PCV: Paid Caribbean Vacation

Well here it is. The Brazil blog. I must warn you before you begin reading that this will be extremely long, but it is the story of the greatest 5 days of my young life.

It all began when we got off the ship and knew we had to be on the bus right away for our 6 hour bus ride to Lencois. Lencois is still in Bahia, which is basically a state of Brasil. And for clarification it’s not Brazil anymore, it’s Brasil because that’s how they spell it and I think they would know better than we would. I got off the ship and started coming down the gangway to a thunder of drums and dancing right away. It was the first day of Carnival but that had nothing to do with what was going on. These people were dancing and playing music as a welcome to us. As you can imagine when a ship full of 1,000 people pull into a poor place, we pour money into the economy and they are very grateful. We think we are getting a great deal but they think it is a blessing to have so many people willing to spend money in their country.
On the trip to Lencois, I sat up front with Andrea and had the opportunity to see out the front window and talk to Daniel, our beloved tour guide. As we drove through Salvador on our way west to Lencois, the only thing I could look at were the hill sides. Hill sides not because they are green and lush with vegetation. I couldn’t fathom the amount of absolute poverty that I was witnessing. We were told that Brasil has one of the largest degrees of inequality in the entire world but I don’t think I believed it until I saw the favellas. Favellas are what we would call the projects but instead of being buildings that resemble run down apartments, they are literally shacks piled on top of one another so that people can fit into the space provided. I started talking to Daniel about them and he spoke of how crime didn’t really occur too much within the favellas, but that is where the crime came from. The children were the biggest threat to crime because many of them were just trying to eat. Daniel said that they did not steal from each other because they knew that they didn’t have anything but would usually go into the city and rob other people so that they could eat. Police do not go into the favellas because they are not safe for outsiders to go into. There are no streets in many of the areas so it’s a matter of walking anywhere you have to go. The crazy thing, as I continue to mention time and time again, was how Daniel only talked about how happy these people were to be alive. Murder happens often and the fact that people are still alive was enough to crack a smile. This might not be entirely true for all people in the favellas but it does show to some extent why crime is so rampant. It has nothing to do with them being bad people. It lies in the root of the poverty in the first place. It’s the constant battle of have’s and have not’s. The people in the favellas do not have much. They want to survive, and the only way possible for them to meet their basic needs many times is theft and crime. I don’t see this as a bad thing. Think about what you would do if you were a starving child and your baby sister was dying due to malnourishment, what are you going to do? You are going to do whatever is possible to save yourself and those in your family. It doesn’t matter how many people you supposedly hurt because you are busy looking out for your own. When no one on the planet seems to care about you, eventually you have to take it upon yourself to get the job done. For people in the favellas, many times crime is the only option. I do not blame them. I blame the system for letting them go without and leaving crime as the only way to see another day.
Once out of Salvador, we got on 2 lane highway that looked more like any poorly paved road. There were many places to pull off for no particular reason and it was very common to see someone in the middle of nowhere with a fruit stand trying to make a few dollars from the people driving by. It was not uncommon to see someone riding a bike either and then you had to think about the fact there was nothing in front of you or behind you for an hour of driving. Gas there is roughly $5 a gallon and extremely expensive. It is a luxury of the rich in most parts of Bahia and Daniel said that a very large part of the costs of our trip were just gas for transportation. The road was asphalt, which was relatively smooth in most parts but Daniel talked all about how stupid this was. The asphalt wears down in a matter of 5 years or so and then needs to be replaces. Concrete is slightly more expensive but it lasts for 30 years. The cost benefit in this makes it very easy to see that in the long run, the investment of the concrete would be wise. The problem is the politicians are so hard up for funding and money that they will always take the easy way out because they are only in office for a matter of 4 years. They have no reason to “waste” all the money during their term. They have other things on their agenda than using all the money in the budget on a concrete road that would save them millions of dollars over a 30 year period.
