

We went to dinner that night in Lapa.  We first had some chicken BBQ from a street vendor because it looked great and it was.  Then we went to a busy restaurant for dinner.  We always look for busy places as we figure then it must be good.  This palce was jammed and it was 10PM on a Tuesday.  Don´t people work?  :)  The guy next to me was eating french fries that had peas in them with raw onions on top.  PEAS!  For chirst sake what is up with that.?  Nyway we ordered chicken and fries it turns out.  The chicken was breaded and panned fried.  It was ok.  As we were finishing I look at the pice I was eatting and noticed that it was raw.  We called over that waiting, who was learning English and wanted to practice it, and showed it to him. He asked if it is good.   We said no, its raw.  He asked if we did not like it that way?  ITS CHICKEN NOT BEEF so no we do not like it raw.  Serves us right for not eating in the street. 

 

Our first hostel was Newton´s.  Nice place, nice owner.  We moved after two nice to Misti´s becuase the Sweedes in Venezula recommened it.  It has a bad location far from Ipanema.  Its residence are travels that basically live there and don´t move from there.  It is kinda of hard to explain but they stay in Rio for like 3 months, work at the hostel for board and do not leave the hostel.  They are like hostel rats which you do see from time to time traveling.  They are nice but can also be cliquey and annoying.  Also El Misti lost a shirt of mine in the laundary so ~I´m not happy with them while typing this.

 

So we nexted moved to Stone of a beach.  It is an upscale hostel.  You can flush tolet paper and there is hot water.  It was a one night stay to get out of El Misti before going to Ilha Grande.

 

We could not afford Recife so we instead are going to go to Ilha Grande and Buzios later this week.  In fact we are currently at Ilha Grande.  Tomorrow is Lopez  Mendes.   

We spent the first and third day in Brazil at Copacabana beach and Ipanema beach.  If Buenos Aires is like NYC, Rio is like a cross between LA and Miami.  Copacabana is kinda of trashy and Ipanema is much nicer.  Nicer sand, waves, less trash on the beach and less expensive.  We won´t go back to Copacabana.

 

BTW they say that on New Years Eve there will be 3 millions people on Copacabana beach. They are setting up two huge stages and prices in hostels go up 10 fold.  We tought for a minute about staying for the party but now we are paying 25$ for a double bed private room.  On the 29th that prices goes to 125$ for a 10 bed mixed dorm room.  Maybe we won´t stay.

 

The tempature the days here was 42 celicus. I´m not sure what that is in fahrenheit (ask live) but trust me it is hot.  The third day at Copacabana a storm rooled in a dumped on us.  We had say it coming and moved off the beach to a drink stand that had a table with an umberella.  As we were waiting a pregnant lady came up to me and asked for me to buy gum.  After I said no she then trired to sell me marijuana then cocaine.  Jing thinks my looks attract them.  :)  We withstood the storm but the umbrealla did not good.  It was like water our of a faucet and with the wind we got soaked.  You could not see more than 200 yards through the rain.  The tempature fell after that to 26.  Jing mentioned that she was cold but not Caracas airport cold.   It rained the rest of the night. :(

We left Buenos Aires 2 days early. It is a lot like NYC and not just in that it has rude people.  It is metropolitian and big.  Lots of pizza places and neighboorhoods.  But we sw enough in 2 days and went for the beach.

 

On the flight to Rio the airline gave their takeoff spiel in 4 languages.  Portuguese, Spanish, English and German.  Portuguese sounded the niceest and German the worst.

 

Some of the Brazilians have trouble saying John.  They cannot pronounce the hn so they say Jo.  An anecdote from Venezula was the Brazilian girl could would call me Jo.  She would also refer to all alcohol as tequila. So when she wanted a drink or wnat to offer me a drink she would say ´tequila jo´ to me.  How funny she had no idea how right she was. :)

 

So we get a cab to our hostel.  Jing wants to get a cab in the airport because she say signs saying it was not safe getting a cab outside the hostel.  So as we approached the cab booths a bunch a big ladies started calling and yelling for us to use their cabs.  We said yes to the first and you would have thoght that would have stopped the other from trying to get us to use their services but oh no. Not even while making the transaction.  Then Jing wanted a free map but our booth was all out so she asked the next one for one of their copies but we were essentially dead to them for not choosing their cab so not map.  :(

