Las Spinsters Storm South America 2010: Part II

Well, here's part two of the Spinsters in South America 2010 trip.  This episode will star not only Kate....

Kate enjoying the lovely curtains at Hotel Colon in Resistencia, Argentina.  She wanted to make a dress out of them like in the Sound of Music, but we were short on time.

but also Corinne, who joined up with us in Sao Paulo.  

Corinne coming out of a telefonica (place where you make phone calls from).  We planned a lot of the trip along the way so there were several trips to telefonicas to make reservations for our next night's stay.  Corinne speaks Spanish better than me (due to having a Latin Lover at one time) so I made her make most of the phone calls.  

Anyway, lest I get ahead of myself...first Kate and I had to take a night bus from Rio to Sao Paulo.  It was a pretty nice bus and I think I would have slept well had one of our fellow bus riders not been snoring LOUDER THAN I'VE EVER HEARD ANY HUMAN SNORE!  All night.  


But, we made it to the airport in Sao Paulo where we met up with Corinne and also ran into my parents who were on their way back to Fortaleza.  So, that was fun.  It was nice to get to see them one more time.  


Oh, I forgot...Kate and I found this AMAZING little store at the main bus station in Sao Paulo.  They sell a nice variety of weapons at affordable prices.  

Yes, those are Chinese stars and giant killer knifes you are seeing.  And, if you zoom in you'll see that the prices are way too cheap for comfort...only about 15 or 20 dollars for a knife big enough to skin a deer with.  Scary! 

These guys below were just a little too interested in the weapons for our comfort.  I think we were both glad we weren't spending much time in Sao Paulo.  No wonder Sao Paulo is a sketchy place.  You can't sell weapons in bus stops for really cheap...you are just asking for trouble Sao Paulo!  

Kate and I both regretted later that we didn't buy a Chinese star.  How many times in your life do you have the opportunity to buy a Chinese star at a bus station?  Opportunity missed. 

Anyway, from Sao Paulo we flew to Foz do Iguaçu, which is the city on the Brazilian side of Iguassu Falls.  On the flight we met a fellow Mormon singleton flight attendant who thought this, 

about being single.  

This picture is actually a reenactment.  This is how it really happened...

We boarded the plane and before we could even sit down the flight attendant in the picture above says to us, "Are you Mormon?"

To which we answered: "Yes."

"Still single?" he asked.  

We nod yes.  

And then he frowns and puts a pretend gun to his head and pretend shoots himself.  

Maybe you had to be there but it was so funny.  Within minutes of boarding the plane he tagged us as Mormon, as single, and let us know that he felt our pain as a fellow singleton.  I guess it's a small world.  Oh, and randomly he's from Fortaleza too.  I guess sometimes it's a really small world.  

Anyway, we made it to Foz do Iguaçu, hopped off the plane and I grabbed a taxi and took our luggage to our hostel while Corinne and Kate hightailed it to the Brazilian side of the falls so they'd have enough time to see that side.  I went to the Brazilian side in July of 2008 so I decided it was too soon after to go back.  Click here to see my pictures from that side of the falls if you are interested.  

So, here are a bunch of pictures from the Argentine side of the falls.  And, just for the record, if Iguassu Falls is on your list of future travel destinations make sure to leave time for both the Brazilian side and Argentine side of the falls.  I think that the Brazilian side is more picturesque but that the Argentine side is also a must see because you get a bit closer to the falls and it is also very beautiful.  The falls are the same, just your viewpoint of the falls changes.  

Las tres Spinsters at Iguassu Falls, Argentina.  

The falls just go on and on and on...like my blog posts. 

Proof we were there.

Same place, the next day.  We decided to go back to the falls on Sunday morning since we couldn't find where the LDS church was on the Argentine side so we thought we'd commune with nature a bit instead.

These guys wanted to take a picture with us for some reason, so we did.  I'm not sure what's up with the half naked guy in the picture but I guess if I had abs like his I'd probably want to walk around half naked too.  

I love Iguassu Falls.  It is so beautiful.  I'd put it high on the list of places that everyone should see.  

A vertical shot just to mix things up a bit.  

Me again.  Looking nice and sweaty.  

More falls...

What the?  Apparently the park service hasn't replaced the park wheelchairs since 1872.  I've never seen anything quite like it.  

More of me.  You might say I'm vain but I would say, "no, it's my blog and I can have as many pictures of myself on my blog as I want."

