Driving Leg 2

After the return from Brazil it was time to get back on the road...but have to say, starting to get tired of being on the road. We are now in Portland and not sure if we are going to be heading to Richland or making a slight detour to Seattle while waiting for the housing to be arranged in the Tri-Cities...

Driving Leg 1

Part one of the road trip. After Austin there was a slight (35 day) detour to Brazil, but at least we got a break from driving.

Pictures from Brazil

Trip summary... so far

South Pasadena, bought a car
Monterey, CA. went to the aquarium
San Francisco, met with James and Lisa went to the Jelly Belly Factory
Lake Tahoe, a night of camping and a day of hiking
Sandy, Utah, time with family, some good jiu-jitsu
Moab, Utah, a night of camping and some awesome trail riding
Denver, CO, Riot Fest, hiking St Mary's Glacier, great to see Pablo and Kristin
Plainview, TX... dont bother
Austin, TX, time with Phil and Maryann...Brazil prep
Sao Paulo, cold and rainy. The city is overwhelming, but Brazil is great.
Curitiba. Met up with Nilson and had a fun time in the city, first Brazil BJJ
Florianopolis. One of the best places I have been. Surfing, BJJ, beaches, great people and food.
Iguazu Falls. an amazing waterfall but a very underwhelming city
Salvador, the food, the beaches, beautiful city, some good bjj... time well spent.
Trancoso, sleeping resort beach town, warm water and endless beaches
Arraial D'ajuda, good people, more going on, Marina gets food poisoning.
Rio... one of the most amazing cities. so many sites, great food 24 hours, fantastic BJJ, beaches, surfing, dancing... it just goes on
Arraial do Cabo...crap town, great diving. saw a sea horse, didnt get to ride it, happy to dive, happier to return to Rio.
Rio 2, more BJJ, food and dance class, but sadly, time to leave
Austin 2, rest, relax, train and head to finish the loop
Albuerquerque... used a UPS store to send some documents... good waffles
Grand Canyon, cold and raining, but made the hiking far more pleasant than hot and sweaty.
South Pasadena... back at the start. Muay Thai, BJJ, food and movie, family time and then back on the road to (hopefully) the final destination.

Coming full circle

Now back in South Pasadena we have come full circle from the start back in August, but there still is more to go. Marina was able to score a solid job in Washington State, so now we finally know where we are going. After making it all the way from South Pas to Brazil and back, we are going to start the trip again along the same route, making some of the same stops for the first day or two before continuing north to Portland and on to Washington.

Before making it back to South Pasadena we stayed a few days in Austin to rest and get used to the states again. We were able to get in a good roll at South Austin BJJ, a great and very welcoming school that I look forward to going back to next time in Austin.

After leaving Austin we headed to the Grand Canyon for a couple days of hiking and camping, at least that was the plan. The first day we pushed to Albuquerque and finally got hit with cold and rain. Winter is going to be a rough adjustment from Hawaii. The next day we arrived at the campground inside the national park at the Grand Canyon, it was cold. Apparently, they were experiencing colder than usual temperatures and we did not have cold weather camping gear. After setting up the tent we put in 4 extra sweatshirts, a couple jackets and anything else that we thought might keep us warm. It turned out to not be enough.

Things started ok, it was cold but we got the fire going and had some dinner. Then is started to rain. Light at first, but it picked up and stayed consistent. We moved into the tent, watched some TV on the laptop (camping just isn't that hard anymore) and then after a couple hours and the rain not stopping decided to call it a night. Unfortunately we did not have enough warm gear and the night was pretty miserable. Marina froze going to the bathroom and I couldn't sleep because I refused to get up and held it all night. Needless to say we were up early the next morning.

We set out on a hike down the Kaibab trail and made it Skeleton point, 3 miles down the trail. It was an amazing hike with stunning views and lots of mule poop and mud. Everything you might want on a hike. We made it down and back in 3.5 hours with a 30 minute stop for lunch. When we got back we realized that it was supposed to be a 6 hour or so hike. I think our legs would have preferred if we took our time. 6 hours later on the drive to South Pasadena our legs were hurting...hiking and then driving are not a good combo. After the hike we decided that it was not worth camping our second night and got on the road.

