The Big Island

Well, what can i say of the adventures since last post. After staying in Diego´s loft, we ended up being booked in at TWO more hostels consecutively that had over booked us and ended up staying at two other random Brazilian houses (one a single mum with the cutest 3 year old girl called Maria ever) and once with a man who rented out rooms in his house. Which is amazing as this actually saved us money and gave for some interesting experiences. We have after a lot of searching managed to book places for the next week, so hopefully this wont happen again, but who knows. In all of these places they had lists with our names on, but then just said sorry your not coming in :(

This also led to Xss and I´s lowest day when we spent over 4 hours on the Internet and making phone calls to try and find places for next week. It seems to take forever, and be impossible to find places even though you know that the whole of Rio is not booked out for one Friday night! It seems more effective to just turn up at the small towns and then look around, but this is simply not possible in Lima or Santiago. Luckily this has passed and after a whole day without this faff, we are back on track and excited about going to Peru, via Chile.

We have enjoyed a week now on Ilha Grande, near Rio, as a last goodbye to Brazil. We were intending to go to Chile quicker as (if you've seen the pictures of Morro de Sao Paulo) we didn't think that this island would be able to compete.


However it has managed to. Despite being bigger its infrastructure is terrible and it is very hard to get around, but this is also a bonus as the island is one big nature reserve with wonderful mountains and forests as back drops for the beaches. Unfortunately it has rained quite a lot, and we spent the 4 hours of sunshine today walking to and from the beach in the rainforest, with a 2 hour break on the beach which was cold and gloomy. Really, it takes 2 hours to walk to the beaches, so we are now fit, but fed up with the effort too.

The view from our walk on the way there, note the sunshine making us sweat.

The gloomy weather on the way home.

All dressed up, no place to go....

We are back in Brazil again, and what a dramatic entrance it was. As a gringo we needed to wait for a bus just outside the customs building and upon boarding, heavy back pack on, bright smile on my face, hand outstretched with bus ticket, i tripped (as is my style) and landed on the bus floor, squashed under the weight of my heavy backpack. I was very embarrassed to say the least, especially as the whole bus shouted in unison ´ou-pa!´which is the Portuguese for ´that´s got to of hurt´ which luckily it didn't. It´s funny that even words we say as a reflex are actually socially conditioned. We are not all born to say ´ow´.

We have just spent two days in Argentina, which was wonderful, partly because no-one (Brazilian officials included) knew we were there and we hadn't planned on going. We went to the most amazing waterfalls which span the Brazilian Argentinian border and are really huge, and more awesome than anything i've ever seen before. I cant upload photos here, sorry, but look up Igassu falls on Google. There are 275 falls, up to 82 meters high, the widest one being 150 meters wide. It reminded me of the film ´Up´which if you haven´t seen you must. Its a brilliantly made Pixar film, about a girl called Ellie who marries and dreams of travelling to South America with her husband. The moral of the story is it isn't about what you do with your life, but who you share it with. And i don't think this means who you pick for a partner, but more the bigger picture, who walks beside you on the way. On which subject i feel truly blessed. My friends are amazing, my husband keeps me afloat and i have a great selection of mother, father, brother and sister type people in my life! I am humbled by the things they continually do for me. Thanks.

Oh dear, mushy. I guess being so close to nature was really great, made me appreciate what i have and the grandness of the world. It was really quite hypnotic to be at the top of the falls, and very frustrating to not be able to touch the flowing water anywhere. So much so that it felt tempting to jump in! (you would definitely die if you did this!)

So we ended up in our hostel last night, sitting up until 1am looking for hostels- this is the unglamorous part of travelling, constantly packing and getting up before check-out time (10am-that's early for me) and constantly looking for new places. What we didn't realise is that this weekend is a holiday for Brazilians and so everywhere is booked up. We couldn't find anywhere near the waterfall back on the Brazilian side, so sent an email to one in vain hope. As we got up, we had nowhere to stay, and were not even sure if we´d be able to get back into Brazil as we hadn't got our passports stamped on the way out (opps). Call it luck, fate or as i would, an answer to prayer, today has gone swimmingly and everything has worked out fine.

We got off the bus at the Brazilian customs as instructed by our bus driver and after the initial confusion about how we managed to get out without the right stamps etc, the lovely official let us in. Score one. Next we got to the hostel pretty hassle free, however they had no rooms and informed us that we were the 4th couple to have arrived today looking. They are so friendly here though that they offered to help us look on the Internet and find somewhere, however we were warned that it was only going to be expensive places on the outskirts of town.