A whole pack of Coatis.  They are everywhere on both sides of the falls.  When you see the first one you think they're cute and then you see more and more and by the end of the day you're planning a trip back to launch an NGO with the sole purpose of providing birth control for Coatis.  

Somewhere over the rainbow...

We took a boat ride down on the water.  I did this in 2008 on the Brazilian side too but somehow Corinne and Kate convinced me to do it again.  Basically you get to see the falls from water level and then a Kamikaze boat driver drives the boat right under the falls SEVERAL times and you get completely soaked and think you might die at times.   This is a picture we took from the water.  

We didn't stay at this hostel but it was near our hostel and we thought that the pool was hilariously small.  You might be able to fit 4 people in that pool and that is only if they are skinny and suck in too.  I bet you a dollar that if you go to this hostel's website that somehow they've taken a picture that makes this pool look big, or at least bigger.  They probably got tiny chairs and hired midgets to lay out on the chairs to make the pool look normal.  That's just me speculating though.   

Well, after we saw Iguassu we began our bus journey across Argentina.  Here's a little summary of our bus journey across Argentina...

*Took a 9 hour bus ride from Iguassu to Resistencia (aka: the ride with the really stinky air freshener)
*Took an 11 hour bus ride from Resistencia to Tucuman (aka: 11 hours of hell in a sweat lodge)
*Took a 4 hour bus ride from Tucuman to Salta (aka: the ride where we dined and slept with cockroaches)
*Took a 15.5 hour bus ride from Salta to San Juan (aka: the ride where they didn't stop to let us use the bathroom and we didn't want to use the gross bathroom on the bus so we all almost died)
*Took a 2.5 hour bus ride from San Juan to Mendoza (aka: the lap of luxury)
*Took a 4.5 hour bus ride from Mendoza to Villa Mercedes
*Took a 4.5 hour bus ride from Villa Mercedes to Mendoza
*Vowed to never ride a bus again

Here we are at the bus station in Iguassu.  The beginning of it all.  They were mopping the floors in case you're wondering why our feet are sticking straight out.  

We thought that this picture of the temple in the bus station was a nice touch.  I guess they are hoping for business from Mormon temple trips.  

Us after a 15.5 hour bus ride.  We are looking a little rough, or at least I am.  

You're probably asking yourself, "why didn't they just fly?...are these girls masochists?"  

Let me answer your question.  

First of all flying in Argentina isn't very convenient because pretty much all flights (that I know of anyway) go through Buenos Aires.  So, even if you want to fly from one city in the west to another city in the west you have to go all the way east to Buenos Aires, have a stopover there and then head west again.  So, it takes all day and is expensive.  

Secondly the buses are cheap.

Thirdly, you can buy bus tickets at the last minute so you can travel spontaneously.   

Fourthly you get to see the countryside when you take a bus.  

Fifthly there are just crazy adventures that wouldn't happen if you weren't taking a bus across a country.  

And, sixthly, you don't get views like this...

on a plane.

I love sitting upstairs in the bus in the very front seats.  You get such a great panoramic view.  

There is, however, one downside to the very front seats...and that is that if, for example, you're on an 11 hour bus ride from Resistencia to Tucuman and the air conditioning is not working (even though the bus driver assures you that it is working), those nice panoramic windows will cook you like a vegetable in a green house and, if you don't die of heat exhaustion, you will wish you did.  

At one point we even made a little sign in Spanish that said "HELP US, We need air!"  We put it up in the window when we went through police checkpoints but I think our sign was too small and unfortunately we didn't have any bigger paper.  

And, in the end, we survived even though there were moments of deliriousness and of seeing white lights.  

Here Kate and I are fixing the air freshener on the bus to Resistencia.  Every 15 minutes (exactly) the air freshener would squirt out air "freshener" that smelled like cheap Hispanic man cologne.  We were right in the back seats and thought we'd die if we had to smell it for the 9 hour bus ride.  So, we folded up a bunch of tissues, put them over the hole and covered the whole thing with tape and a water bottle label.  And, it worked and the day was saved!

Just brushing my teeth on the 15.5 hour long bus where they didn't stop.  There was a little sink in the back so I spit into that but then when I turned on the water to wash it down the sink started foaming everywhere but I didn't care because the least they could have done is given us a rest stop on that ride.  

At one of the bus stations they had shopping carts to push your luggage around in .  It was weird.  I think this is right before we got on the bus full of cockroaches.  

