Iguazu Falls

We have finally left the island paradise that is Florianopolis and moved on to Iguazu falls. It is an immense difference. The falls is remarkably similar to Niagra falls, bigger, but really only an attraction because of the natural feature. Without the falls, the town would be a tiny border crossing into Argentina without a reason for visit.

Unfortuantely the size of the falls has in many ways made it almost unreachable. To protect the area from tourists and tourists from the area, everything is heavily controlled and scripted. The pathways are paved, all the tours through the park heavily monitored and guided. There is no way to get away from the groups and actually take in the majesty of the landscape without a child, tour group, selfie stick pushing its way into your view. (although on an unrelated note, I was pleasantly tickled to see that selfie taking had surpassed shark attacks in causing human fatalities on the year).

But the falls is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world (depending on which list you look at) and we are here. So we went with the throngs of tourists, took our pictures and enjoyed the day. Fortunately, on the tour that we decided to take, it ended up being only the 2 of us with a guide. So that ended up being somewhat pleasant. We biked several kilometers along a dirt road, did a little kayaking, and a short hike. We were able to see a couple monkeys and an alligator or two. A couple other animals dashed off before we knew they were there. With the spike in the dollar to real exchange rate and having a private tour for 20% off, it was the best way to enjoy the area given the choices.

Today we are going to explore the town. It doesnt seem to have much to offer, at the moment changing money and a buddhist temple are the planned highlights for the day. But tomorrow we are off to Salvador and the coasts of Bahia as we make our way to Rio.

Brazil

So far it has been a great trip. The people that we have met have all been exceedingly helpful and nice. Each airbnb has been clean and the host very helpful, some ridiculously so. Waiters and shopkeepers have worked with us despite a complete lack of Portuguese and it has been great. However, all of that has been tempered by almost daily reminders from travel sites and our Brazilian friends about the dangers that are around. It still feels odd, because at no point have I felt unsafe, but we have been a little more careful than not about where we are.

Nilson told us that he has been robbed several times in Sao Paulo. He also made it clear while we were driving around that he wanted to avoid certain streets at night that looked deserted and stuck to the main, well-lit roads to avoid a possible car-jacking. I have seen news stories about parts of major cities where they turn off the traffic lights late a night so people dont have to stop their car and risk being robbed.

Yet despite all this, everyone that we have encountered has been incredibly nice and helpful. It is hard to imagine that the courtesy and for lack of a better word, Aloha could be matched by violence and fear of certain areas or people. I realize that poverty can create challenging situations, but throughout Asia I never worried about my physical safety and the level of poverty is equal or greater than here.

Hopefully we do not have to experience the other side of Brazilian culture. The hospitality and aloha that we have been shown so far has made the trip better than could have been planned. But at the same time it is unfortunate to know that you always have to be a little careful about where you are and where you are going. 

From Florianpolis, 1

We are now Florianopolis (Floripa), the Island of Santa Catarina in Southern Brazil. It is a beautiful place and we have been very lucky to have found an awesome private cottage with a guide. We have been surfing pretty much everyday since we got here. We also went to do a BJJ class with an instructor who used to live of all places on the North Shore of Oahu for 7 years before moving back to Brazil. I guess there really arent that many amazing surf areas in the world and it is a pretty small community.

Floripa is a small island about a third to quarter the size of Oahu and I can tell that in the summer it would be a true paradise. However, the seasons seem to change here more than Hawaii, so at the moment it has been a little colder and rainier than perfect, but still very nice. Thankfully the weather has been improving since we arrived and I am going to chance it and say that we may not have any rain today.

The person that we are renting the house from is a former ASP pro surfer who has been awesome, taking us around the island to different surf spots. He has provided wetsuits so we dont have to rent, boards for us to use, and connections at local shops so that we can rent different boards when we go to other places by ourselves. That along with having Nilson here for a couple days when we first arrived has enabled us to see almost all of the island in a short time.

Before Nilson headed out we went to an all you can eat Brazilian BBQ and gorged for lunch. The food was amazing and they just keep brining you so much perfectly cooked meat. Different animals, different cuts, it just keeps coming. They try to throw you off by providing an awesome salad bar and dessert table, but the real draw is the meat. We had that for lunch and didnt really eat a full meal for another 24 hours.

Today we tried surfing at Jaoquina (spelling?) beach, but it was a little tougher than we expected. Because of the geography, the surfing here is pretty much all shore breaks. That means that there are constant waves only a short paddle from the beach. But that also means that it can be shallow and there are constant waves breaking on you trying to push you back to the beach. Trying to clear the break to get to open ocean can be hard. Today Marina and I both were not really able to get through the surf. After an hour or so of trying we decided to call it a day. However, as we had some food the weather and waves started to change and it looked a lot cleaner, little smaller, and more manageable. So I think we are going to try and head back tomorrow a little later in the day and hope the afternoon swell treats us better than the morning swell today.

