Step One

well ive seen the jungle and those that have talked with darrell know what its all about. from manaus i struck out on my own and ran into some good and bad luck. in manaus my mp3 player and usb cable were stolen. from there i went to natal. in natal they have a really great beach with a 500ft vertical sand dune that rises up from the south side. unfortunatly its closed so there is no sliding down the sand. natal itself isnt that great. lots of old european couples and prostitutes. i left after one day. however i missed my bus stop and got to ride around the whole city twice, lots of sight seeing for a dollar. my next stop was heaven on earth. ill tell you what it consists of. first you need a wonderful beach town with the delightful name of pipa (pee-pah). next you must find a pousada (guesthouse) run by a charming brazilian lady who has lived in canada for a year. she will treat you very nice, serve a great breakfast, come out for drinks, show you how to find the dolphins and give you a good price on the room. after this it is neccesary to have a great israeli couple staying in the same place. the femal part of this union will then cook meals for you while one swings in a hammock. this is what i experienced for four whole days. simply marvelous. after this stop i continued south to the town of olinda. this is an old colonial town with great music and lots of old churches and monsastaries. here i met a local while watching some live music. by the end of the night i was jamming with all the guys in the bar, really cool. then me and the friend i met went to another beach town for the weekend. very relaxed and some great forro concerts. unfotunately this is where the bad luck starts again. i lost the memory card to my camera and hence all the pictures of brazil. then when trying to leave i got stuck in traffic and the cab ran out of gas. i missed my bus, had to pay for another and wait five hours at the station. here i had a really sketchy encounter with a drug addict and was watched over by some really nice people. all is well. since then ive been waiting in airports, for nine hours, and hanging out in salvador with a really nice german guy. we went and saw an afro-brazilian religious ceremony and travelled to an island for a day at the beach. tommorrow i fly back to floripa to spend a week with pedro, our most gracious brazilian host, then im back home. this will be the last update till i return. thanks all of you for keeping me in your thoughts and i will try to remain as safe as possible for the last nine days. ill be home soon. right now im meeting an english girl that we met in rio for drinks. she to is in salvador. hope all is well with all my friends and family. take care.
love brad

hello everyone and despite the title we are doing fine. since leaving sao paulo it seems like the time has flown by. the first stop was to ubatuba, a small beach town inside of sao paulo state. within a short busride from the town there are around 75 beaches to visit. we finally got to relax but not for long. craig was a little sick but me and darrell were having some drinks at a bar and were invited to an open bar party at a beach house. some younger people roughly 25 years old were throwing a birthday party at their friends house. we bought tickets and partied with the rich kids all night. the house was amazing, and our good luck continues. after that we went to paraty another small beach town this one in the rio de janerio state. our bus was delayed at the border because a truck had crashed into it. we had to wait for the fire trucks and ambulance to come and pry the doors off and resuce the guy, somewhat scary. another example of great brazilian driving. we arrived safely found some beautiful beaches, rented a boat with a capatian for a day and met some more locals who really enjoyed to party with us. see the reoccuring theme, not alot of sleep. we then arrived in rio which is by far the coolest city i have seen. now it was time for darrell to be sick. we slept the first night but after that we met so many people through the hostel and there is so much to do in rio i think only darrell got some sleep. we went hanggliding, to a concert, to parties in the streets, to the christ statue, sugar loaf mountain, a flavella tour and a football match. whoo what a ride. the football match was great. we left the tour with our big scandanavian friend a partied with the locals. they are beating huge drums all game and singing so loudly. fireworks and people running around are normal. when our side tied the game they shot the fireworks onto the field and the police stormed our section,pretty wild. so after rio we flew to salvador which is in the north. in salvador there is lots of african-portugese culture due to the slave trade. there is drumming in the streets and the music never stops. darrell was still pretty sick and craig was catching it again. i however am cursed with invincability and therefore am obliged to go out everynight. the downside to salvador is the poverty. the first night there we were mobbed by beggars and children, shocking and frightening. subsequent nights were not as bad but it is still tough thing to see and deal with. we are currently on and island off the coast finally taking it easy. we´ve checked in. nothing but sleeping on the beautiful beach and reading at night on the balcony in the hammock. quite a few roaches in the room though. its been nice to take a break i really needed it. craig got another flu that has been going around this area and has been in bed all day. according to the locals its really just a 24hour thing. we have booked our tickets for manuas and leave salvador on thursday. sorry there is no pictures but it takes roughly 20minutes to upload one and it gets kinda expensive, especially up north were things are poorer and technology is harder to get at. if anyone wants to leave an email address it might be easier to send pictures directly. love you all were off to the jungel, we start malaria medication tommorrow, sweet dreams.

