sarah. on the run.

That's a Lotta Water!

After 10 days in Salvador doing little besides drinking, dancing, and eating aipim drowned in pimenta, it was time to do something outdoorsy and mellow. We'd originally planned on heading north along the Brazilian coast to the town of Olinda, but Carnaval had wiped us out financially and we couldn't find any halfway decent accommodation under $50/night on such short notice. Take note: Brazil is expensive. Granted, we came from India. After India, every price tag seems magnified and laughable. But we had assumed the largest country in South America would be a little easier on a backpacker budget, and it just isn't so. Unless you're camping. Which a lot of travelers do here. But not this traveler. I have my limits, you know.

Anyway, Brazil was killing us (quite literally, if Brendan's swollen belly of beef was any indication), so we made the difficult decision to forgo our dream of lazing on a northern Brazilian beach for the country of Argentina, where our dollar goes a little further. But not before we took a little side trip to the world's biggest waterfall.

The Iguazu Falls reside right on the borders of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, so they're both a tourist destination and an obvious place to rest for a few days on your way to somewhere else. Even though all three countries can claim a town chock full of accommodation choices conveniently located to the waterfalls themselves, we chose to stay in Brazil's Foz Do Igaucu, the largest of the three.

Our hostel was our first real "hostel" on our entire trip so far, full of backpackers bunking in dorm rooms, a communal kitchen and living room (where at any time of day at least three guys would be passed out on the couches during an encore presentation of "Gladiator"), a dinky swimming pool most often used as a base for flirting, and a little bar that blasted techno music after 9 p.m. while hoards of kids sat at tables smoking cigarettes and browsing their Lonely Planets. Kind of like college. A little too much like college, actually. We paid for our own a/c double room and felt old.

You have some choices when you visit Iguazu Falls, which is inconveniently two separate national parks, one in Brazil and one in Argentina. The problem is that never having seen the falls you have no idea which one is better (guidebooks will say that the view is better from the Brazil side, while the Argentine side is better for getting up-close), and so everyone inevitably visits both.

Our first stop was the Brazil side, which is basically just a mile-or-so walk through the jungle with various views of the countless falls along the way, edging closer and closer to Devil's Throat, the biggest of them all. Pretty cool. I don't know what it is about waterfalls, but they're always a crowd pleaser, aren't they? I doubt anyone in the history of the world has ever said, "I hate waterfalls." I was actually even more impressed with the abundance of butterflies in the park and was able to give my macro setting a nice workout.

After a few hours spent watching water lose to gravity, we headed across the street to the neighboring bird sanctuary and spent the next few hours chilling with an amazing number of different South American bird species, many of them rescued. I love birds . Brendan doesn't love birds at all, but even he agreed the park was well worth the $10 entry fee.

Going to the Argentine side of the falls is kind of a hassle if you're staying in Brazil because you have to cross the border and do the whole passport thing, which took us an hour and a half on the way in. But the park itself is much nicer than Brazil's. There, I said it. If you are ever in a town near Iguazu Falls and only have time to visit one park, go to Argentina's. What's great is that you're right up alongside everything. Waterfalls of this volume are pretty from afar, but they're spectacular up close- and you're so close on the pathways here that it's impossible to stay dry. You can also do stupid stuff like ride a boat into the falls themselves, which is tons of fun. Save Devil's Throat for the late afternoon on a sunny day if you can. The rainbow's a nice bonus.

After four days, we said goodbye to the hostel crew, crossed the border again, and boarded a plane from Argentina's Puerto Iguazu airport into Buenos Aires, where we'd rented a studio apartment for the month of March (the same studio from which I'm writing this very blog, coincidentally!!!).

It's good to hear Spanish again, even if they sort of lisp it like those crazy Europeans. More on this fantastic city in a few days...

La La La... Carnaval.... La La La

About two hours north from Rio de Janeiro by plane, Salvador is the capital of Bahia state and arguably home to Brazil's biggest authentic Carnaval celebration. Or at least that's what we read beforehand - that while Rio's parades are flashier and splashier, Salvador's Carnaval is still the big neighborhood party. We hoped the latter was more our style.

Luckily, we've been staying in Pelourinho, Salvador's gorgeous old part of town. It's half-trendy, half-crumbling, and exploring its architecture (especially Catholic churches) makes for a wonderful afternoon on foot. That is, if it's not raining buckets. Which it has been every single day, at least for an hour or two. Never leave the house without an umbrella in Salvador, no matter how sunny it looks at the time! Thankfully the weather always passes and we've never been stuck indoors all day. But it's hot, hot, hot all the time. Sticky, steamy hot.