However only five minutes later and the receptionist Diego asks, ´how would you like to sleep in a tree house?´Its an interesting conversation which results in us accepting an offer to stay in Diego´s room up in the eves of the hostel whilst he sleeps elsewhere. It is only accessible by a ladder, and cannot be stood up in but manages to contain a double mattress and at least 50cm squared floor space. Miracle worked. The hostel is lovely and we are optimistic that we can stay here tomorrow until our flight leaves mid afternoon, relaxing by the pool and using all the facilities.

So all has worked out well. One of my goals for this year was to read my bible and pray more. I have been ploughing through the bible most nights, learning things, and more often, writing a list of questions to ask a person wiser than I about the meaning, but praying has been harder. To me praying is just like talking to an invisible person. But that person is someone i want to talk to, but never seem to get round to returning the call (a bit like Ted- sorry). After the results of today which is a day following a prayer this morning -about fixing everything for me -(yes God doesn't love getting shopping lists of requests, but like a dad he likes to help when you finally admit you cant do it all by yourself) it has encouraged me to continue.

Tonight our ´tree house´, tomorrow Rio again. Only one week left in Brazil, just when my Portuguese was getting understandable.

P.S Have finally got Skype under my email address.

Mine Your Head

Day off! So we went to the gold mines (mined by Slaves for the British, Germans and Portuguese). It was surprisingly fun to find myself amongst a group of tourists- there are so many of us here now. But it was thoroughly entertaining, and really mostly quite lame (which made for great comedy), except for the scary cart ride 120 meters down into the mine which was wicked! The people in the front seat (Ali and Marcus) had nothing to hold them in, or to hold onto and the ride was really quite vertical. It would also be easy to bump your head if you didn't duck when sensible. So much for health and safety. In the cart you can see (right to left) Marcus, Ali, Me, Xss, Chris, Paddy, and then the family who willingly agreed to bring us! Brazilians are very nice, and the couple who brought us work sometimes at New Destiny. I think they enjoyed the novelty of walking around with loads of gringos. However interestingly whenever a local came over to try to convince us to go to his restaurant or museum, the dad in this family was always easily sucked in. We would just say no and walk off whilst he spoke for 20 minutes with each one and believed word for word what was said. Below is a picture of Chris and Ali in front of ´The second largest Iron Ore Museum IN THE WORLD` as informed by a guide.

We are leaving the farm on Wednesday and i am sad. Sad to be leaving the new friends i have made; sad to be going into the unknown again (despite it being so much fun when we went to Salvador only a few weeks ago); sad because i have just recently been managing to find the place where i fit in, and now i am losing it again: If you meet me today, you will find out exactly what a Brazilian LE Geek looks like, and i like it.

The last Horoah!

Since we´ve been back on the farm its been very uneventful; although i am now more tanned than some of the Brazillians. All i need is longer brown hair and tight denim shorts and i´d blend in perfectly. (well i doubt i ever blend in because i´m always tripping over, but i might be mistaken for an outstanding Brazillian). There are now eight of us British people on the farm so evenings have become a little more fun. We generally play bored games or watch films, Paddy (29, British) makes a mean cup of British tea, but more importantly the level of Banter is great as several people are very funny (Ali- 26, British) and i havent laughed as hard or so constantly for ages.

The breaking news from Britian is that True has given brith to her second son and named him Joel David. Xss and I have talked about when we will have kids and i am willing to admit that i am less than enthused about the prospect of voluntarily allowing my body to be comendered for nine months with no deposit being held for damages. I am pretty sure damages will occur, so i have to wait until the want for the product is greater than the sacrificing of my lovely flat stomach and only slightly wobbley thighs (even if i do get bigger boobs!). However, I do want a family and along with the excitement of Joel coming, and the disappointment of not being able to meet him until June, is an odd feeling of slight jealousy........

Joel not yet aware that sleeping involves a shut mouth

So now we only have three weeks left in Brazil, and only one on the farm. I am going to spend mine painting a house and Xss will continue building one. There are now so many volunteers squahed in here that we more long term ones have enjoyed a few days of witnessing the new arrivalsBrazillia induction into n culture. Here are some clues as to how to spot a new arrival:
- They have large holes in their towels from dog attacks at night and not pinning their towel up high enough.
- They have an english red and white stripes pattern.
- They admit outloud that they dont like rice and beans (they´ll have to take this back later)
- They stroke the dogs. This results in a half an hour battle between them and the dog as the dog will try anything to get another stroke.
- They think its weird/unusual to be bitten by a Tic or an Ant, or a beatle or any type of bug.
- They dont know you have to hold the oven nobb down for over 30 seconds initially to keep it alight and keep letting go at lesser times.
- They ask, ´what does Jeff do?´
- They dont wear socks and flipflops yet
- They try to wear different clothes each day
- They eat something other than chicken noodles and frozen pizza
- They stand silently in front of Brazillian speakers as they realise they have no words to say that will be understood and then try to think of a back-up plan on the spot. (imagine the very begining of a charades game).