I'M NOT SURE IF THIS WAS PUBLISHED IF SO IGNORE- ITS OLD- WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED IN VZ WOW!! Caracas was certainly an experience!!! So at the last minute I managed to secure a couchsurfing host. Lily, was a godsend, but certainly not what I expected. This timid looking lovely lady turned out to be a courageous little fireball full of spunk, energy, and a touch of locura (craziness). But she was epically generous!! Super, super, super generous!! So I arrived in this fascinatingly contrasting, and very chaotic, country completely ignorant to just about everything. I mean I had heard rumou [View Full Entry]

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One of the greatest things about travelling is that you actually have time, time to live. Time to appreciate everything there is to appreciate, to do the things you want to do, to think about the things you need to think about, to just be, be yourself, without pressure, without judgement, just you. Touring Brasil was marvellous, spectacular.... Brasil is my heart. But also it was tiring... I began to feel sleepy all the time- I think it was because I was going to bed late, not too late, around midnight, but when I was going to bed at 10:30 I [View Full Entry]

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SORRY - I THOUGHT I PUBLISHED THIS MONTHS AGO!!! So Pricilla and Fabio (the couple I had met in Maceio), along with their good friend/cousin, Luis, picked me up at the airport in Rio after my plane landed late at 1 am. It was totally terrific to see them again and I felt so lucky to meet such nice people willing to pick me up so far away at such inconvenient hour. We went to Fabio’s place, who lived with his parents and grandmother (as is common in Brasil). It was a large, beautiful condo style flat, as is very typical [View Full Entry]

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So I arrived in Salvador at almost midnight and grabbed a taxi to meet my new friend Gustavo, a Chilean friend of Cleanto. Gustavo is doing his masters in environmental engineering in Salvador, but coincidentally its actually in toxicology (though not officially), so we had a lot to talk about. He was really pleasantly surprised when I told him I had a doctorate in toxicology and was totally willing to help him with his project. Gustavo was incredibly warm, friendly, and generous, offering me food and letting me stay at his beautiful downtown flat, right near everything including the main beac [View Full Entry]

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The north east coast of brazil is soooo much fun! Beautiful!! -and brazilian culture is out of this world- people are so nice!!! So I arrived in maceio brazil to meet the most amazing women, my couchsurfing host, Vitoria, 65 retired vivacious professor of French. She picked me up from the bus station, made me a baked chicken dinner, made me a fantastic breakfast (all for free) and drove me to the beach to enjoy the next day. A truly terrific women, she was full of zest, life, and love. She had just fallen in love and been proposed to by [View Full Entry]

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So I arrived in Recife, late around midnight. I was a little concerned only because I wasn’t sure if my couchsurfer confirmed that it was ok to stay with him and I didn’t have a phone card to call him. Luckily I had made friends with a lovely lady, Cida, that had sat on the plane next to me. She lived or rather worked in Manaus, living there 3 weeks out of the month and visiting her son and husband in Recife one week out of the month. I told her about coushsurfing as she had never heard of it, and [View Full Entry]

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SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY, EXPECT 2 MORE LARGE ENTRIES SOON, AND I WILL TRY TO POST MORE OFTEN!! BEIJOS AMIGOS!! So i sat in the waiting room for my plane in Campo Grade, heading to Recifi. Oje vou embora (portuguese for i~m leaving today) I sat with a tight squeeze in my heart, a sadness and a longing. I wanted so much to stay and spend more time with everyone I had grown to love. I had arrived in Campo Grande earlier that day by bus and Ada, Adilson's mom was already there to meet, a truly lovely, lovely, lovely, [View Full Entry]

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Abismo Ahumas YA SORRY I FORGOT TO PUBLISH THIS TOO, BUT ITS THE LAST ONE. when i was in brazil i repelled 120 m into a cave and went scuba diving 18 m in really cold water. it was numbingly cool. :) enjoy the pics [View Full Entry]

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The bus ride into Bonito from the Patanal took about 4 and a half hours but i didn’t mind. I left around 3:30pm and very soon it was dark and i spent the ride gazing at the thousands of stars in the sky. The sky was so clear that for the first time in my life i could see stars coming all the way down the horizon almost touching the earth. Like a canopy or blanket they covered the entire sky, it was so amazing and it made me feel small and lucky to be in this wonderful world of mystery [View Full Entry]

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So I’m sitting on the pantanal... Well not literally. I’m in the lounge dining room overlooking the river. It’s so nice and HOT here. At least 30, easily 35. Finally!! And humid. Presently there is a nice cool breeze coming through here. I can swim in the river if I want but considering we just went piranha fishing there... maybe not. Hehehe... So I’ve decided to be a little ambitious in learning Portuguese. But first let me wrap up the journey here. So there was the 14 hour bus ride from iguazu, like 10 stops and one bus change, and even [View Full Entry]

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