It's been a while...

So we are back in Rio again!

Since Joao Pessoa, we've done a bunch of bus ridin' and such to spend some time with Julia and Aaron in Itacare and Serra Grande. Itacare/Serra Grande is North of Rio and south of Salvador de Bahia, in the state of Bahia. It's like a super chill surf town, full of young people. We started off out journey from Natal, north of both Rio and Joao Pessoa, at 4am and got to Itacare at 8pm. Such a long day. This was back on the 7th. got to Itacare on the 8th. Sorry I realize my wri ting is sort of scatter-brain like, it's been a couple of days since the said dates and ac tiviti es, and since then there has been more groggyness b ringing traveling and my key board is messing me up!

anyway, it was nice to just chill at a beach town for a couple of days with some familiar faces. We (tried ) to speak more Portuguese than we had been, which was interesting and fun, and we really had some fun with some local peeps. I tried surfing for the first time. Its freaking wonderful! but I ended up with sore ass arms for 3 days!!! hahaha note to self: need to exercise more when I get back to real lif e. Saw some beautiful golden moons and pink and purple sunsets. We had such a great time. Juj and A are such awesome people:) I miss you guys already.

So after that on the 11th, we left Aaron's parents' house in Serra Grande at noon and headed for Rio. Bus ride from Ilheus to Salvador de Bahia (Stephane's fav city... NOT) left at 1245 and we got there at 8pm... sore bums! Then after that, went straight to the airport in Salvador to take a flight at 0040h to Sao Paulo, layover for 3 hours and left SP at 6am and f inally got to Rio at 7am on easter sunday. The place was a ghost town. I was soooooo tired I wanted to fall asleep with my 18kg backpack on my back. We checked ourselves in at this super shady hotel (at least it had a bed... with sheets that used to be cream colored I think... now gre y) and passed out for a good 2 hours. When we woke up, we took ourselves a nice long HOT shower ( This is pretty rare in Brazil but you dont need warm water really to freshen up around here...) in a room with a toilet. I will post a photo of this at a later date to illustrate my point. Then we headed to see o Cristo Redentor (christ the redeemer statue) on top of Corcovado. That thing is ginormous. it hurts your nec k to try to look up to it.

well, it's getting a bit long so im going to stop abruptly, but there will be more later. our Brazil trip is coming to a close in 4 days. We got tons of shopping to do (they've got great shoes here ladies!) for friends and of course ourselves, and more frolicking on the beach with Cariocas. Talk to you soonnnnnnnnnnn

xx

ps excuse my punctuation, im at an internet cafe and im under time pressure!!!