After a 7 hour drive we were back at our starting point in South Pasadena and happy to not be cold through the night. Now its time to prepare for the last leg... to Washington.

Back to Rio

Last days in Rio
Return from Arraial, traffic. We caught the bus out from Arraial do Cabo without incident and were on the road pretty much on time (which for most things here is not the norm. Brazilians, like Hawaiians, have their own sense of time, punctuality is not really part of that system). However, as we got close to Rio traffic started to back up. Even though it was midday on a weekday, a 3 hour bus still took close to 5 hours to arrive. We covered the last 10km in about an hour to nintey minutes. But after arriving it was nice to be back in Rio. It is night and day between the smaller places around. There are so many small cafes open till midnight or 24 hours, something is always happening, and you can find pretty much whatever you need. Except socks.
Marina bought some boots when we arrived in Sao Paulo because the weather was a lot colder than expected or a least that was the pretense. But because she didnt have any with her, she also didnt have anything besides sport socks which were too thick. After a brief search in Rio, we started to realize that they just dont sell socks. We started looking at women's feet to realize that no one was wearing anything, footwear wise, that required socks. It was all flip-flops and sandals. I guess it just doesn't really get cold enough to warrant foot condoms. So we spent the morning of one of the last days on a mission to find socks, someone had to carry them. After about 6-8 stores we arrived at a C&A, European chain, that had what she was looking for. Some things are hard to find even in Rio.
We also hit up a final Churrascaria, although I know I butchered the spelling. These are the true Brazilian steakhouses. All you can eat meat being paraded around the restaurant on platters. It just keeps coming. At least 10-15 different kinds of BBQ'd beef, chicken, pork and seafood along with a buffet of salads, sushi/sashimi (although pretty much only salmon), and the sucker foods. Sucker foods are the fillers they want you to eat so you cant eat your share of meat. I learned that before coming so I was prepared. But that also means that you eat until you are sickeningly full. The two times that we went out to an all-you-can-eat, I didn't eat again for about 12-18 hours. Just not hungry. And usually need about 3-4 hours to digest enough to feel like moving. But the BBQ is amazing and the variety impressive.
We were also able to go to one last BJJ class the night we arrived back in town. Over the weekend while we were off diving, there was the Rio Open BJJ championship which several of the guys from the gym competed in. One of the white belts took second, a purple belt (who was annoyingly good and composed while rolling) took first, and a black belt took first in both gi and no gi. Impressive given the quality of BJJ that we encountered while in Rio.
On Wednesday afternoon, after stuffing ourselves at BBQ, we went to Parque Lage. It's a park that is open to the public but seems to be maintained by the school for visual arts. It makes it interesting because the center piece is an old mansion that is open to the public, but also is an active classroom/studio building. There are art exhibits on display as well as students working on their paintings in a large courtyard that shares its space with a cafe. So you can sit, have an espresso and watch as the students work on their paintings. The building is scattered with little exhibits and classrooms, with class in session. The grounds are eclectic and well maintained and also contain the trail head to hike up to Christo Redento, which had we known would have been better than the train, but what can you do. Too much in Rio to know it all ahead of time.
The last thing we did was squeeze in a Samba class. Now, I cant dance. But I really cant dance Samba. Marina had a good time, both dancing and watching me fail at it. It's hard and they move their feet so fast in such small little steps. But the instructor was patient and there were only 3 of us in the group class. And the other guy was having a more trouble than me, so at least I took second (out of 3). I am not opposed to going out dancing more often and I think when we settle in the next location the plan is to go more often than every 6 months so at least I dont have to start each class back at the beginning and can hopefully remember something to build on each time moving forward.
Rio was great. It is hard to imagine that I am writing this at the airport in Sao Paulo waiting for check-in to open so we can go through customs for our flight back. 35 days went fast. Real life is going to start again soon...