We arrived a few days before Carnaval officially began (Feb 15), in order to get situated and figure out how to participate. At first, the choices were daunting. At any given time over a six-day period, there are several different parades in full-swing throughout the city, though the main two happen in Campo Grande and Barra. If you want to join a parade (bloco), you choose which band-on-a-float (trio) you want to walk with, pay the requisite fee, at which point you get a special day-glo t-shirt that will identify you as belonging there come parade time. Our problem was that we weren't familiar with any of the acts playing, and didn't want to choose unwisely only to be stuck with crappy music for six hours. But the organizers at the offical "Carnaval ticket store" assured us that all the parades were fun and there'd be so many people it wouldn't make much of a difference who we chose. So in the interest of diversity, we decided to join a nighttime parade Thursday night on the Barra Circuit, sit in bandstand seats all day Sunday in Campo Grande, and then walk in a daytime parade in Campo Grande on Tuesday, and paid no attention to the musical selections.

Obviously, we couldn't possibly have realized how big of a deal Carnaval really is in Salvador. Every parade is huge, packed with thousands of people of all ages dancing and screaming along with the band, hugging each other and spraying, beer, water, and shaving cream in the air. Mayhem. And you start hearing the same tunes over and over as the hours pass by. It's as if the entire country learns five songs beforehand word for word, and then goes ape-shit every time they hear one of them. I'm not sure if these are official "Carnaval" songs played year after year (ala Jingle Bells), or if it's just the latest pop tune everybody wants to hear. Either way, the energy is infectious, and on that first night Brendan and I danced our asses off with the rest of the world, hugged strangers, and politely dodged sloppy tongue kisses.

I will say that the Carnaval mood is one of true happiness. I saw a lot of spandex, heavy petting, and public urination, but not once during the entire week did I witness a fight or even a negative exchange between anybody (and these people can drink). The masses come out to dance and sing and share in the craziness, pure and simple. It's so much fun. That said, I had to leave my camera at home to avoid having it lifted by pickpockets, who have a particularly nasty reputation in Salvador. That was a huge bummer since now I just have a few shots around the ´hood, and none that illustrate the major parades themselves. Oh well. Better safe than sans Nikon, and you gotta love these guys. One of them offered to pay me $2 for Brendan. I declined.

Tomorrow we fly south to the point where Brazil meets both Paraguay and Argentina, to see world´s most impressive waterfall, Foz do Iguaçu. They say it makes Niagara look like a trickle. If that´s true, I´m stoked!

Blame it on Rio? Gladly.

Click here to see the last shot I took of India as we waved goodbye from the plane. It makes Mumbai seem pretty and tropical, doesn't it? Leave it to India to go out looking like paradise (I know better).

At some point on our first of three flights that would eventually deposit us in Rio de Janeiro, we flew over Iran, and I snapped a nice one of an anonymous city below us. All I know from our route map was that it was south of Tehran. The way politics are going lately, I probably won't see it from the ground anytime soon, but I guess I can kinda sorta say I was there for about two minutes.

Stopping in London's Heathrow airport was a big tease, since I love London and hate to be so close to the city without actually seeing it. Oh well.

Another 10 or so hours later, we were flying over land again and I got my first glimpse of Brazil. So green! So hilly! A brand-new country... in a brand-new continent! Hooray!

We made it to Rio's international airport, trudged through customs, got our backpacks, and were relieved to find our ride holding a card with Brendan's name on it. We'd booked a little studio apartment in Rio's Ipanema Beach way back in November and paid the landlord over the internet, but she hadn't been responding to our last few emails and we worried we'd be living on the street upon arrival. Luckily, she was legit and we happily moved into our home (with free Internet!!! OMG!!!) for the week.

In my opinion, Ipanema Beach is the place to be in Rio. Just south of the more famous Copacabana Beach, it's clean, it's kitschy in a 60s era kind of way, and there's a ton of bars, restaurants, and shopping to be had. Our apartment was in an unassuming building with a tiny little ocean view and my first kitchen in many, many moons. It was gold, Jerry, gold! To be self-sufficient again! I practically lived at Zona Sul, the local supermarket, the convenient and familiar likes of which I hadn't seen since Russia. Seriously. Brendan would have to make me pay up and leave or I'd be in there all day. The Zona Sul employees called me crazy behind my back (and then to my face once they caught on that I didn't speak a word of Portuguese).

One of Rio's most famous landmarks is the Corcovado, where a statue of Jesus looms on a mountain overlooking the city and surrounding coastline. Naturally, we had to do the tourist shuffle and get a picture of him, even though the trip ended up being about $40 USD (which in India would have been more like $4. See? There are things I miss about India!).

If you're ever in Rio, don't miss this little excursion. I always imagined the city to be a beautiful, tropical place, but it's really something special. From up at the Corcovado you can see a million miles in every direction. Amazing!

The week went by too fast, between my big fancy website re-design and afternoons spent people-watching at the beach (beforehand I worried about my buns not being up to Brazilian bikini standards, but they've got all shapes and sizes down there, just like any other beach). A little R&R was just what we needed before flying north to the city of Salvador, famous for having the most insane Carnaval celebration in all of Brazil. We're going for Carnaval. And I'm mildly afraid of crowds. So...yeah. You only live once.