 

The cabby ended up taking us to a street with all the stores shut and locked tight with bars and steal garage doors with two hookers hanging around.  I could not image that anyone could wear jean shorts soo small but i digress.  Jing looked at me and said ´´I am not getting out of this car. :P  The cabby spoke no Enlgish but was basically saying this is it.  We could see the number were not were we needed to be but could not explain that to him.  Finally a body building couple walked by and we asked them for help.  They spoke to the cabby and explianed to go down the street.  The street was much nicer a few blocks away where we found the hostel.  As we were getting out the cabby expained to us that he lives across the street in an apartment and that he never noticed the hostel before.  OK, you never noticed it but you can´t find the address in your neighboorhood?!

 

Time to blog before going out tonight.  Please forgive typos as I need to go quick to keep the cost down.  Let´s start with the end of Buenos Aires before I forget.

 

The best thing about Buenos Aires was the beef.  WeI almost sent a bunch of it to people but the US is not one of the countires that accepts it by overnight post.  Up until this point in the trip the only proper restaurants we ate ate were in Buenos Aires for the beef.  We had the hostels all you can eat beef BBQ.  (Met nice people from England, the states, Mexico, Holland) The last night we wne to the super market to buy our own and cook at the hostel.  I was like a kid in a candy store.  The selection was incredible.  Not just the beef.  Whole rack of lamb rib intact.   Whole rabbits.  All in plastic on top of styrafoam waiting to be taken home.  After about 30 minutes looking Jing finding said to just get two so she could get me out of there.  We to two great pieces of beef back.  It had to be pan fired but great none the less.  Our breakfeast was just beef the next more as there was so much of it.  Frying big gobs of beef in morning got some looks.  Too bad, it was yummy.

 

It took forever to get a cab and get home.  A big lightening storm rolled in.  Everyone wanted a cab and once you got one you could not go anywhere since the streets were flooded. 

 

We also went to a salsa class/club.  Lucky we had lessons before and knew what to do. 2 hours of salsa lessons in Spanish is not enough.  We stayed there until 2:30 then went home.  Other went on to another club which was the real start of the night.  Things start really really late.  Most people start dinner around 10 PMFamilies on a Sunday night are eating out at 10 PM.  Good  for them.

 

One thing about staying in the hostel is that you are around people from all over.  The sad thing I noticed was on the roof of the Beunos Aires hostel was there was a group of European travelers having a anti-semetic conversation.  This was not the first time I noticed this occurance while traveling and surprised the it still happens in this day.

 

No time to blog tonight, just enough time to get pics uploaded on these old PCs.

Which is your fav Corcovado pic?

We need to decide where to go after Rio.

 

We have narrowed it down to Recife or Florianopolis with Recife being the current favorite.

Alot will depend on air fare and return schedules.

This morning we wanted to take the subway.  Last night the bus would not take bills so we decided to get coins before going into the subway.

When I asked the girl working the little 7/11 type local store she told me 'This is not a bank' and walked away.  I thought for a mintue that I was in New York City.

 

That aside the people here are mostly nice.  As I mentioned eariler we got on the bus without the correct change.  The girl getting on behind us paid for us.  Just a few cents but if was very nice of her.  In getting the bus two guys saw us trying to figure out the schedule and help us to get the correct bus to where we wanted to go.

 

I said mostly because our waittress last night that took offense when Jing asked if the prices were in dollars or pesoes.  She wanted to know if the menu was not fancy enough for us when we just wanted to be sure we had enough money to cover the bill since the restaurant did not accept credit cards.   I don not know for sure but I could swear I got the bad cut from the cow after that.

 

Today we switched from the hostel in Palermo to near the obelisk which is basically their times square.  When we arrived we had only reserved one night in case the place was not nice.  Our room was then subsuenlty booked for more days before we got there.  So the receptionist said they had another room we could switch to if we wanted.  We said ok that would be fine.  The next morning we woke up to check out and recheck in the other room.  The receptionist said the room was taken.  When we asked her what had happened becuase we took the room last night she told us that we only asked for the room and that we did not actually reserve the room.  LOL.  She was helpful in getting the new room in their sister hostel.