We finally stopped to get lunch after about 4 hours. We were told not to eat lettuce or anything that was washed over with water to protect ourselves from traveler’s diarrhea. I didn’t really care about that and figured if it happened, that it was just part of the experience. I was shocked to find that most restaurants there are pay by grams. Basically it is set up like a buffet where you go through and find what you want to eat. Then at the end of the line there is a woman that weighs your plate and writes it on a ticket. Depending on how much food you put on your plate says how much money you will pay when you are finished. Most people really liked this, but I however, did not. I’m a fan of getting my money’s worth and in this case, they were getting their food’s worth. But once again, I have no reason to complain because I was completely full and only spend around $4 in dollars for a decent meal.
When we got back on the bus, we continued our discussion about Brasil with Daniel. The few that could hear him were amazed by his obvious passion for life. He is what I would call the absolute epitome of a hippy in everyway. I loved him. He is your cheesy, at peace with the earth, and at peace with himself kind of guy. He was very knowledgeable about everything we asked. He went to Santa Monica College in the States for college and talked about how he didn’t want to do business once he got back to Brasil. He realized how much we were polluting the earth and how horrible people can be. He knew that Brasil was one of the most beautiful places in the world and wanted to share that with people without destroying it. Eco-tourism was his calling. I don’t think there could be a more perfect job for a man of his character.
We arrived in Lencois and met another tour guide named Kikiu (pronounced kee kee u). He was 31 and this guy has more fun than anyone I have ever met. He loved life. There is no better way to explain it. He didn’t sleep, and always had a smile on his face. His laugh was extremely contagious and he became one of us immediately.
Our group consisted of 23 people that we split up in 2 groups. My group got Daniel for the entire trip and I truly feel sorry for the other group because they missed out on how great he was and how amazing he made the trip just by being there. We used the company Biosfera Brasil and we didn’t know this but they are relatively new to the business. We were the first large group trip they had ever done and it was the first time Daniel ever got to go with anyone because he is usually in the office planning small trips for people. Being that it was the week of Carnival, everyone has the week off from work so he was able to grace us with his presence.
The night we arrived we walked to a place to meet up with a local NGO that liked to help spread peace and culture throughout Brasil and all of South America. We walked through the rain to get there and showed up completely soaked and tired from a 6 hour bus ride. There was no time to waste though. We showed up to a circle of people dancing and we were immediately in there going crazy. This was the introduction to our new favorite song “Mama Afrika” that we sang the rest of the trip and still sing all the time just to remember the trip despite the fact that hardly any of us actually know the words. We got out of the rain, sang songs, and danced. Hardly any of them spoke English but Daniel was the official translator and helped us to communicate with anyone we wanted to talk to. The dances they taught us were all simple and childish but perfect for getting us to lighten up. My favorite was about a snake that was up on a mountain looking for its tail. We were the tail. Basically it created a conga line that picked one person at a time and that person had to crawl under the legs of everyone in the line to become the tail. Eventually all 50 people in the room became one very large tail. This took a lot of crawling around on the ground and getting dirty but that was the last thing on my mind at the time.
Dancing was followed by a discussion where we got to ask questions to them and they asked us questions about what we do back home and what kind of NGOs we knew of. They were all as fascinated in our lives as we were theirs. They asked questions about American politics and our policies on how we treated other countries. They were not large fans of Bush and said that most Americans seem selfish and only interested in things that concern their own well being. Luckily, they said that by the way we came into their group and had a good time dancing and talking that we were rewriting these stereotypes for the better. One thing to mention is Lencois is not an extremely rich town. It is basically in the middle of nowhere and is full of culture but not a lot of money. All the streets are cobblestone and very narrow. Not narrow like those of Puerto Rico for looks but narrow for the reason that they probably didn’t have much money to make the roads in the first place. Most people walked everywhere anyway so unless you were leaving the town, you had no reason to need any transportation. Already, here we were, it was the first night, hardly any of our adventure had begun, and I was completely taken away by these brasilian people and the love they had for life. I was amazed by this country already and it was just beginning.
