Who Knew Quitting Your Job and Traveling Could Be This Fun?

-The author pictured by the beach. (Note the cut from falling glass on his forehead)

Well the time is just flying by here in beautiful Brazil. I´ve got enough material for several long, boring blogs but I think that I will try and compact everything into one long boring blog.

I guess I´ll begin with the wedding. I did have to fend off several questions about how my hand was doing. It´s fine people, let´s move on. I was taking a picture while we were driving to the wedding and then my low battery light came on which is an indication that I have approximately sixty seconds left before it dies completely. So I don´t have any good pictures from the wedding but that´s alright. The photographer took all the relevant pictures of the bride and groom and other than those shots there wasn´t a lot worth taking pictures of, only a room full of some of the most beautiful women that I´ve ever seen.

I met a girl, though not at the wedding. Beautiful. A girl so beautiful that it would seem small sacrifice to leave one´s home and country to be with her, which I promptly imagined myself doing. That night I considered and solved all the problems of where we would live, how I would support her etc. The next day I met her boyfriend. He seems nice.

It seemed quite plausible that in a couple of days, with a huge language barrier, I could get a girl to fall for me enough that the even bigger distance barrier would later be broached but I guess it´s a little much to assume that perhaps the most beautiful girl that I´ve ever seen would be single. Ah well. I´m not worried. There´s still a lot of country to visit. (Though meeting a girl is not why I came here, despite what Luis keeps telling everybody)

We later went to the coast and caught a boat for a small island, Ilha do Mel, or Island of Honey. I didn´t eat any honey while there but I did get a taste of the sweet life. The island is very small and most of it is protected park land. There are no cars allowed on the island so the town there is traversed by walking along small trails. We stayed there for one night. The day we arrived we went for a bit of a trek to the far side of the ocean. We explored the islands cave, it takes about 5 seconds to get from the mouth to the back of the cave, and climbed a hill that looks over the island. There was a nice beach there. I suppose most people would rave about the huge expanse of soft white sand and the warm clean water but I think that my favourite part was the crabs that lived on the beach.

They dig little holes where they run when there´s danger. It´s fun to catch them out of their holes and to chase them. I love watching them run sideways. Because I had my camera and money with me we couldn´t go swimming simultaneously so while Luis went for a dip I stayed to watch the crabs and get sunburned.

Later I went for a swim as well. It was my first time in the Atlantic ocean for many years. The last time I went was on a beach in Nova Scotia. What I learned about the Atlantic ocean there is that it´s cold and inhospitable. So I was surprised to enter the Atlantic ocean here and realize that it´s warm and inviting. Well I thought it was hospitable but my watch, did not. My faithful Timex ironman took a licking and quit. Maybe the catch phrase was never meant to apply to digitals.

The next day we left the island for the town of Paranaguá which we promptly left for the town of Marretes where we lingered for less than an hour. The reason for the haste is that we had a train to catch. We had heard about this train ride. It runs in between Curitiba and Marretes, to Paranaguá only on Sundays. Apparently this ride offered spectacular views. We had made plans to catch the train from Curitiba so early on Monday morning, 6:30, we got up to catch the train. We arrived about 5 minutes too late which is why we went to the island first. So now in Marretes we had a train to catch.

I wasn´t too keen to take the train because it cost considerably more than the bus but the money was very well spent. The views were spectacular. We did have a bit of rain and low cloud cover but for the most scenic part of the trip the view was unobstructed.

We returned to Curitiba and went out for Churrascaria at the Recanto Gaucho with our hosts, André, Fernanda and their son Timóteo. I ate half a cow and Luis finished the other half. Later we were allowed into the kitchen to see where the magic is made and take some photos. Then we went home and had ice cream. This morning I was craving bran flakes.

Today has been relaxing. We now have to decide where to go next. Brazil is big, and time is short. We can probably budget two more weeks here and then towards Argentina, where we can really start eating meat, so I realize that I´ll have to come back because this country is amazing.