I’m again blogging on the plane, though admittedly this time I’m not posting while in flight.

The last week has been an amazing time. Since my last post, I left Iguaçu Falls to headed off to the infamous Rio de Janeiro, where I surprised Lisa by showing up a day earlier than I had originally planned (Iguaçu Falls, I’m using the Brazilian spelling, while cool, had naught to offer me for a third day). I swung into the Rio lifestyle in a hurry after Lisa was able to tack me on as a guest on a Rotaract cruise in Rio’s bay that was happening that night. It was a bit of a tough night—not only do Latin parties go late, but the language at this party was Portuguese. Lisa fared much better than I, but sign language, good intentions, some alcohol, and a small crowd of English-speaking exchange students goes a long way.

Rio was a five day whirlwind of fantastic times. Vasco vs. Athletico futbol game, favela tour, Lapa Stret Party, Santa Teresa, Christ the Redeemer, Pao do Açucar, beaches, açai, sucos, feijada, churassco, the list goes on and on.

The favela tour was an eye-opener, but not in the expected way. A favela is a place where the poorest of the poor live—in the case of Rio this is about 20% of the population. The favelas had been described as a Very Bad place, but I had a hunch from my other travels that this was probably a little over hyped. This turned out to be true—there are many friendly faces and very genuine people there. What surprised me the most was the quality of the conditions, which was to say, quite good! Lisa comments that some of the places in the favela are nicer than her apartment in Montevideo and I’ve seen severely worse housing conditions in Manila. The eye opener here is that unprivileged life in Brazil is not very painful, but places like Manila are really in the dire straights by contrast.

The Vasco x Athletico futbol game was sheerly amazing. Cheering crowds of fans I’ve witnessed anywhere else in the world do not compare to the voracity of the Brazilians. Here, the drums simply do not stop anytime from the pre-game clear through to the post-game. Vasco, a traditional and successful Rio team, has loads of team songs, all of which the fans know and proclaim loudly. My group showed up a couple minutes after kick off. I’m never going to forget the moment, when we were walking into the stadium and through cheering Vasco fans, that a Vasco forward took a good shot on goal and hundreds of people around me erupted in a chest thumping, “HUAH!” Oh yes, it was going to be a good night…

It was even better after Vasco won, dois a um (2 to 1). We left the stadium in a jubilant mood, for some of us, a little too jubilant. Nick, a big Indian surfer guy with a few beers in him, could do nothing but chant, “Vasco, Vasco, Vasco, Vasco,” as we left the stadium and found our van. We were caught in the game traffic on the way out, but who cares, we’re having a great time, our van is blaring music, and our guide, Paulo, is fielding our requests and yelling at the sidewalk vendors to bring us beers and meat sticks as we coasted by. After a few turns, we lost the traffic, but not the party. Paulo is sitting on a window ledge, most of his body outside of the window as we navigated the streets, beer in hand. The music is still blaring and Nick is still going, “Vasco, Vasco, Vasco, Vasco.” Until saw red flashing lights behind us…

We stop and three cops get out, each toting a well-used AR-15, the little brother of the M16 assault rifle. It’s standard issue equipment for cops in Rio and in this case, all three were pointed at our van. Nick summed it up best when he called out, “oh sh*t, he’s got a gatt!” As Paulo would later translate for us, they yelled, “everyone out of the van!” As the only person to understand this, Paulo handed his beer to someone for hiding and he slid out of the van, closing the door behind him.

Paolo tells the cops, “whoa, hey, they’re tourists, things are cool!”

The cops, not amused, “dude, you were sitting outside the fu*king window!”

Lying through his teeth, Paulo replies, “Nooo, man, I was looking for the sign to Copacabana!”

At this moment, Nick decides to start chanting again, “Vasco, Vasco, Vasco, Vasco.” Though this probably had some degree of potential of getting us all shot while kneeling over a shallow grave, I started laughing to the point of tears, because this was so incredibly funny and ill placed. One of the cops comes around the other side and asks what the score was. Nick answers in broken Portuguese and suddenly things are chill and everyone is talking futbol. Oh the Brazilians.

It was fun. Although I hope I’m not immortalized on Brazilian bumper stickers, cigarettes, drinks, condoms, etc, I’m going to take a cue from McArthur in the Philippines and declare, “I shall return.”

I’ve posted some photos from Brazil–more to come in the next few days.

Chalk up another stamp in my passport, I’m in Brazil!

After some sixteen hours of flights, I made it to Foz do Iguaçu, the city on the Brazilian side of the infamous falls. I’m staying at a rural but comfortable HI hostel, which was a bit lonely and boring last night as the hostel was mainly empty and no one really spoke English, or even Spanish. Things improved a bit today when a bunch of Brits, Germans, and one Chilean girl showed up today, which means I have some people to hang out with and even get a chance to practice my meager español.

I went across to see the Argentinian side falls today. Igazu Falls are divided on the border of Argentina and Brazil…Argentina has 70% of the falls, but Brazil has the better overall view. As advertised, I was walking on metal catwalk bridges centimeters above the turbid rush of water about to plunge over the edge. Due to recent heavy rainfall, the waters are nine times (or nine meters, it’s lost in translation) more than normal. As a result, certain sections of the walkways are closed or literally submerged. There’s trails for paths above the falls and below the falls–I did both and they’re equally impressive. Iguazu makes Niagra look like a spec in comparison, the sheer amount of water cascading down is unfantomable.

I also went down a side Sendero (trail) called Macuco, which was a muddy unpaved trail down to a pair of falls independent from the rest. Here I was finally able to get away from the masses of tourist crowds and find some of my fellow backpackers, eventually hanging out with a group that consisted of two Spainards and a guy from Namibia. Although I encountered a number of people on the trail (including a CHID major from UW), people pale in compairson to seeing monkeys swinging around in their natural habitat. Now that was cool.

Tomorrow I’m off to see the Brazillian side of the falls–I’ll be posting photos soon, they’re amazing!