How to think positively in South America

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The negative: We managed to eat something that must not have agreed with our sensitive American digestive systems in Lima. Probably the fruit drink mix that came as part of our 7 peso ($2.50) lunch, or the 4 hour old cream cheese at the hotel happy hour. Possibly an additive effect of a bunch of things. Lima food was great, don´t get us wrong. Every type of chicken we tried was excellent. The positive: Besides the taste? Hmmm...have to think about that one, the stomach issues were pretty bad. The positive is that we arrived in South America with the proper medicine as prescribed by our doctor. And it hasn´t kept us from doing anything we wanted to.

The negative: The time zones are odd. Buenos Aires is three hours ahead of Lima, but Rio is one our behind BA, yet much further east. The hypothesis is that maybe all of Brazil is on one time zone? Anyway, this caused Dan to get his watch set wrong, leading us to believe that we had an extra hour to kill before making our connection. So Holly goes to another terminal to look at a couple shops while Dan sits (suffering) waiting at the gate. And they start to board. Imagine if you will, a stupid, sweaty American, running along the tunnel between two terminals, one big backpack on his back, Holly´s extra bag she´d left with him on his arm, hissing ¨sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t¨ all the way down the tunnel as the local airport employees look on. The positive: We still made the connection, and made it to Rio unscathed.

The negative: Because we were staying for free at our hotel in Rio (a positive in itself), the hotel breakfast we would normally be entitled to was not included. Hard to complain again, as our whole first two weeks of the trip are on points. What´s funny is that the less points we have to use for the hotels, the more they have offered us. The positive: We weren´t missing anything because couldn´t eat anyway!

The negative: Apparently, it is about impossible to get money most places in Rio (see Holly´s other post), especially when the ATMs shut down at 10PM, and you´ve just eaten a late dinner that ended at 9:55. The positive: We didn´t need much money...because...we couldn´t really eat!

The negative: The vast majority of Rio natives, at least men, are in spectacular shape and like to flaunt their fitness up and down the beach, making us pale Americans, with our less defined abs and incapable of such futbol feats, feel inadequate (read as Dan feeling inadequate). The positive: Because we couldn´t eat, we lost like 3 pounds and looked super skinny (but white nonetheless) on the beach!

The negative: While Holly was hang gliding over the forests and beaches of Rio, Dan was on the ground doing recon with the other ¨Hangee¨instructors, and found that the 250 Reals we´d been offered was high. No wonder the instructor didn´t want us going to the snack bar near the other instructors to grab a bite before the flight. And he claimed that we had to hurry because the wind was picking up. Dan skipped the hang gliding, as he didn´t trust leaving all of our stuff in the car while we were captive on the gliders, and because he´d already been bungee jumping and sky diving. The positive: Since Dan noticed that our cabbie requested a cut on the side by flashing a 50Real picture, and watched our instructor slip him said cut after the flight, we didn´t have to tip him!

The negative: We continued to lose our appetites. The positive: We found, however, Jesus. A big 100ft tall statue of him perched over Rio, protecting its people. As soon as we can post some pics (computers haven´t been cooperating with our thumb drive), we´ll show you what we mean. Awesome place.

The negative: We arrived back to Buenos Aires in rain, and it´s been raining all day in Montevideo. The positive: By some unplanned miracle, our hotel in BA was across the street from the bus station, and only a few blocks from the ferry to Uruguay. And we used the rain as an excuse to take an extended siesta after about 9 hours of sleep the last two nights.

So that is where we sit now. In our hotel in Montevideo as the rain continues to come down and the wind has only slightly lessened it´s howl. Dan jinxed us, commenting just yesterday about how we hadn´t see a drop of the ¨rainy season.¨ The hotel is in a great location, walking distance to plenty of restaurants, a grocery store, theaters that are participating in the Carnival celebration here, banks, monuments, shopping, and a pharmacy God help us. When we asked the hotel staff if it was safe for us to walk down the main drag to dinner, he looked at us like aliens. Uruguay is actually considered the safest country in South America. We should have explained that we just left Rio. We will keep our guards up, when necessary, none-the-less. I know everyone is hoping for pics. If not in Colonia, then hopefully we´ll have an internet cafe in BA. We know we can post them from Lima, where we´ll be back on March 8.

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