7th Entry 7-2-12 – Brazil

7^th Entry 7-2-12 – Brazil

Howdy from Brazil! 

I’m currently sitting in the airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil waiting to get on my flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina connecting to Bariloche, Argentina.  Christina is here with me.  She met me in the Rio de Janeiro airport.  Christina and I spent 3 nights in Rio at a pretty cool hostel located in a neighborhood called Santa Teresa.  Rio is a huge city, but there is actually way more “green” throughout the city that we didn’t expect.  You can see on the mountains around the city all the tropical jungle style vegetation.  The city is actually very pretty.  We saw some great stuff while there.  We saw the “Christ the Redeemer” statue that is the image most associated with Rio.  It was really great.  The statue is beautiful, and the views from the top of the mountain where the statue is located are incredible.  We also took two cable cars to the top of a mountain called “Sugar Loaf.”  We managed to be on top of the mountain at sunset.  Again we were able to get some really spectacular views of Rio and the sun setting behind the city.  “Escadaria Selarón” is a set of famous steps in the city that are made up of all kinds of different tiles from around the world.  The steps have been in TV shows, movies, music videos, and now my pictures so…. they are pretty famous.  Jorge Selarón is the builder of the steps, and he happened to be sitting on the steps when we came by.  He was nice enough to take a picture with our tour group; you’ll see the picture where we are all sticking out our tongues and holding up a hand… apparently that is his style of taking pictures.  Since Rio is right on the ocean, we had to go to the beach.  Although it’s is the “cold” part of the year, it was generally at least in the 85 degree range during the days.  The beach actually had pretty many people.  We went to one of the most famous beaches of Rio, Copacabana.  It was very nice.  The waves were pretty big though so we didn’t venture to far out into the water, especially after we saw a helicopter have to rescue someone out not far from us.  Before we went to Copacabana, we went to the “Jardim Botânico” (Botanical Garden).  The garden has been in place since 1809.  It was really a great place to visit; we saw lots of impressive plants, trees, and fountains. 

            After our days in Rio, we took a bus to Santos, Brazil.  Santos is where my friend Gabriel lives.  Gabriel played tennis with me at Meridian my sophomore year, was one of my roommates, and lived with me in Texas for a while when we worked at tennis camps.  I actually have another teammate that is from Santos who is also a good friend, but he was in the states taking summer classes.  The bus ride was about 7.5 hours.  It was supposed to only be 6 but….. that didn’t work out.  The ride was, for the most part, very pretty.  We got to see some of the Brazilian landscape.  When we finally arrived to Santos, Gabriel and his friend Gustavo were there to pick us up.  Christina and I stayed in Gabriel’s house where he, his dad, and his older brother live.  They live in a big apartment building about 5 minutes from the beach.  Christina and I spent some time on the beach that is close the Gabriel’s house.  The beach there is really nice because it is pretty flat, and there are big open areas of slightly compacted sand.  There were lots of people playing soccer and other sports all over the beach.  We also went to another beach called “San Pedro” in a nearby town called Guaruja.  The beach there was awesome.  It is actually a private beach, but since it isn’t really the high beach season in Brazil, it is open to the public.  The waves there were still pretty big for Christina and me, but they were a lot of fun.  There was also a lagoon near the beach with an artificial waterfall and a diving board.  We stopped there to jump off the diving board.  I did my customary diving board move, the pencil.  Well it turns out, the pencil wasn’t such a good idea because my foot smashed into the bottom and got scraped up a little…. oh well.  In Santos we visited Gabriel’s tennis club that had a sort of fair/party.  We ate some great food at Gabriel’s house.  His friend, Gustavo, who is studying cooking, made us Brazilian style stroganoff twice, and it was really delicious.  Just as in Paraguay, it was a huge help to have a friend there to show us stuff and help us out.  Gabriel, his family, and his friends were all fun and nice.  Also, it was really fun to see Gabriel who I hadn’t seen for between 2 and 3 years.  We had a lot of good laughs. 

I’m now finishing this entry from the Buenos Aires, Argentina airport.  Its 10:00 am, and Christina and I have been awake since yesterday morning sooooo if some of this doesn’t make sense (less sense than normal that is) sleep deprivation is to blame.