 

Went to La Boca today to see the street art and the tango dancers.  Had another piece of cow at La Boca that was very good.  Melt  in your mouth good. Much much better than last night.

 

5 PM here and time for a siesta so we can make it out to the club which starts at 1 AM.

 

BTW, when I mention the conversations with people, about 85 percent of that is in Spanish.  Very little English is spoken here.

 

No pics, no USB port on the hotel PC.

As part of cheap airfare our flight from Caracas to Buneos Aires was on Lloyds airline through Santa Cruz Bolivia.

The flight was at 3 AM and was 2 hours delayed.  The were no announcements and signs, we just had to wait to find out was happening.

And the waiting area was about 60 degrees.  Jing and I both had hoddies on and beach towels around our legs.

When the guy showed up to call for the first class and handicap to begin boarding I felt I should go because of my low percentage of body fat.

People were bundled up al around.  Remeber you parka if travling thorough Caracas.

 

Also remember you money.  Each time you leave from a Venezualan you will need to pay an exit tax.  And Bolivia charges an entracane tax which is not labeled and could reuire a quick dash to an ATM.

 

The plane was cramped and had to actually stop in Bolivia to refuel because either the 727 did not have the capacity to make it to Santa Cruz from Caracas on one tank or they did not top off in Caracas.

 

Last note about the flight.  Jing tried to smuggle her little grooming scissors on her carry-on.  She figured she could get away with it outside the US.  She was wrong and security took them.  But the funny thing is it looked like we deboarded in Santa Cruz, went through security and were directed back on to the same plane.  The Santa Cruz airport made us get off to get the scissors.

 

El Yaque was a great beach.  I would have like to have spent more time there.  I tried wind surfing and I was able to actually get up.  Funny thing was it took me over .5 to do it because I was not picking the sail up by the cord, rather I was using the hand grip, which is much more difficult to pick the sail up out of the water because the handle does not have the cord´s leverage.  It is difficult to keep balance while fighting a sail laying flat in water.  Funny thing is the guy who rented me the board didn´t mention this even thought I told him I had never windsurfed.  Neither did the girl who rook me to the board and told me where not to go.  Nor the guy who game out to fix my sail when it became untied.  Some nice guy watching me show in how in about 30 seconds then I was able to get moving.  So, if ever you start wind surfing without a lesson remeber to lift the sail with the cord.

Also if ever in Margarita Island I recommend Playa de El Yaque.

Also, if you ever come to Venezula bring your black shoes.  There are shoes shine stands everywhere and shoe polish is prominently displayed in window shops.  It seems to be a status symbol to have nice, shinney shoes so I imagine they do a good job of it.

Once last piece of salient advice.  If you are ever considering having your hair braided with beads it is important to consider 3 things. 
-It takes some time getting use to sleeping on beads.
-Your heads now makes clicky noises when you walk or turn your head.  I´m having quite some fun with this as of yet.  We´ll see if that is the same for me and the people around me in about a week.
-Depending on the length of you hair, the bangs with the beads are sometimes in you view and they are difficutly to remove from view for more than short intervals.  A quick flip of the head does the trick each time this task needs to be done and that means you get to make more of those fun clicky noises more often.


Tonight we have a 3 am flight to Buenos Aires.  Right now its 7 PM.  From there we don´t know where next until Rio. 

Yesterday we wen to another beach for the day an walked around the town.  Getting dark.

 

We cook in to save money. Last night it was sliced ham, eggs, cheese and canned meatballs.  Tonight its hotdogs, mushrooms, tuna, cheese. Both cooked with oninons.  Basically what ever is left over or what we can find.  It actually turns out quite good usually.   We do sneak food from vendors every now and then to get a local taste , such as empanadas. 

 

Today I ´tried´surfing at Playa de Aqua.  My braids were growing out so I had them re-done.

 

Tommorrw we go to El Yaque then to the airport.  Maybe better luck windsurfing.

 

Beofe we left we needed a new camera.  We decided on the G7. It had all the potential and features I wanted and fits in a pocket like Jing wanted.  She loves the zoom and I love all the various setting.  We still need to learn more but so far I impressed.  I´ve added some shots showing off the zoom and various modes.

 

 

Jing is here. Yeah.  Spent the night in the airport and now we are waiting for the flight to Margartita Island.

 

I missed some in general comments yesterday.

