Sorry for the delay of stories... I've been getting more lazy :)
After the "attack of Buenos Aires" I headed north to Iguazu Waterfall National Park on the border of Argentina and Brazil. Touring both sides (argentina was better), they were stunning; dozens of falls dropping 100's of meters. The most famous was known as the "Devil's Throat" and looked like 8 Niagra's in 1 funnelled down a small chute. I had good company too, one day with 2 canadian siblings, and the other with 2 Israely girls.
Next I headed into Brazil to Porto Allegre for a video-conference meeting, just for fun, at the local HP site. I called and chatted with my San Diego buds and had Angela escorted into the Corvallis site. I set up a little slide show and was helped with all of this by Rodrigo and his wife Ali, my host family in the city. Rodrigo works for HP Brazil and was introduced to me by a fellow HP San Diego OSU alumni. While at their house, I was treated to several dinners, all the ammenities at their large flat overlooking the city, and great company. Unfortunately I came down with a very bad sore throat here which turned into a horrible cold.
My cold and I then travelled north 2 hours by plane (set up by Rodrigo for only $80 US dollars!) to Sao Paulo, on the world's top 10 largest population list, boasting at least 15 million. It took us 10 minutes just to fly across the city to the airport where I gazed at hundreds of skyscrapers in very random places. I learned later that there was no real true city center. On the ride I met a random business man who was very friendly and offered to share a cab ride with me to help me get where I was going (and most importanly translate Portugese!) He first insisted that we stop by an "authentic Australian barbeque" place for lunch.... turns out it was Outback Steak House! haha. I acted surprised anyways. In Sao Paulo I met back up with my Aussie mate, Ben Davey. The first 2 days I had to stick around the hostel and get over my cold. After that we filled up another 2 days with a city walk, night out to live funk music with the Brazilian girls I met in southern Peru, 3 straight nights of $5 noodles from a chinese family's stir fry street corner stand, billiards, and more billiards.
We later caught a 5 hour bus to my final destination, Rio de Janeiro. We showed up on a saturday night and were determined to make it a big night out but spent an hour trying to find a working ATM and were unsuccessful and ultimately ended up slumping back to the hostel. The next days following we paid for a soccer game guided tour (saw the famous Maracopa stadium that Brazil national team plays in), took a sky tram overlooking the city at night time, and visited Copacabana and Impanima beaches (sipping coconut drinks).
On the last day, I went swimming in my boxers in the ocean because it was the only opportunity left to touch the Atlantic. A few times I accidentally put on a few peep shows with the waves nearly taking off my boxers! I then showered, hailed a bus to the airport, boarded a huge plane to Sao Paulo and then onto Houston, TX. After that it was one more 4 hour flight to PDX where I touched Oregon ground at 11am. My mom greeted me from the emergency exit of the plane before we even pulled up to the gate, as she snuck out onto the runway as a baggage inspector.... just kidding, but that's the expression I saw from her and my brother when I stepped past security.
Once arriving I saw a bunch of the family, went south to Corvallis for Angela's graduation, a few days at Tillamook beach (Cape Meares) with family and friends, a week at Black Butte (LOTS OF GOLF!!!) with the 'rents and siblings, and then onto Sydney Australia/ New Zealand!
Unfortunately somewhere along the way of south america I lost about half my pictures on a small memory card. It probably dropped out of my pocket on the plane or something but it's definetely gone.... very sad. The worst hit was Brazil, I have NO pictures from there to show from there now.
Please check out my new Aussie pics though with Angela and the next post coming soon!