Sao Paulo 2

After a couple days in Sao Paulo we headed down to Curitibaba (where we are now) and were able to meet up with an old friend who lives in the area and I met in China years earlier. Nilson was able to pick us up at the bus station and get us to our next airbnb. I will right more at our next stop. A heads up, the place in Florianapolis does not have wifi, so connection and getting online will be somewhat limited. I am sure we will find a cafe or somewhere nearby that we can get online, but if we are slow to respond... deal with it.

Sao Paulo

The flight from Dallas to Sao Paulo was excellent. We were able to get the first two seats in the first class cabin and it was like flying in a different world. You have everything from slippers to full pajamas. In your I want to say cubicle but that sounds unpleasant, its more like a private flying suite, you have a desk, the seat rotates and folds to a full length bed, your own tv and your own set of noice canceling headphones. The food wasnt all that great, but it was served on a full size fold out table with table cloths, drink service, several courses and dessert. It was the best 10 hour flight that we have taken. However, that all being said, we were both still extremely tired when we arrived, no matter how comfortable it is, I think flying still makes it hard to get a good nights sleep. On the way back we are thinking that we might go business class, its a little cheaper and as long as you can stretch out, have a table cloth for dinner really isnt that important.

Getting from the airport to the airbnb was really easy. The taxi dropped us off and we were able to go right into to meet the person we were renting from. It turned out to be a hotel, not sure if the person worked there or what, they told us to not mention that we rented off airbnb. But either way the room was really nice, had a kitchen and was in the heart of one of the nicer parts of the city. We were able to walk to several museums and markets, went to the large park which I can not spell for the life of me but was like Ibueriar park.

The only downside was that it was cold. When we arrived the first night it rained really hard and the next morning it was about 15-18 degrees C. Quite a change from Hawaii and 95-100 in Austin. We did a lot of walking, tried to find a BJJ school, but kind of struck out on that one. Sao Paulo was nice, but I think it was a little overwhelming and when you have in the back of your head that you have to be careful not to go into a bad neighborhood, we ended up taking it easy and staying close to home.

Leaving Texas

We are sitting now at DFW waiting for our flight to Brazil and wondering whether we will get the cushy first class seats or not... but I realized that I have not posted up anything about our time in Texas.

The last week has been a good time as we explored Austin and rested up for the upcoming travels. This is going to be out of chronological order, but oh well.

Barton Springs. A natural swimming hole with chillingly refreshing water. For the hot days in Austin, the watering hole with its 70 degree ish water was a welcome relief. After jumping in and letting the body go numb it was quite nice. There was also a small sculture garden nearby, but like several other things we encountered, it was closing right as we arrived. Fortunately we did not have to pay the entry fee for our 15 minute walk around.

We also went with Phil and Maryann to Longhorn Caverns. A natural cave about 1.5 hours away. It was an interesting place and nice again because inside the cave the temperature does not go above 70 or so (a recurring theme you will notice is ways to avoid the heat). The cave had interesting history a as speakeasy during prohibition to a large scale public works project during the depression. Our guide did his best to ruin the tour with terrible grammar and a complete lack of scientific knowledge. Each of us latched onto something he said, but beyond that it was an interesting site. Examples include, please dont touch the rock formations as you will kill the rock. The place was used as a fallout shelter in case of nucular (not sure how to spell the fake word) attack. The crystals on the wall would glow and absorb energy when light was shown on them. And of course the constant "more brighter".

Marina and I were also able to explore a couple martial arts schools in the area. The people at South Austin Gracie Barra were awesome and the head instructor knew the head instructor from a school that I had visited in Honolulu. We were also able to box at Austin Kickboxing Academy despite their lack of air condititioning. We tried to go to the South Austin Gym, but a $25 drop in for a one hour class seemed a little too much to be worth it. Along with a few runs and trips to the UT gym, were finally able to be a little more active than earlier parts of the trip.

One of the first runs we went on took us to the Congress Bridge in the evening which is known for the flying of the bats. Apparently there is a large bat population that lives in the bridge and comes out most nights at sunset. We joined the throngs of people waiting and saw a very large group of bats (like a scene out of batman) come flying out at sunset.

Around the house there were a great many interesting food trucks and shops on south Congress st. They ranged from a smoothie shop to artisan grilled cheese, a burger place with hours wait in the evenings, great pizza, an amazing costume shop and a candy store with more choices to the point of overwhelming the senses among other stops on the strip. It was fun to explore and nice to be able to walk despite the overbearing (at times) heat.

The candy shop was a particular favorite for Marina who is now carrying several bags of candy and I am feeling a little sick from eating too much of mine.