In our journey across Argentina we found that there are BIG differences between the quality and cleanliness of the buses and the comfort of the bus ride.  But, unfortunately, we couldn't predict the type of bus ride we'd have based on price (because the prices were all so similar) or bus companies (because there was a lot of variability even between the same company's buses depending on what city you were in), and it seemed that every region of Argentina has completely different bus lines.  

So, every time we bought a bus ticket it was a big gamble as to whether we were going to have a comfortable ride or spend the whole time wishing we were dead rather than on a bus in the Middle of Nowhere, Argentina.  

We got to take one SUPER fantastic luxury bus ride from San Juan to Mendoza.  Too bad it was the shortest bus ride we took the whole trip! 

We enjoyed all 2.5 hours in the lap of luxury.  It was the best bus ride of my life!

We took the bus to Resistencia but didn't stay long because we just didn't like it there very much.  We decided that it was the armpit of Argentina (at least of the parts of Argentina that we saw).  Maybe we should have given it more of a chance but instead we pushed on toward Salta because we'd heard it was beautiful and nice there, and it was.  

I really liked Salta.  I thought it would be miserably hot since it is so far north but really it wasn't bad.  San Juan, which is farther south than Salta is way worse.  We spent a couple days in Salta and had a great time.  Here are some pictures we took in Salta...

We took a cable car to the top of a mountain to see Salta and the surrounding area.  

Here's one of the views from the top.  

Here we are at the top.

Here Kate and I are with our magic Mary (and other Saints) bracelets we bought in Salta.  Mine turned my wrist orange.  Serves me right I guess for donning Catholic garb.  

Corinne and I in downtown Salta.  They have a ton of cool old buildings and churches, pretty plazas, and a really nice museum that even has Incan mummies in it. 

Kate and I in one of Salta's plazas.  As you can see we don't have a Rick Steves guidebook because Rick doesn't do South American guidebooks.  I wish he would.  Maybe I'll just have to become the Rick Steves of South America!  I wish.  

Well, that's all for now.  More coming in Part III of Spinsters Storm South America 2010.  

Las Spinsters Storm South America 2010: Part I

I'm finally posting pics from our Spinsters Storm South America 2010 trip.  I know it's old news now as it is two trips back, but since I don't scrapbook or journal I figure I'd better make myself blog it.  

I already gave some trip details here but now I'm finally sharing some pics.  So, without further ado... 

Okay, well maybe a little more ado first.  My friend Kate met me in Fortaleza.  My parents were gone to a training seminar in Sao Paulo so Kate and I had to entertain ourselves.  We went to the site of the Fortaleza temple, spent Kate's birthday at Futuro Beach, went to Habib's, and took a touristy type boat ride to see Fortaleza from the water.  

Our ship captain.  You'd think we were on a pirate ship, but we weren't, unfortunately.

The coastline of Fortaleza...or most of it anyway.  It just goes on and on and on...kind of like most of my blog posts.  

The sunsets of Fortaleza are quite beautiful.

Ditto

Futuro Beach for Kate's birthday

Kate was only in Fortaleza for about two days before we headed down to Rio de Janeiro on Linhas Azul, aka:Jet Blue of Brazil.  We were most impressed with their snacks.  

When they came by with the snacks I asked them what the choices were and this is what they gave me.  I guess they didn't want to try to explain in English what all their snacks were.  It was great...Kate and I were still eating Azul snacks several days later.  I highly recommend flying Linhas Azul...especially if you are hungry.   

I think that the flight into Rio is one of the most beautiful commercial flights you can take.  You can see Sugar Loaf, Christ, and the beaches all from the comfort of your plane seat.  

If you look to the far right of this picture you can see Santos Dumont Airport, which is where we flew into in Rio.  The runways are super short and end in the water.  I've been on shorter runways out over the water before (in Panama) but never when I was in a big plane...kind of scary.  And, FYI, Santos Dumont is the name of the man who Brazilians say invented flight.  I guess the news of the Wright brothers hasn't made it down to Brazil yet.  

Beautiful Rio.  The cross looking thing up on the right is actually the big Christ statue.  This is the view from Sugar Loaf (aka: Pao De Açucar).

Just another view...

Ditto

Double ditto

Proof that I was there

One of my very favorite views of Rio.  It really is the most beautifully situated city...maybe in the world.

More proof I was there.  And proof that I should have been wearing my sunglasses so I wouldn't look so squinty.

A slightly different view

Me, with that slightly different view...obviously, I LOVED Rio.  I took a ton of pictures there.  