Our group of Andrea, Dave, Bennett, Matt, Alex G, Tina, Tiffany, Liz, Roberto, Kim, Brenna, and myself had the opportunity to start off with the not so hard hike to the caves. We woke up a little later than the other group that was going to the fumasa falls and got to walk from the hotel to where we were going. Our hotel was not really much of a hotel as much as it was a very cozy bed and breakfast at the top of the town. It overlooked the entire town and was very quiet. It was small so for the most part, our group took over all the rooms and we ran the place. It wasn’t some cheap crap hotel that I wouldn’t have minded staying at. It wasn’t paradise either though. It was perfect for the kind of trip we were going on that we would be supporting a local man by staying in his house turned hotel.
We were supposed to leave around 8:30am but realized very quickly that brasilians are very fashionably late to everything. We were told that is normal for things to happen an hour later than planned. This held true the entire trip, but it was nothing to get frustrated about because everything always worked out regardless of what we were doing. We finally got to walking around 9:15am and didn’t really know where we were going. We finally got to a place that we realized we were officially in the middle of nowhere. We couldn’t see any civilization of any kind and it was so peaceful to be alone. The trails we were walking in were not so much trails as much as they were streams that didn’t have much water in them. It was not something for people afraid of getting their feet wet. If not for Kikiu and the other guide, we would have never found our way back. Everywhere you looked was worthy of taking a picture.
The caves were somewhat hidden in the midst of green leaves and moist temperatures (yes, Cody… moist). It was actually quite open where we didn’t really have to kneel or anything the entire way. I have no idea how people can go in there all the time because I can easily see myself getting lost. Kikiu said that 2 guys came into the came on New Years and never made it out. They were stuck in the cave for 2 days before they found a way out. I figured that this meant we should stay with them. I didn’t think it was too hard to walk around within the caves. It was really fun actually. But fun was not the best part of the caves. It was the peace. It was Daniel.
We finally came to a point in the caves where we could hear water. When we came to the river, the water was not very strong. It was very calm actually and only about a foot deep in most places. The deepest part came up to my waist and we got in to get wet for a bit. Now keep in mind that the only source of light is 2 lanterns that the tour guides are carrying. We were kind of tired of messing around in the water and were ready to move along but Daniel said we had to do “an experience.”
We all sat down in the water in a circle. We were instructed to hold hands with left hand on top and the right hand on bottom. This created a circle of energy between all of us. Daniel told us to just concentrate on the silence of the water. The lights were turned out and even with your eyes open you could see absolutely nothing. Darkness. Now this was very cheesy but nothing was more perfect for the moment. Daniel told us to just breathe deeply and be at one with ourselves. Concentrate on something that was troubling us and when we breathe the energy in from the earth that we should embrace that energy and welcome it. While still concentrating on the problem, we should exhale and let the river take the problem away. After this we continued to hold hands and just take a deep breath and humm 3 long times until our breath was gone. Silence followed for a few minutes until we all just kind of came to from the peaceful trance we were in. It might sound stupid now but being there in that cave with those people was something that was priceless. Finally the lights were turned back on and we were to continue the hike in the caves, but the group dynamic changed after that point and we were more of a tribe than a bunch of individuals.
Not long after, we came to the end of the cave. The light from the exit of the cave was blinding and then we knew it was time for the peace to end and the chaos to begin. We sat around and ate lunch from inside the cave as rains poured down outside. It was time to climb up on the edge of the cliff and jump off. We needed people to volunteer to bungee jump and rappel first. Bungee was supposed to go by weight and technically, I was supposed to go 3rd. I decided to rappel first since no one wanted to do that and I felt that after bungee jumping that rappelling would be a disappointment. It was pretty fun. The best part was the instructor was telling us all the safety information but I don’t know if he didn’t realize that we didn’t speak Portuguese. I knew the basics and just agreed with him and right before I went, Daniel came running over and made sure that I knew the safety stuff in English. It was about 130 feet down that we rappelled into. It was a good time but bungee jumping was the focal point of everyone’s attention so no one even saw me come down through the hole in the cave. The cool part was while I was dropping down, I got the watch Matt, my fellow Cincinnatian, be the first bungee jumper. It looked like a lot of fun and I was immediately excited to do it.