We were also able to take in a cultural event, attending a speech by Robert Rietch (not sure on the spelling). There was a plan to explore the LBJ library at the same time, but was closed before we arrived. Another time perhaps. The speech was interesting, but could have used more detail as he mainly covered the pop ideas that are seen in the news without the substance to explore how they could really become reality. But was still interesting and he is a funny speaker despite his vertical challenge.

I should also state that this is being written on my new ipad mini tablet, which despite a current browser glitch with the page jumping around as I type is quite nice. Hopefully it will resolved itself and make writing a better experience in Brazil. Now we are waiting to board, updates from South America to follow.

Traveling selfie montage

as much as I hate to do this, I thought I would share some photos that we have taken along the way...

Hiking Vancouver 

And more hiking Vancouver

Jelly Belly Factory

5 Lakes Trail, Tahoe

Dead Horse Canyon, Moab

Biking in Moab

More biking in Moab

Arches Nation Park

Inside an arch at Arches National Park

leaving Denver, 9/1

9/1

Time to head out of Denver and on to Austin. As we left Denver we headed toward Garden of the Gods out side of Colorado Springs. We made a slight detour to walk through the park and the rock formations were pretty cool. It was interesting to see the difference between Garden of the Gods and the formations at Arches (not quite comparable really, Arches make Garden look like a small town public park) between the type of rock in the parks and the way that it was formed.

After the park we went to an Ethiopian restaurant for lunch. It was…ok. Nothing great, flavor was really mild and somewhat bland.  The just 400 miles down toward Austin. We made it just south of Amarillo before deciding that we had covered enough and called it a night.

Sandy, missed this post before...

Sandy; 8/26/15

After getting up a little late and taking an easy morning we went to check out Unified BJJ. It was really close and they had a class from 12-2 that fit perfectly along with everyone else’s schedule. The school was really good and paired with the elevation it was quite the workout. It was nice to see quite a few of the high level students in class, including at least 3 black belts. The class itself only had one white belt and the rest comprised a group of about 20 blue to brown belts. Covered a little x-guard for an hour and then spent about 45 minutes rolling. After about 45 min, we looked at each other and were both in agreement that we were done. Everyone else kept on going, but dry air and elevation had finished us off a little early.

We headed back to Dave and Sylvia’s, did some laundry and it was time to get ready for dinner. Fortunately Ryan and Darin were able to join us for dinner. Afterwards we dropped by briefly at Ryan’s house to see Shae and introduce Marina and Natalie. Hopefully next time we meet up with them we can have more time.

It was a nice relaxing day and spent a little time with the Utah contingent of the family. It would be nice to have more time, maybe a camping or ski trip sometime in the not to distant future.

Up to St Mary's, 8/31/15

Marina and I headed up to St Mary’s Glacier, which is really more like a snow pack at this point. It was a pretty easy hike, but the altitude didn’t help. The top was cold and the wind had some real bit coming off the snow. It was cool to see one person skiing in August on the glacier and several others heading up with ski’s on our way down.

The rock areas around the glacier were covered in chipmunks, ground squirrels and we briefly saw a marmot before it hit in the rocks and stared at us while we tried to talk it back out…didn’t work.

After that and brief stop at Wilderness exchange we headed back to the house. I had an interview with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. Figured I would at least get a job interview done while on the road. They are a really interesting group that works with the housing first model to get the homeless off the streets and into sustainable housing. They are part of a large coalition (somewhere around 500 employees) in a range of services that work with the underserved in Denver and around CO.

After the meeting, Marina and I went to meet a former grad student that Marina went to school with who is now teaching in Denver. The plan was to head after to see my old MMA coach and try to train for the evening, but it didn’t go as planned. We weren’t able to get a hold of him ahead of time and so we just headed to the address on the website (which hadn’t been updated in at least a couple months to years). When we got there we learned that he had headed up to the mountains to go hunting. So instead we headed back, found a 24-hour fitness, ran 2.5 miles there, worked out and ran/walked home.

Lazy Sunday, 8/30/15

After a long night it was time for a lazy day. Sunday we went to REI and then realized that we should have been shopping across the street at Wilderness exchange (used and affordable gear).

In the evening we met up with some of my college friends for drinks at Nallen’s Irish Pub. Matt (Reddog), Matty, and Trevor, along with Danielle (Trevor’s GF) came out and met Marina, Pablo, Kristin and I. It was really good to see them all doing well and talk story for a while about fun (stupid) shit that we did in college.

Riot Fest

8/29/15

After a good nights sleep we headed with Kristin to Moe’s bagels and got some good food that we had not been able to find in HI. After breakfast the three of us drove over for a quick stroll down DU memory lane and capped the tour with a stop at Ben and Jerry’s.

