Cloudy Cristo, Camera Crisis, Kite Caper

---

All right. Good news and Bad News.
First the Good news. I broke the Camera. We went up to Corcovado. Amazing view half-way up, took some awesome pics of the city. I jumped down, and back up onto a wall to get a different view, and kinda didn't make it up onto the wall. The camera was in my hand, and I smacked it onto the wall. Camera go boom. No worky. No more photos. Sorry everyone. It kinda wrecked my whole mood yesterday.

On the good side, it was entirely cloudy up at the top, and really impossible to see the Cristo statue. Every once in a while, it would clear and you would get this sorta foggy outline, but you had to be fast on the button. Anyway...an altogether anticlimactic trip to the famous statue. The views from the top would have been great, I am sure. And doubtless, the views of the cloud-enshrouded mountain must have been amazing.

Even better, and I don't know how it could be possible, but we all fried to a crisp yesterday. Burnt chitlins. Fried Canadian Bacon.

Hit the beach briefly, Ipanema this time. Liked it, but not altogether busy. Lots of beach volleyballers (seems to be a big international contingent that comes to train).

Out to eat, Sushi this time, then to a "Funk" rock show at a live music place in Lagoas (called lagoas because, there's a lake (uma lagoa) in the middle of the city which is a saltwater body. It drains into the sea via a canal which divides the bigger beach into smaller segments of Leblon and Ipanema.

This morning we finally took the leap (literally) of jumping off of a mountain. The view of the valley seen out our hotel window shows you what is called "Pedra da Gavea" and just to it's right is what is called Pedra Bonita (beautiful stone), which is where we jumped. I was strapped into a sort of canvas bag-like thing which hangs from the support rod of the Hang-glider. We stood on what looked like a roof, ramping slowly down off of the mountain face. Dude had me practice running, in upright position, and it was that easy. We ran together off of the roof thingy, and eventually, we ran out of roof and then suddenly I was airborn. You may have heard this phrase before...."words cannot describe..." but it was AMAZING, and the perfect activity to cap off the trip. We stayed up way longer than I anticipated (guessing, but probably 20 minutes all told). He took pictures from a remote-controlled camera, and I have the film canister. I paid extra, and had him make a DVD of the whole thing.

Janine will be happy to know that buddy says there are some great hang-glider training sites up in Canada, and once certified, a person could potentially come down to Brazil and do quite a bit of jumping here in Rio, if, say, for example, somebody had such a desire. But it was the kind of breathtaking activity that just might really propel somebody to want to take it up...

Back to Ipanema beach, where we tried out the boogy board in less-than optimal conditions. We sucked. I was better at the body surfing. Our plan is to go down to the beach tomorrow morning and give it to some poor unsuspecting Moleque from Rocinha, the big favela behind the hotel. I have been reading in the paper about a big theft of submachine guns by some of the gangs in the city. The army and police have been out in force looking for them as violence in Rocinha escalates. They sure do a great job of suppressing this information, and it seems that that violence rarely makes it into the city proper. Having said that, I read with sadness that a little girl was shot by a stray bullet downtown yesterday, after a thief robbed a bunch of people sitting in a van. In the ensuing altercation with police, this little girl, 3 yrs old was killed. Another woman was hit in the hand by a stray bullet. Just another day in Rio, I guess.

We leave tomorrow, if I can actually force myself to get to the airport. I don't want to leave, but I miss my family terribly. Can't you guys just come down here? I'm working on that concept...I'm going to be the next Ronald Biggs...without the scandal.

See you at home soon. Sorry about the camera thing.

XOXO

S

---