When I got to the point down below where everyone was watching Matt was just getting untied and he was shaking and said that it was one of the best things he has ever done, along with some other expletive words, and that he didn’t need to do it again. I just said WHO DEY and was even more ready to make the jump.
Bennett was second and he nearly chickened out. He is the 6’3” German that lives in Italy and thinks he is God’s gift to women. He might be very attractive but if he wouldn’t have jumped, I doubt anyone would have talked to him. Bennett was one of my roommates at the lodge and while he comes off as a pompous asshole at first, I truly love this guy and he makes me laugh often.
I finally made the walk all the way up the hill again to see the jump sight. I don’t know what I was planning on seeing but I think I expected to see some kind of shack or something that said bungee jumping. It didn’t. It was basically just a bunch of ropes tied into the ground and those ropes were supposed to be attached to my feet before I jumped off a cliff. No big deal. Andrea went 3rd and I thought I would wait my turn. After Andrea went, they told me it was my turn because of my weight and the heavier people need to go earlier because the ropes stretch more as the jumps go on.
The funny thing is you can’t really see where you are jumping. You just jump and hope the rope catches you. Matt’s dad told him a piece of advice: “don’t jump off a 90 foot cliff with a 100 foot rope.” I thought this was good advice. They tied me up, brought me to the point and told me to count down and jump. 3... 2… 1… BUNGEE!
It was pretty fun to see how fast you fall the second you jump. The rope ran out before I knew it and the bouncing began. I was surprised to see how fast the bouncing ended and the swinging began. As I’m just swinging back and forth, I screamed in Jenny fashion, “Dear god, make me a bird so I can fly far far far away.” Then you just sit there as the little man came down to relieve me. The blood just kept rushing to my head. It was exhilarating.
Not long after I went, the rains came. Normally we would just go but this was torrential downpour to the point that it was cold in the middle of Brasil. There we were on top of a mountain, on top of the exit of a cave, in the middle of Brasil, mid day, pouring down rain, and we are huddled in a group hug singing “lean on me.”
That night we went out to a steak dinner. I was looking forward to the Brasilian steak house like Fogo de Chao, but it wasn’t that. That didn’t mean that it wasn’t amazing. It was a cut called Picanha. We can not get it in the States, which made me wonder what was in it but I didn’t want to try the Portuguese or English so I just ate it. Wonderful. They brought it out on a small grill. The nice thing was in the beginning it was delicious and rare. The trick was you either had to leave it on your plate and get cold or risk the chance of getting more well done. So either way, regardless of how you like your steak, this place was made for you.
As if this day wasn’t long enough, it was really just beginning. We left the restaurant and got into vans to go to a town about 45 mins away called Palmerias. We were going there for the local Carnival. This was our first taste of Carnival. It was much smaller and only about 10,000 people. There were only 2 stages, 1 on each end of the town. Basically we would party it up and dance at one stage until the Trios Electrico (a big truck with speakers blaring out of it and a band on top playing live music) came by and would go slowly so that everyone could walk behind it and in front of it until we got to the next stage like ½ mile away. I twisted my ankle, but at the state of mind that I was currently in, it didn’t really matter until the next morning. We’d dance and party there then until the truck would come back again. It was a never ending circle of love and dance.
The best part of Carnival and Brasil in general is that there are no expectations whatsoever. Now many of you will agree that I can not dance. I am not one to disagree, but I do try anyway. In Brasil, no matter what I did, no one laughed at me. It was completely ok for me the flail around and make a complete fool of myself. I was at home because everyone else looked exactly the same. Nothing better. We left around 3am because the hiking day started at 8am the next morning but there were no signs of the party letting up.