 

'the first night out with the Spanish, at the end of the night, everyone went home except me and Jean'Luc.  We stayed behind for a bit and when we got home, Alfie, was out.  From what my spanish was telling me he we out on cocaine.  It ain´t all butter cups and sunshine traveling.  However the next day Alfie did get up and make a mean chicken and mayonnaise dinner.

 

One the flight to Los Roques when landing the attendant started giving the landing speach in Spanish over the loud speaker.  I looked back at her and started laughing.  She stwiched to English then stared laughing herself and stopped.

 

One the flight home from Los Roques I was next to a guy who asked me where I was from.  When I said America he was surprised and asked me how the people were down here.  I told him that everyone was really nice and have been treating me really great.  He really beamed with pride when I said that and was extreemly nice the whole flight back.

 

My Spanish is not great.  I sometimes search for words and get the wrong.  For example I asked someone the other day to recommend a drunk hotel. Baracho is drunk.  Barrato is cheap.  

 

Last note today.  When I first met the Spanish they asked how old i was.  I told them and the said no, not possible.  I got all full of myself thinking, yes, I look young for my age.  Turns out I was saying 14 instead of 40.  Again, my Spanish needs work.

Very few places operate in Venezuela on Sunday.

 

The pace is slow here.  Slowest as I have been around.  Every where people waiting on other people, e.g. airports cafe, grocery store, will ignore their customers until they are ready to wait on them.  For example conversation with a coworker is always first. 

 

I could not find a driver for my camera on this PC so no pics yet.  Too bad, I had a great picture of my broken air condidtioner in my Los Roques room.  Did I mention how hot it was in Los Roques?

So i had the names of two airlines that go to Los Roques.  They were not scheduled to fly to Los Roques after 9 AM because it was Saturday.  I asked the first company and they said nope. Waited in line for the 2nd and got the same answer, not possible.  Last try was the name of a travel agency the lady who rebooked my flight in Meridas had given to me.  The guy at the agency took me back to the first airline that I approached.  So I waited and figured to ask one more time.  This time she said ok and booked me.  Had to hurry to the gate. Once I got there I thought I missed the flight because I was the only one there.  I looked around for a bit and the girl who booked me came and got me and walked me to the bus and got on the bus with me and took me to the plane.  I got aboard and found out I was the only passenger on th flight.  It turns out there the plane was going to the Island to pick up people returing and they decided to let me go along.  Did I mention this power I have.

It was weird having a converstion with the the flight attedant that turned in to the ususal explainatin of where the exits are and that I have a life persever under my seat.  I could not ignore this speach this time as it was part of the converstaion. 

 

Los Roques is one of the most beautiful places I´ve seen.  The albatrosses fishing at sunset was pretty impresive.

Staying there was not cheap but not expensive like club med.  $50 for a room for the night.  The island is very very small and has no cars and only generators.  There are too many places for the generators to handle so there are rolling brownouts.  Which included the bank and the ATM.  Opps. Not operating Saturday night.  Not open Sunday the next day.  The place I was staying said they accepted Visa but really they did not. Ut Oh.  I was coming up with ideas of how to pay when finally the land lady took me to her friend´s place and plugged in her credit card machine there and I was able to pay and stay out of Los Roques jail.

 

The rest of the next day I got to spend on the beach and was a great alternatve to a Caracras hotel.

 

Because I did not want to spend 10 days on Margarita Island waiting for Jing and becasue I also wanted to meet her in the airport Idecided to do some traveling. I did not go to Tobago because the planes only fly to Port of Spain in Trinidad and the the ferry schedule did not work with getting back when Jing arrived.

So i heard good things about Merida and decided to check it out.

In Caracas I discoverd the plane for Merida was booked but I asked for stand by and got a seat.  But only one way.  They told me to book the return flight in Merida.
Opps, so I get to Merida and guess what?  The return flight I need is booked.  So i have to return on Saturday instead of Sunday.  One day in Merida.

 

That night I tried to out to a club but did not have the right clothes to get in.  I went back tot he hotel club and they would not let me in either until i mentioned that I was staying in the hotel.  There was a live band that was pretty good.  All songs were in spanish but there were no pots or trumpits.