Arraial do Cabo

Arraial do Cabo
Our trip to Cabo did not start out well.  The initial bus was delayed about an hour by something, accident or who knows on the highway just outside of Rio. Once we arrived, the taxi took us to the right number for the address, but unbeknownst to us, the wrong street. However, there was a hostel/hotel/pousada at #440 so we jumped out thinking it was the right place. We quickly learned otherwise, but fortunately is was only one street over. So we walked over and found...nothing. All of the homes tend to have large fence/walls around them with gates for the car and walking in. However it means that you really cannot see what the inside looks like at all. Some could hovels, others could be mansions, but all equally hidden away by their outer gate. We had only seen interior pictures so we had no idea if we were at the right place. And no one was responding to our knocking at the gate. We returned to the original hostel and they were nice enough to let us use their wifi and were soon able to get in touch with the person in charge of our accommodations. After getting into the room, we realized that we had been pretty spoiled by really good airbnbs leading up to this place. It wasn't that bad, but the standard had been set so high that it felt like a let down. There was a nice outdoor kitchen area, but no pots/pans, matches to light the stove, or even sponges/soap to wash the nonexistent dishes. There was a coffee maker, fridge, microwave and plates, but again no way to clean them. The internet didn't work. And the next morning there was no water in the bathroom. There was a housekeeper, very nice, but she didn't speak english, and the owner was not to arrive until the next day. All of these problems were solved to some degree, but it was a change from the amazing service and preparation in the places that we had stayed previously.
Things got much better the next day as we started our first of two days of diving. While the water was a little colder than we have become accustomed, the flora/fauna was plentiful and easy (to some degree) to spot. The first dive we probably saw the most, but each of the dives was fun. We got a little lucky as they had been forced to cancel several of the previous days due to high winds and bad weather. It was still a factor, but at least our dives were not compromised. Visibility was a bit poor, if you weren't careful it would be easy to lose the group, which we did at one point. But the sites were easy to navigate and finding the boat at the surface was no problem.
Across the 4 dives we were able to see a seahorse (first time outside of a tank), eels, batfish, a snake eel, skates, lots of fish, spider shrimp, some local corals, nudibranchs, puffer fish, turtles, a rock fish and many false flyers. Overall, it was good diving and nice to see some different species from the stock that I had seen often in the Pacific. Next time, whatever is the recommended wetsuit/warmth protection we are going to need to ask for more, cold was the only challenge. But people were great, the boat was a diverse international mix and overall awesome.
The last day we decided to go on a 3-hour tour, boat tour of the outer beaches and islands. The tour ended up being about 6 hours, so for about $12-15 (USD) a person, it was a good deal. The weather was good, but the wind was still very strong and mixed with cold waters, we did not spend much time swimming. The trip took us out to see a local lighthouse and then back to a beach with an interesting unloading/loading procedure. The beach was located on an island that could only be accessed by boat. The tour boats would get as close to the beach as they could and discharge whoever wanted to go ashore (most would swim about 10-20 meters). Some of the larger boats had small inflatables that would ferry people in and out. However, our boat had someone who not only couldn't swim, but also had two injured fingers she kept in a waterproof iPhone case and held above her head as she went ashore. Both on arrival and return someone from the boat with additional flotation devices had to help swim her across. All the time the boat is trying to hold as close to shore as possible with several other boats and inflatables around it, strong winds and a few rocks nearby. At first I was rather nervous, but then realized, 1) its not my boat, 2) shore is close, and 3) nothing I can do right now so just enjoy the show. She got on fine and the boat went to our last stop, a floating restaurant.
The restaurant was a floating platform of plastic barrels with wooden planking holding it all together. About 100 meters away was a mussel farm that seemed to supply the specialty food for the place. For about $US 7-8 we got a huge bowl of mussels that were delicious. And as you are on a floating restaurant away from everything else they have a pretty captive clientele. Thankfully the food was good and it was a comfortable way to end the day. We finally got back to our room, cleaned up and pretty much passed out from 6 hours of fun in the sun.
As I write this know we are on the bus heading back to Rio. 2 days left before returning to Texas. It looks like Washington might be the final destination, but it is still pending. Should have more info actually around the time we get back to the states. Which is good, because we need somewhere to go...