Oi from Brazil!!!

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Oi from Brazil! I’m on the ship headed to Namibia right now, but I thought that I would let everybody know what I did in Brazil. We arrived in Salvador on the morning of September 7th, and all of us that were headed to Rio were really nervous because our flight left at 1:10, and we were hearing that we weren’t gonna be able to get off the ship until like 10 or 11, and then it would take an hour and a half to get to the airport. So we all rushed off of the ship at about 10:30 and got in a taxi, but it ended up only taking like 25 minutes to get to the airport, so we had plenty of time and sat in the airport for like an 2 hours before we left for Rio. When we got there we checked in at the Bamboo Rio Hostel in Copacabana (only about 5 blocks from the beach). Then we went and grabbed some food at a little sandwich place that was real cheap. We tried to find something to do that night, but we didn’t really know where to go, so a bunch of us just ended up exploring the city for a while before calling it a night. The next morning we all took a subway to the giant market that sold a bunch of soccer jerseys and bracelets and stuff like that, and I bought a pair of swim shorts for 20 real (which is like $15 american)...after that we checked out some of the cool buildings around there like the churches, etc. Later that day Michael and I found a little music shop in Copacabana, and we bought a little guitar so that we would have something to do with all our downtime on the ship (Michael and our friend Chris are actually jamming on the guitars right now)...but anyway that night we found a club that had dancing and whatnot, so that was pretty fun. I forgot to mention though that it was drizzling rain the whole time we were there except for the last day, so we ended up not going to see the “Christ the Redeemer” statue because other people told us with all the rain you couldn’t hardly see the entire statue, and you couldn’t see the view from the mountain to the city either... but there was a break in the weather on the third day we were there where the clouds weren’t covering the smaller of the mountains (Sugarloaf), so we went up on that, and were able to get some good views as well as experience a little bit of the rainforest. On our last day there we heard that the weather was going to be nice, so we planned to go hang gliding and then go hang out on the beach. Hang gliding was awesome! We strapped in with an instructor and just ran and jumped off of this ramp that they had set up on a 2000 foot mountain that overlooked a part of the city. After the initial shock of jumping off and hoping that you would in fact fly it was a very relaxing experience just floating through the air and circling the city and beach like a giant bird. We landed on the beach and then went back to Copacabana and ate lunch on the beach before just hanging out there and throwing a Frisbee around and playing in the water (which was actually pretty cold) a little bit. We spent the next day in Salvador, and I went and saw the famous Brazilian Capoeira performed. It is a style of non-contact martial arts, and looks like a crazy dance. They actually taught us how to do it, and then we got to “play Capoeira” as they say with the instructors who were crazy good, and did a bunch of handstands and kicks and stuff. They also showed us their music, and we got a chance to try playing it as well. After that we went out and explored Salvador a little and then got back on the ship and started to catch up on some sleep.

I had a blast despite the rain in Rio, and I’d like to go back there one day and spend some more time hiking the mountains in the area and enjoying the ocean...oh well I guess I’ll just go to Africa and see what that’s all about...ha ha... well thanks for reading this, or as they say in Brazil: Obrigado!

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