This is the place where they have the big Carnival parade.  We got to Rio just after Carnival ended.  We planned that.  We didn't want to be there during Carnival.  But, we got to see them taking down everything and cleaning up.  And, I saw some of the floats too.  So, it was a win win situation.  I got to see the floats but didn't have to see all the basically naked people dancing on the floats.  

We got to try on some costume parts...and boy was that headpiece heavy.  I don't envy those Carnival dancers at all.   

The Christ Statue on Corcovado Mountain.  It is 130 feet tall (per Wikipedia).  They were putting up scaffolding to start restorations.  It's a good thing those construction guys had Jesus looking over them as they assembled the scaffolding because their methods sure didn't look OSHA approved. 

The view from the Christ statue. It was cloudy when we were up there but the view was still amazing.  The tallest bump out in the water is Sugar Loaf.  

Next we went to Maracana stadium in Rio where we took this very special picture of Kate and me.  

I stood in the footsteps of Pele.  He's pretty much the only Brazilian soccer player I know by name so I'm glad his footprints were there to stand in.  

Later that night Kate and I went to a Flamengo soccer game at Maracana stadium with some other girls from our hostel.  The Flamengos are a big time team in Brazil and sadly it took me about half of the game to realize that the team wasn't the Flamingos.  I kept wondering why their uniforms weren't pink. 

We got there WAY too early, as you can tell.  The game didn't even start until 10 PM or something.  I think we got there around seven.  It wasn't really that great of a game because the team that the Flamengos played wasn't a very good team so the Flamengos didn't even have to try.  We left early.  But, I'm glad we went because I couldn't miss out on the opportunity to go to a soccer game in one of the world's most famous soccer stadiums.  Besides, we took the subway to the game and nobody killed us, so it was nice to gain a little traveling confidence.  

I think all we ate in Rio was street food...mostly delicious fresh fruit juices.  One of my favorite mixes is pineapple and lime...sounds weird, but I promise it is great.  We went to this same little juice bar so much that the guys there knew us by name.  Sad.  Oh, and the reason I look so ugly is that we were on our way to Copacabana beach and I don't wear makeup to the beach usually.  Oh, and I had to make the thumbs up sign because thumbs up is to Brazilians as the peace sign is to Asians...they love to give the thumbs up sign, especially in pictures. 

Well, that's the end of part one.  I loved Rio and hope I can go back there sometime again.  It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.  Maybe I'm just saying that since no 12 year-olds with knives robbed us or anything but it really wasn't too bad.  If you aren't carrying anything valuable and aren't in stupid places after dark you should be fine.

I think one of the greatest lessons I learned on this part of the trip was just how useful a bra can be for hiding money and credit cards, etc.  Kate at one point even had her camera and ipod in her bra.  So, maybe bras aren't all that bad.  I'm guess I'm glad I'm not a hippie or a granola.

Well, with that helpful hint I think I'll end "Las Spinsters Storm South America 2010: Part I"...stay tuned for more. 

Blogging Live From a Slightly Sweaty Apartment in Brazil...It's Becca's Blog!

Well, I've been a little blog-lazy lately.  I don't know what my problem has been.  I blame the leeches.  They've sucked all the creative blog energy right out of me.  And I seem to discover more and more leeches every day.  But, I have a ton of blogging to catch up on so I guess I'll just ignore the leeches and blog-on.  

And blog-on I will.  My goal is to do a post a day for the next two weeks.  So, crack your knuckles and stretch out your fingers blog readers, and get ready to comment!  (Yes, I know I'm a comment whore.)  

So, I'm back in Brazil.  After all the time I've spent in Brazil these past two years I've officially messed up my Spanish.  But, in a couple of weeks I'm headed to Bolivia so hopefully I'll be able to get back into the Spanish groove there and get some of these Portuguese words out of my head.  But, it's been fun to have the opportunity to spend some time with my parents and share in some of their experiences.  It's just too bad they didn't go somewhere Spanish speaking.  

Anyway, I arrived on my mom's birthday.  I hadn't slept at all for two nights by the time I got here so, as you can imagine, I spent quite a bit of the day just sleeping. Luckily, my parents' friends, the Cabrals, brought my mom a birthday cake and came to celebrate with her, because I didn't get around to making a cake. 

It was a passion fruit birthday cake...it's not every day that you get to have a passion fruit birthday cake.  Oh, and the American flags on the table were left over from my mom's 4th of July party she had a few days earlier...we're patriotic, but not that patriotic to dare fly the American flag in Brazil permanently.  