The next morning, I woke up and realized I could barely walk. No big deal, I just had a black and blue ankle and another 7 miles to hike today. Did that stop me? Hell no. We were on our mission to hike the Fumasa Falls. This is the 2nd highest water fall in the world. To begin this hike, it was basically an hour straight up a mountain. I am not in great shape but not a complete sloth and it was extremely hard to get to the top. Team Bauer (Andrea and I) joined together and just busted it out like it was our job. It was interesting to see the rocks as we climbed because so many people had climbed up this mountain throughout the years that there were foot holes in the rock.
The next 3 hours were consumed by walking through a creek for a very long time. There was no direct trail but as long as you stayed in the creek, you would eventually get to where you needed to go. It has been over a week since the hike and I still can’t get my feet clean. We walked in black mud for the longest of times until we came to a pond of nasty water. What did we do? We walked right through it! It was up to our knee or so and everyone had to do it. It was fascinating how dirty this hike was but even better how no one seemed to care.
When we reached the top, it looked like nothing was there. I could hear the falls but couldn’t see anything. Then I saw the line of people wanting to look over this rock. This was far from something you looked over. You basically had to lie on your stomach and scoot out to the edge of this cliff while someone held your ankles to get a look at the falls. It went forever. The landscape went in all directions and the drop was about 1,200 feet down. It would have been fun to base jump off of. The hike with a bum ankle and 4 blisters on my pruned feet were completely worth it.
The walk back down included more talks with Daniel about how his son of 18 months was the next boy prodigy of the world. I believed him and loved how he was such a dedicated father. I found it interesting that he was already in schooling at 15 months. I don’t know what you would really teach someone that age, but I’m sure it was something about random learning and more brain stimulation than actual learning but I didn’t want to burst Daniel’s bubble.
The challenge was the walk down. With a swollen ankle, it is not so easy to go down hill on a wet rock on an incline. I just took my time and made it down safely, but by the time that I got to the bottom, I had never felt the pain and aching of my feet more in my entire life. They were covered in blisters, my ankle was swollen and I just kicked that mountain’s ass.
All I wanted to do was sleep. Nothing else. My feet hurt, I was tired, and I knew that we weren’t going to get much sleep that night.
The kids from the NGO came back again and we were supposed to dance and sing and have pizza in the hotel. This one a night that I was very tired but I am very happy that I stayed awake for the experience anyway. This was our last night with Daniel because he was flying home to Sal Paulo (his home) to spend the rest of the week with his family. We danced of course and decided to talk some more in a circle. We talked a lot about our expectations of Brasil before we got here and what we think now that we have experienced it.
Most of the SAS kids agreed that we were told to be fearful and cautious when going to Brasil because there is so much crime and robbery, especially during Carnival. We commented on how this was never a problem because everyone in Brasil was so nice to us. Daniel explained this as the problem with tourists and the reason they started their business in the first place.
He explained very passionately that there are two worlds out there in the world. There is the Fear world in which people live in fear and do not know what is going to happen to them. When people are fearful of others, crime happens. If you try to avoid people then you are giving them a reason to mess with you. Then comes the more important world of Love. This balance between the love and fear spheres of the world are what make the difference between happiness and despair. We were living in the Love world, a place where it didn’t matter what country we were from. It didn’t matter what language we spoke. It didn’t matter what color our skin was or how much money we had. We realized that even though our passports said that we were completely different people from all different backgrounds that we had one thing in common: we were all people. Nothing else mattered. Citizenship didn’t matter because we were all citizens of a global world in which we inhabit the same place regardless of where your home may be. Be it United States or Brasil, it’s still on the earth and there is no reason to make differences for this reason.
