I’ve spent lots of time with Jefferson at the beginning – he gave me a tour of USP, which was amazing. The campus is a city in and of itself (probably bigger than UMCP) and it took 40 minutes just to drive around the outskirts of the campus by bus. He also accompanied me during my first bikini purchase (poor guy). Anyone who knows me, knows this purchase (and the usage of such purchase) was a big deal in "Leah world", hehe. But here no one seems to be body conscious. Although they’re a lot more health conscious, I’d say. Yes, there are beautiful people, who are insanely in-shape – but not looking like a model in no way stops anyone but grandmothers (and only grandmothers) from letting it all hang out at the beach (that includes really old men with huge beer guts in Speedo’s, and pregnant women in bikinis).
It’s about a six hour trip to RJ (we’re about an hour away from the famous city of the tall mountain with a huge statue of Christ on top). After about 3.5 hours, we arrived in Ubatuba, a beach city, to have lunch.
descending into Ubatuba on the way to Parati
It was beautiful, but there were really strong currents that day. The life guards had to rescue some CIEE students, and we heard later in the news that a few locals actually died. Scary. We arrived to a our pousada (kind of like a laid back hotel made of mini houses, instead of rooms stacked on top of each other). We got a tour of the town, which you can walk in its entirety probably in less than an hour, and then had dinner at a really nice place called Margherita Café – pizza rodízio J . Then got caught in a torrential rain storm (I’m getting used to this).
Next day, half the group spent the day on a boat visiting 3 different islands off the coast. About 5 hours at sea. At each stop, we jumped off the boat to dip into the water, and at our last stop, lunch was served. In the middle of our trip, it started raining hard.
At the end, we headed back to the Pousada, showered, went out to dinner at the Margherita Café and then went to the teatro de bonecas – a puppet show for adults. Quite interesting! This is how it works: they had two people dressed all in black, black masks, black gloves, etc. Then music plays in the background, the spot light turns to the dolls, and they come to life.
Saturday we went to Picinguaba to learn about the ecological environmental project in SP. We went hiking on a long trail, dipped into "water falls" (that were absurdly small), visited a casa de farinha, had a boat tour through mangues, and saw interesting looking crabs and plants, etc. It was fun. We got lucky because the group that went the day before got caught in the torrential rains (torrential: new word of the…year) and had to hike and boat through it all. They were not happy campers when they returned in the evening.
We headed back to SP Sunday afternoon and got back around 10PM. We later learned that this very weekend, a really strong rain storm hit Rio that left streets flooded, houses in ruins, people dead and injured, and families destroyed. So that’s why it rained everyday we were there.
1 comment:
Great summary of your first fort-night(2 weeks)in Brasil. It must have been a refreshing stroke to the World of Leah to realize that yes, there are places in the world where pple don't care about body image:o) U go girl!
The trip sounded like you had a lot of fun,AND a lotta luck. The description of the accomodations and the food made the whole experience amiable.
Its a good thing you are not made of sugar.Hehe. you would have melted. Days of endless torrential rain must have been hard to deal with.
Regarding the flood, MEU DEUS, when I was a kid living in Mass., we had our share of huricanes. We were lucky in that we had sturdy housing and good sanitation. picturing the injury death and devistation of the area in RJ is something that can stay with you for a lifetime. I am just thankful that you and your group were safe.
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