Off the gringo trail

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Thought i should write since i might be out of contact for a bit. Aaron should have touched down fairly recently. thanks for the birthday dinner!! we ran out of stuff to do in puerto iguazu so i actually ended up playing age of empires 3 at an internet cafe for half an hour haha.. then started going solo.
the border crossing was the most pathetic yet, got exit stamped in argentina, then the brasil guy opened my passport and just stamped it smack in the middle of my egypt and tonga stamps, which annoyed me since i had plenty of blank pages, and tore off my entry card without looking at it, didnt look at my passport photo or yellow fever certificate either, or my pack. this also annoyed me because i could have brought in cheap argentina food and knives for winston. but hey its better than an interrogation and huge search! got my bus ok, luckily since i forgot about the brasil side being an hour ahead.

arrived in goiania 2 days ago - havent heard of it? well its not exactly a tourist mecca, its the hometown of these brasilians i met in buenos aires. when i arrived i was trying to call winston and i needed a card and then it didnt work for his mobile. eventually got the help of some bilingual dude and got in contact. winstons working during the day time though so i had to go to an internet place and sketch a map of goiania to figure out how to get to the centre from the bus station since there is no information kiosk here (due to the lack of tourists i guess. lonely planet gave this city a measly paragraph)
but its pretty interesting here, i went to quite a few places today. its a master planned city!! ooh.. basically planned out from scratch i think, its radial and had reserved a lot of park land, therefore has the most trees per capita in brasil, good since it also has the most cars per capita, maybe the planner wasnt such a master after all. the zoo was the cheapest and worst ive ever been to, especially after seeing some of the animals in the wild earlier. went to lunch at winstons and met his family and ate some brasilian food, it was nice, apart from the dessert which was cheese with chocolate syrupy stuff (i pretended i liked it)
also went to this other park in search of monkeys. didnt see any until i talked to this park worker guy whose spanish was about as good as mine, wish more people here spoke spanish! he showed me where they hung out, they were cute and had somehow brought coconuts up into other trees to eat. this is a translation of what i think he told me:
These trees are coconut, mango, banana, and some other names, except there is no fruit on them cos the monkeys eat it all, the only fruit they dont eat is this little fruit thats too sour for them
Dont go on the ecological path through the forest area because strange people are there (oops, id already been through)

anyway its been a struggle here but it was good to visit and see some of the northernish culture. and be a bit more intrepid than usual! tomorrow arvo i head on an overnight bus to ilha grande for 4 nights so if i dont get the chance merry xmas everyone!!!

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Photos

the remains of my meat
i forgot to take a photo when it was whole