I am doing a horrible job of explaining how well Daniel said this, but many people in the room were in tears. I will admit that I was slightly misty and had to hold back the tears. It was time for pizza, but before we went down stairs we felt it necessary to show them a dance of our own. We don’t have as many silly and simple dances as they did but we all agreed to teach them the Hokey Pokey. So we put one hand in, we took one hand out, we put one hand in and we shook it all about. They thought it was hilarious and didn’t understand the words, but I think they liked that we were at least trying to share something with them. It was a give and take, we probably gained from them more than they gained from us but in this situation there were no losers. It was a pure win-win situation.
The next morning we were off to see more waterfalls. It was a short day because we had to back on the bus for the 6 hour ride back to Salvador and get ready for Carnival in the place where it all began.
This bus ride may have been the best bonding experience we had the entire trip. The first half we just passed out and basically fell into comas until we stopped for lunch. We ate at the same place and everyone definitely ate more this time that we didn’t care about what the food looked like, how many flies were swarming around, or if it was going to be expensive. We pigged out. Got on the bus and expected to pass out all over again. This never happened.
Some people passed out but most of us decided that since we were on our way to the world’s largest party that we needed to pregame and prepare ourselves for it. Yes, that’s right… we pregamed for the biggest party in the entire world! It wasn’t much but before long we were singing every song we knew and laughing at Bennett for butchering American songs that he didn’t know but tried really hard none the less. This was so much fun, and I have many videos of it to prove all the fun. It was the perfect ending to an amazing experience. The crazy thing was this was only the end of Lencois; we still had Salvador to go.
Carnival was about to begin and this was an experience that is completely different than anything I had ever done before. We had no time to get on and off the ship. We had to wear these shirts called Abadas and get to our Blocco (Blocco’s are those Trios Electricos things again but on a much larger scale with ropes all around and security. If you don’t have the shirt… you don’t get in). We were in Crocodilo. It started at 6:30pm and we thought that it would be over by 11 but it never seemed to end. Long before it started we were standing around the truck waiting for our performer to start playing. Daniella Mercedes was the woman on the stage. This was fun because people would pay money to be in the blocco and basically get a live show from their favorite singer or band all night long.
We were told that Carnival could be extremely dangerous and that we should take nothing valuable. Basically just enough money for drinks and taxi fair home. Everyone was worried about being pick pocketed or mugged so we followed orders. No one brought their camera but I was lucky enough to get a disposable through.
I was pissed to start the night because as we were standing around waiting to begin, we got hit with numerous cans full of urine. Piss all over my face! Andrea got hit with a cigarette on her arm and got burned. There were all people from the outside. It was chaos and I was just making sure I wasn’t going to have to throw down and beat the hell out of someone. Everyone was getting mad and people were talking about leaving even before we started. Then a small boy came up to us and looked sad as can be. He was dirty and barely clothed. He came up to us and whispered, “comida.” This is “food” in Portuguese. Here I was completely pissed off by people throwing pee into our group and trying to calm people down enough not to leave, then this boy is here and looks absolutely pathetic. Pathetic not because of how he was looking or what else was going on, but it was pathetic to see the extremes of a situation in a matter of seconds. I went from being extremely frustrated and pissed off to silence. We had to tell the little boy no, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget him. It’s one thing to tell a bum on the street no when he asks for food or money, but when it’s a small child, you think twice and wonder where his parents are. The sad thing is his parents probably aren’t even around anymore, and there is no place for him to go. He is just another street kid in Brasil that nobody gives two shits about. It was hard to watch him go, but we couldn’t be the start of something that would have started a swarm of people asking for food or money. If they see you give anything to one person, it is assumed you will give it to all. This was interrupted by loud music and people cheering as our signal that Carnival was officially beginning.