 

The next day I decided to rebook my 5 PM flight for 1 PM and take a chance on going to los Roques.  The internet said there were no flights but I figured I try or I´d have to spend a night in Caracas.  The re-booking lady said that i was the only passenger on the 5 PM flight.  I figured that was a good omen, that if I could get them to fly just for me that I could use this power again to get a flight to Los Roques. 

 

Any way I waled around town and went to the central market.  Mostly crap for sale but I did find that in many places they were selling can openers that were shapped like a penis.  Notice I said a penis because I do not know the correct plural.  peni? penises?

 

Now back to Caracas and hope fully Los Roques.

 

One side note.  Back in Playa del Aqua the Brazilian guy was going to open a can of something with a knife. I saw this a stopped him and took the can opener out of the drawer and showed him how to use it.  The look of awe in his eyes was something to see.

 

 

 

I spent the first few days of my trip in Margartia Island, Playa del Agua.  Its a nice surfing type beach in the north east part of the island. Great sand and lots of shops and restaurants.

 

There I met a Brazilian couple and three Spanish guys.
I spoke to the Brazilians in my broken Spanish and they responded in Portuguese.  The guy was loud and basically just yelled ´BRASSSIL´ and spoke most in number about how much things costs in different places.  I think He is a banker of some sort.   The girl made more on effort to speak and suprisingly we were able to communicate.  There was lots of pantomime and sometimes we´d just look at each other and give up the thought we were trying to communicate.

The Spanish were lots of fun. 3 guys from Spain.  One spoke English like I speak Spanish and theother tow ot a lick of English.  One looked like Captain Picard.  Another was bald with a 2 foot strand of hair attached at the side of his head. The other was an old guy, 40, being sad about being old. 

They insisted on making dinner for everyone the first night.  I asked if what they were making was a Spanish national dish.  When I asked they all turned at once and gave me the stink eye and said that is was a Basque natinal dish and  not Spanish. I had learned about the Basque back in high school but had forgotten about them since. I had no idea they were still uptight about being part of Spain but I guess they are.

Anyway the Basque and the Spanish have one thing in common.  They lover their mayonaise. In Spain a few years back I watch a guy eat a lunch of asparagous and mayonaise.  Now these guys made potato pancakes and tuna salad and used a whole jar of mayonaise to prepare it.  And I don´t mean one of those liitle jars.  I´m taking about one the those big family sized jars.  I had not joice but to politey eat the food. I was actaully pretty good but that was a much gread as my GI track had seen in the enitre past year.

Now to take off my politically correct hat.  Spanish music will never conquer the world.  They chose the music for the night and it was spanish.  They very much liked it but I did not understand it.  Each song sounded the same and there was lots of trumpets.  The Spanish went to the kitchen and came back with various kitchen obejcts and beagan playing them along to the music.  Band a pot with a spoon and strumming a chesse grator with a fork.  I kind of remeber doing that in elementary school.  I can possible see how anybody outside of Spain and the latin community could like that music.

Anyway, I hung out with these folks for a few days. The hostel owner was bilingual and was over most of the time because it was fun. She helped with much of the conversation.  I found myself sometimes forgetting to speak to her in English and starting in Spanish. 

 

I had planned to travel from this spot after a few days so Evon, the owner, booked my room.  After the 5th day two Swedes showed up and I had no room. The Brazils and the Spanish would not let me leave.  Insisted I stayed for dinner and one omre night out so I stayed in the hostel lobby for free. The owner got me a rool out bed and I showered in the Spanish guy´s room.  Great night of fun.  I left the next day.

 

Windows Live Spaces needs to add spell checking to its blogs.  It is very annoying not to have this feature.

I´m in the Carcarcas International airport waiting for Jing.  I have 5 hours to wait.  Lucky for me there is a TGiF and an internet cafe.

I´m trying to download some drivers for the camera so I can add some pics.  In the mean time I thought I´d post about two books I´ve read.

 

Dan Brown
Angels and Demons

Better the The Davinci Code in my opinion.  It reads like a dime store novel like the Davinci Code but has a better story and does not have its characters doing gratuitos actions for the sake of the plot like the Davinci Code. 

Philip Dick
The Man in the High Castle
I borrowed the book from Elena in 1996.  Returned it to her in 1998.  Borrowed it again in 2002 and now finally read it.  It starts slow but if you push through the begining it gets better.