The Travel Curse Strikes Again

The last time I came to Brasil, I got sick from some bad food. This time, I picked up a suck-ass head cold from some loser on the airplane ride over here. I remember him, sitting four seats to me left, sniffling and snarfing and coughing all the way over the gulf of mexico and the carribean.

So day before yesterday, I got a runny nose with sneezing, which quickly became a good head cold that moved down into my upper chest. As a result, I didn't really do much yesterday except go out for dinner with Tatiana. The bright side is that a) there are like three pharmacies on every block here and b) very few of the pharmaceutical offerings require a prescription. So, I purchased some high octane cold buster/ cough stuff and it has been working fairly well. Today I felt much better, and so I spent the morning on Ipanema beach getting sunburned and drinking caipirinhas. 

I have lots more pix to show you guys, but not a lot of time to sit and upload them all. Soon, I promise.  

Let the Sunshine In!!

Finally, the sun burned its way through the cloud layers today, so I was able to head out to one of Rio's famous landmarks: Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf). This thing is really old and really cool - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarloaf_Mountain_(Brazil)  for more info.

Here are some shots of / from this place:

Sugarloaf peak, seen from the main boulevard in Copacabana beach.

Heading to the top in a cable car

Copacabana Beach, seen from the peak

Tatiana took a million pictures!

Looking down at Botofogo beach and neighborhood. The famous statue Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) is on the sharp peak to the upper left

If the weather holds out, I'll make another foto excursion tomorrow - up to the Cristo Redentor statue. However, the forecast does not look good enough to do that until Friday.

Stay tuned.......

Weather foo

So the weather has not been cooperating. The whole time I have been here, it has been cloudy and/or raining - and usually about 80-85 degrees with 70-80% humidity. Sticky. 

I have also been remiss about fotos. I didn't take my camera with me for much of what I have done so far, and last night Tatiana brought her camera but forgot the battery in the charger!! ha ha ha!

I tried my luck at another irish pub-style bar here. If you have read all of this journal, you know that my last visit to an irish pub in Brasil didn't work out so well - they were out of Guiness, and I got sick with food poisoning that night as well. Well, last night was much better. There was all the Guiness I could drink, and the night was fun, and I didn't get sick.

Another thing: they always have some live music in these bars, and strangely its always american songs. The singers know the words, but they seem to have learned the lyrics phonetically - because they don't always get it right. But still, it's nice to hear familiar tunes. 

Last night, there was a group playing in the irish pub, and as they were getting warmed up, the guitarist was playing a familiar Hendrix riff (Little Wing) and playing it beautifully! They launched into the actual song and did it fair justice (as good as a white Brazilian singing phonetically can). But then, just as I was warming up to this little band for the nice opening, they broke into "Mustang Sally" and ruined EVERYTHING. Not that they played it badly: the problem was the song choice. Especially right after showing some Hendrix chops. It was like "hey, listen to us, we're pretty good, we know our shit - and now we're going take a shit all over you with a boring club song. Enjoy!"

Anyway, it is hot and rainy again, and i just got back from an open air farmers / crafts weekend market in the park. I'm hot and tired and sticky, so I'm going to take a cool shower and just chill for a while.

More later - 

  

Brasil Reduex

Hello all - 

I am here in Brasil again - this time, in Rio de Janeiro. I got in this afternoon, ran a bunch of errands, went to a birthday party, and now I'm exhausted. I'll post something more, with fotos, tomorrow.

More later -  

Hey, there's more to come.....

Hello! 

This blog is not yet dead. There will be more content soon! The best part.....this will be NEW content. Yes, that's right folks, your magnanimous host is heading back to Brazil. Soon. Next week, in fact.

I am going to Rio de Janeiro this time. I will be spending spring break there hanging out with Tatiana (see "Here comes the rain...again..." from January 9, and "Life is a zero sum game" from January 13), who lives in Ipanema and is going to show me all the cool things to see in Rio. Stay tuned!