Once we started dancing and moving, I realized something. There were virtually no women in our blocco. Our blocco was set up by Daniel and we figured we were getting a great deal because it was slightly less expensive than other bloccos in the festival. Here we were worried about getting robbed and making sure the girls weren’t getting molested when we realized that none of this was happening whatsoever. No one had been touched. In fact, I was the only one that had been slightly bothered and that was someone grabbing my ass from behind that I never saw. Once we found some people that spoke English, we politely asked, “Are all these people gay?” They cheered as they exclaimed this was the most gay friendly blocco in all of Carnival. I thought this was hilarious and something to be learned. Men were making out everywhere. It was completely acceptable and not awkward in anyway. In the States, this would have caused a problem but no one seemed to care. I think this showed even more about the Brasilian culture that it didn’t bother them at all. They were so comfortable with their own skin that other people’s differences never seemed to bother them. I wish people in the United States could be as open to others like this but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. I think it’s interesting that Brasil is considered a developing country and we are one of the most developed countries in the world but in terms of how people treat one another, this poverty torn country blew us away. Goes to show what all those lists really show. We have everything and can’t be happy with anything, they have nothing and they are happy about everything.
That night ended on a good note because after 8 hours of continuous dancing, bumping, grinding, and screaming words to songs you don’t know the words to, you are completely exhausted. In all we realized that we had walked close to probably 25 miles in the past 3 days and we were completely beat. Brasil was almost over, and we were all so sad to see it go.
The next morning I got up for lunch and we walked down to the market to shop around. I didn’t buy much. I was too cheap (go figure). It was fun just to watch people in their own setting and how they reacted, not to mention how some people would try to sell you anything. This one guy pulled me into his shop and tried to get me to buy some hand crafted wooden figurines. They were nice but I didn’t want them. He knew how to say “very beautiful” and he said it over and over and over again. I agreed but still didn’t want it. He wrote down how much he wanted to sell it to me for and I told him that 10 reals (about $5) was too much. I didn’t care if it was free, I didn’t really want it. After I walked in, I noticed he pulled the next person in just like he pulled me in and it cracked me up that this was his tactic to sell things to customers. The “come into my shop” worked for him. It just didn’t work on this cheapskate.
Now KY, if you are reading this, start paying attention. I was in Brasil and there was only one thing I knew I had to do before I got there: Brasilian Steakhouse! Charascaria Boi Preto was its name and it was supposedly the best place in Salvador. It was the same set up as I expected with a yes and no meat, which was always set to “yes.” I can’t say that it was that much better than Fogo De Chao that I had in Dallas last year but the salad bar was better. They had a sushi bar and everything in the world that I had never heard of. I tried it all. The meat was not as tender as I would have liked but it was delicious none the less. I was satisfied and ate for about 2 hours straight. Some people come to that place for the quality of the food. I came for one reason: gluttony. The quality was a secondary reason in this instance and it didn’t matter, but was still one of the best meals I had ever had. Completely stuffed and proud of Team Bauer for her performance in the gluttony, I was content to go back to the ship. More than anything, all this does is get me excited for Dallas and Houston next year in football because we are going to Fogo in both places. EQ room here we come. Brian you have no idea what you are in for. Vegetarians and Vegans need not apply. We are carnivores, we are proud, and if you have a problem… we will eat you. Good day sir.
Getting back to the ship was sad. It was the official end to the most jammed packed breathtaking days of my life. As the ship pulled away, some people were happy to be leaving but all the people that were in our group got together and talked about Daniel. I didn’t want to leave. I really had a sense of connection to Brasil. It has left a dent on me that I will never forget and hope that more people get the chance to experience something half as amazing as I have. I am so lucky to get this opportunity. It is only the beginning. We are back at sea. We are on our way to South Africa.
I warned you this would be long, but if you ask me to explain it and tell you stories, it will be even longer. Brasil is full of culture and Carnival is something that you must experience to believe the chaos. We might have been more safe being around nothing but gay guys, I might have been more vulnerable than the women, but I would take nothing back and if I had the chance to do it again, I’d probably sleep less and do more. My feet will heal; they will get hurt again on this trip again I’m sure. I just hope that in my life that I get the opportunity to see this country again because I saw such a small slice and was fascinated with what I lived. I will come back to Brasil; it’s just a question of when.

I love Brasil. Chao.

Mama Afrika