brad

Update! Turns out while we were in this small town Caarapo we ran inot a girl there that works in the night club and party promotion buisness and she said that we could stay with her for a while and then she would hook us up with people she knows in Rio. Well we showed up at her place around nine in the morning but could not get a hold of her because she was passed out after a night of partying till 5am. The guy working the lobby said she must be home because her car was there and that we could wait for her in the lobby. after about 30min she finally let us in and we got aquainted over an awkward but great breakfast. Later that day she took us to get some lunch near an architectual museum (which was great) and during the lunch we noticed that a family at the table across from us where spending a lot of time starring and pointing. It was obvious they were talking about us. 10min later the waitress asked the Brazilian friend we were eating with if we were some foriegn rock band. she wouldn't play it up for us. After 2 nights of partying there (one night we drank a bunch of whisky called Cockland Black and it only cost about 3.50 cdn $) we met a friend of the girl we were staying with and he teaches english at a school in Sao Paulo, which is the 4th largest city in the world and you will have to get me to describe it later, but anyway this guy we got a ride with, you knew withing 10 min of taking to him he was incredibly gay and increibly funny, so it made for an interesting 6 hour car ride through the "mountains" at which he drove 140km on busy two lane highway. (Brazilian driving is a whole nother story) Our new gay friend took us to the hostel in down town Sao Paulo, but on the way there would make sure the windows were up and doors were locked when we stopped at red lights. Infact, late at night you don't even stop at red lights, you are not supposed to! In Soa Paulo we whent to some musuem exhibits that were really cool, but we miss the beach and at times I find the big city scary. But we are out of here tomorrow and are headed to the beach and then to Rio de Jenario. Talk to everybody later.

Update! Just got back from the Pantanal and Bonito. The Pantanal was close to 40 degrees everyday and because we were in a major wetland area so it was like a sauna. We saw tonnes of alligators and lots of little pirhana, and actually went treking, bare foot through the jungle infested with Capivara (worlds largest rodent), wild bore howler monkeys, and armadillo, and at times went wading through alligator and anaconda infested waters. Unfortuneatley the only anaconda we did see had it´s head bitten off by an alligator. In bonito we did a lot of touristy stuff like float own a crystal clear river in tubes trough some rapids and little waterfalls, and we went rafting. We also found a private little lagoon were would would ride bikes to, listen to music, jump off the bridge and just swimming around. Then at night we all got drunk off of Kashaça (KA-SHA-SA) which is kinda tequila type drink used to make kiparina´s, it was only 6 real (Ray-al) a bottle which is like 3.50 cdn $. In Bonito we came across a restaurant that served both aligator and capivara meat so we couldn´t pass up the chance to taste a bit of Brazil. It tastes like a chewy chicken, surprise surprise. Phase two part c is the Foz do iguaçu which will commence in a couple of days, and will round off this nature portion of the trip until the amazon. Phase 3 will soon follow where you can find us hang gliding in Rio!

Today was the end of our stint in beautiful Floripa and we hopped on a bus to Caarapo which is where we are going to catch our bearings befor heading to Igacuo falls and the Pantanal and Bineto. Theses places are nature preservation/ tourist areas so expect some excellent wildlife photos. The Pantanal is famous for alligators. Anyway not much else has happened but we are all doing fine and will keep you all updated. Seeya later.