18 Hours Later

Hello Wolrd! So after my friends left me standing at the gate at JFK, I was assured by the Varaiag guy that I would get on an American Airlines flight that left 2 hours later. But when I got to the American counter the agent told me that that fligt was oversold too and I probably wouldn´t get on it either. After running back to Varig and securing myself a hotel voucher for the night in case I didn´t, I ran back to the American terminal to go through the security check again and the guy questionbed me thouroughly about me not having a seat, and mentioned I was traveling to Sao Paulo. This seemed strange to me because Iwas told the American flight went all the way to Rio. Sure enough, ast the gate IU was told it loked unlikely that I wopuld get on and that Varig hadn´t attached the Sao Paulo to Rio leg of the journey on my voucher for American. I was freaked.... it looked like there was no way I was going to meet Joe in Rio for 112:30 deadline for our tranfer to the boat for Ilha Grande. Then a sext Austalian sat next to me in the lounge at JFK and |I felt my luck might be chganging... Sure enough I got oin tthe flight at the last moment.. a nice aisle seat at that... I spoke with the fliught attendant after dinner and told her my dilemnas about the Sp to Rio leg and she said, if I explained myself at the gate when I got off they would put me oin no problem ... so I took a sleeping pill, said a little prayer and zonked out. At the gate in SP I did my sweet talking and sure enough the nice lady forged me a boarding pass and off I flew for Rio only 45 minutes later. Landed in Rio at 12:20, met Joe and our lovely driver Ricardo, who spoke not a wprd of english but was as sweet as pie. It was still looking like we weren´t going to make the ferry to Ilha Grande and might have to hire a fishing boat to take us over. But ttraffic was no problaem and Riucardo drove like crazy and we arrived on the dock as they were sounding the ships whistle. I bought tickets as Joe loaded the luggage and off to Ilha Grande we sailed. Beer on board, some even bought for us by a sexy Brazilian woman. Ilha Grande is a tropical Paradise, Picture perfect and full of character. We too know about the rain as the thunder storms have been incredible. Our Pousada is right oin the beach.. yesterday we hike throught he jungle to the other side of teh island saw a big iguana type lizard, tons of birds and landed at this weird little ghost town caslled Dois Rios. Lay on an amazing almost desolate beach (maybe 10 people on a 3km stretch) for a bit and then hiked back in as a huge down pour began. It was a lot of walking but pretty amazing. Last night we got pickied up by some Ozzie girls at dinner and played cards till after midnight. They were a howl..... must go check out some more beaches now, apparently the most beautiful in the world!!! By the way, Joe and I have kind of morphed in to One.. Joe-Bob.. it,s weird. xoxoxox b.love

Salut Laurie! Salut Jean-Yves! Alors les mecs j'espère que vous en profitez... J'ai hâte de voir des photos... Lulu pour Lucie...

Hey, L2 and JYP. We were on the flight that was cancelled the night before. And we thought we had it rough because when we finally did get on the plane, we actually had to go up to the galley to get our wine glasses refilled - 8 times! We were lucky - my adorable husband remembered to pack scarves and gloves for NYC, so we did manage to get out and about, even if it was between Macy´s and Barney´s. That counts as out and about, right? As I mentioned, ours was the plane that was cancelled the night before yours; they changed the flight to 9am the next morning. Varig was wonderful - they put us up in the lovely Queens Holiday Inn and fed us a lot. It´s a good thing we´d arrived at the airport early for our flight; because of our connections to Foz do Iguazu, the gate agent had to rebook our entire trip when we got to the counter. They were amazingly calm, considering there were so many irate passengers to deal with. Once we got on our flight, it was totally wonderful - whining for wine aside - except that we had planned a night flight (the night before) and instead were on a 9 hour daytime flight, after a very good night´s sleep (Queens is kind of quiet). So we read a lot (I finished an entire novel, and I only brought four on the trip), and played with the little TV´s, and ran back and forth between the galley and our seats (for the wine - see above). We were re-routed through Sao Paulo to get to Foz, but had to stay overnight in Sao Paulo for our morning flight. Again, Varig was kind enough to pay for all of it, including dinner and breakfast. The hotel was kind of a funny little place - skinny little windows and two single beds. Kind of like a prison cell, really, but they did have CNN. The coolest thing (really) was the remote control air conditioner. Once we figured it out, we slept like logs (but in separate little beds - kind of funny). Skinny is right! After leaving rainy Vancouver for a hot sunny vacation, we discovered ´good´ rain - the kind that comes crashing down like a warm shower after hiking and sweating in 34 degree heat. Welcome to Foz do Iguazu here. The place is spectacular - everything anyone has heard is true. We explored the Brazilian side the first day. It was pretty nice and only took about 3 hours. The bus stops right outside our hotel, and costs about a buck. The hiking was pretty tame; mainly paved trails, but we got to see some wildlife, and the falls really are amazing. Today we crossed the border into the Argentine side. This is definately the side to visit. It is a whole day trip with some really good hikes along the upper falls and the lower falls. There´s a free boat ride to get to a little island in the middle of the falls with a truly spectacular view. The best comes last, with 2 km train ride to a skinny metal catwalk that goes right over the top of the falls, and gives a spectacular view down the canyon. This is the part where it started raining so hard, we almost lost our breath. I´m glad we kept going, though; it was well worth getting soaked to the skin (wet passport, wet camera, wet everything). The bus to get there is also really easy and costs two bucks, and getting through the border is a snap; they just offload everyone, stamp their passports and away you go. We found great place to eat here, called the Tropicana. It is one of those Brazilian Barbeques with a salad and side dish bar, and the meat keeps coming around on skewers. Hint, if it looks like bull testicles, it probably is. Anyway, we ate like pigs and got two huge bottles of beer for only $24 Reals - or about $12 CAD. I can see it won´t be a skinny trip for long. Off to Rio tomorrow (the advance team), to get us all set up. We will be arriving about 6:30pm, so we probably won´t get to an internet cafe until late, if at all. I´ve put together a list of gyms already, so we can keep up with the Barbies. By the way, EVERYONE under 40 in Brazil is cute. How do they do that? RP 2/21/06 - 23:49pm