We met up with Pablo after lunch and went to a dispensary to see what CO has been smoking since legalizing the marijuana. The dispensary was a like candy store crossed with a doctors office. They had everything I could think of and ton more. Normal pot, but then everything edible from gummy bears to lollipops and all baked goods. Even lotions and tinctures to apply topically. Oils for your skin, sodas, you name it and they have put pot in it. It is interesting to say the least, and at least from the place we went to, incredibly professional looking.

That night we went to see Riot fest in North Denver at the National Western Complex. A good show, but really dusty and nowhere to sit. Some people who had been there earlier had some really awesome farmers tans going. It appeared that one of the earlier shows had sprayed something into the crowd like red dust and people were covered. People ranged in get up, dressed in all kinds of things including one guy with a tail. We went to a food truck and I had one of the best gyro’s I have had, but it may have been enhanced by our stop earlier that day.

The bands were really good and the crowd wasn’t too bad. Was able to win a rose for a Marina at one of the dart throwing carnival game stations. The line up we were able to see was: Cold war kids, The Bunny Gang, Alkaline Trio, Run DMC, Pixie’s, and Modest Mouse

8/28/15

The next morning it was time to try our hands at some real trails. We went to the Bar-M trails. It was good that we got an early start (7am) because it gets hot fast. After a warm up on some green and green/blue trails we decided to try a blue. Well thought it was a blue. Turned out to be a blue/black; and we crushed it. After a couple bails off the bike we learned that going down was really easy, but going back up the steep other side was a bit more challenging. You can build a lot of speed going down and then the uphill section comes at you sharp and fast. If you are not careful with the shocks you can hit the uphill with the shocks compressed and vault off the bike. It was a quick learning curve. Also understand why we saw people going out in body armor. But after a morning of biking it was time to hit the road to Denver. Leaving Moab we took a riverside road that was recommended to us by a local in the trails parking lot and it was a beautiful meandering drive toward the boarder. Then a bit of the most boring landscape we covered and into Colorado.

As we were leaving Utah to CO, Marina learned that her PhD advisor and several of the people she had interviews with were all in Denver that week for a meeting and would be there through the evening. A quick drive cross CO, a shower, and out for drinks and professional networking. We met at a bar in LoDo and then headed to another new bar that was full of old school arcade and video games. It was a place with dozens of mostly young men playing video games, some dressed in onezies (spelling?) and a few in capes. Marina kicked my ass in Double Dragon. Unfortunately it was team game where you were supposed to work together and not fight each other… $10 in quarters later and it was time to call it a night.

Sandy to Moab, 8/27

8/27/15

We drove down from Sandy to Moab to spend the night camping and rent bikes to try our hand at mountain biking. The area was beautiful as we came into town. Moab seems like a fun place to visit, a Mecca of mountain biking and rock climbing. Not a place to live necessarily, but a fun playground. The landscape changed from desert scrub into striking rock formations. We were able to find a place to rent bikes for the evening and through the next day and after making arrangements we headed off to find our campsite.

After setting up our campsite it was time to get out of the sun. The direct sun and lack of tree or any other coverage left one sun exposed and it got hot fast. But we went to pick up our bikes and headed to Dead Horse Canyon. It gets its name from being a bluff with a narrow neck that cowboys would herd wild horses up onto and trap on the bluff. A corral was built and after running the horses onto the bluff they would be trapped with a 2,000-foot drop down to the Colorado River. However, when you forget to water your horses you go from horse trap canyon to dead horse canyon real fast. The view from the bluff looking over the valley was spectacular. It was time to try our hand at mountain biking to see what we would be able to tackle the next day. After a hesitant start, comfort on the bikes increased quickly.

We returned to the campsite supplies in hand and quickly realized that ants were everywhere. Not really swarming, but just walking over everything including your feet. But other than that it was a nice site and a long day. As we lay down in the tent to watch Condorman and sleep I heard a slight rustle in the grass outside the tent. It was hard to tell but it felt like it was slowing getting closer until I could hear the rustle again, expect this time it was the rustle of movement against nylon, not grass. Something was outside the tent. And from the sound, I was (and still am pretty sure it was a snake). Next thing I new I felt something leaning against me through the tent. Just sliding along outside the tent, really, really slow. It freaked me out. Snakes don’t really bother me, but I wasn’t sure if we were in rattlesnake country or not and didn’t want to find out. After a long pause I was sure it was gone and as I moved, it moved right there against the outside of the tent. It felt like hours, but probably 30 minutes later either it moved on or settled in and I was able to sleep. Marina wanted to investigate, but I felt that I would sleep better telling myself it was nothing and would be gone in the morning than learn it was something. The rest of the night was uneventful but brutally hot and stagnant. I’m not sure if she was braver or I was more prudent, but either way it was gone in the morning.