After the birthday cake was eaten we put the Cabrals to work helping us package little bags of American candy (the best) for all the missionaries.  My mom said that she looked like an old hag in this picture but that I could still post it.  So kind of her.  My dad, however, makes me get all pictures pre-approved.  

The thing is that if you look good in all your pictures online then when people see you in person they will think you're looking bad.  But, if you look kinda bad in at least some of your pictures online then people will see you in person and say, "oh, you're looking so good."  So that's why I think it is fine to have a few ugly pictures of yourself floating around.  But, then when you die, someone should be nice and destroy all ugly pictures of you.  Because nobody can see you in person anymore and then you will be forever remembered as the lady who looked like an old hag (or whatever) in that one picture.  

A few days after I arrived we flew out to Juazeiro do Norte, which is another part of my parents' mission.  Expo Crato was on and, because Expo Crato is the closest thing to the Idaho State Fair that my dad can attend, he was pumped.  It's still not anything as great as the Idaho State Fair, but it's better than nothing.  

I caught my dad smiling at the sheep.  (Zoom in to see his smile.)  He really misses his sheep.  I think the hardest part about the mission for my dad has been missing his sheep...and maybe missing his family too I suppose.  

Just a flashback to my dad's cow milking days...well, maybe cow milking day.  I don't think he likes cows very much and I'm not sure how long he lasted as a cow milker.

The missionaries have a booth at Expo Crato.  Here they are getting things set up.

Looks like they've got this kid surrounded.  Daytime at Expo Crato is pretty slow so the missionary to investigator ratio is pretty high but at night the place is packed and they get tons of good references.  The Church is very small in Juazeiro...I think there are only 2 branches there and 2 branches in a couple of nearby towns.  And Juazeiro has about 250,000 people (per Wikipedia).  So, it's just good for them to have the booth and let people learn a little about The Church.  

The Honda booth was right next door.  My mom kept eying this bad boy...I think she's always secretly wanted a little bullet bike or whatever this is.  

Just my parents with some of the Elders.

A couple of the Elders looking super excited to be at Expo Crato.  The Elder on the left is ready to baptize...white tie and all.  

Just chatting.  

One of the Brazilian Elders thought this bench was so beautiful and that we should take our picture on it...so we did.  

Some of the member girls from the area gave my mom and me a little Expo Crato tour.  

Just a picture to show the whole booth.

Holy Cow!  Check out how tall this bull is!  If you count the hump on its back, it is as tall as that Brazilian guy.  

Isn't it ironic...here these bulls are just a short little wall away from a restaurant where they are probably serving up nice juicy steaks.  I don't know if I'd like to eat there...it's just too close to the real deal for me.  Kind of like Reed's Dairy...I LOVE their ice cream, milk, cheese curds, chocolate milk, etc., but I don't love eating it at Reed's Dairy.  There's just something gross to me about smelling cow while you eat cow products.  

And, what would a hot Brazilian day be without a little coconut water to drink? My dad is WAY into coconut water right now ever since it mysteriously cured a stomach ache one time.  Madonna loves it too.  It is supposed to be good for you, so I figure I'll drink all I can here where it is cheap and fresh since it's expensive in the US.  

My mom just enjoying a yummy lime popsicle at the Juazeiro airport.  

Here's the cute little popsicle lady.  My parents LOVE the passion fruit popsicles she sells.  You can only get them in Juazeiro so they special ordered 40 of them and we carefully packed them in a cooler with ice packs and checked them on the plane.  They made it all the way to Fortaleza and were still frozen.  We put them in the freezer but somehow later that night the freezer got left open just a crack and just that much heat entering the freezer all night melted the popsicles to pieces.  So sad.  

The plane back to Fortaleza.  The flight is only an hour but they still serve sandwiches and drinks on the plane.  This time they served hot dogs.  As many flights as I've flown on in my life and that was the first hot dog I've ever been served on a plane.  I guess there's a first for everything...first plane hot dog, check. 

Well, I think that's about it.  The neighbors upstairs just started BLASTING music.  It's almost midnight.  I can hear the words of the song.  It's actually sort of pretty music.  Maybe tomorrow we can ask them, "hey, what was that music you were BLASTING last night?"  I guess noise restrictions haven't hit Brazil yet.   I don't think they'd go over very well here.  And I wouldn't care but my mom and I have been getting up around six to go walk/run at the beach.  And, guess what?...the past two mornings we've seen dolphins frolicking around in the water.  It is making me like dolphins a lot.  I won't be getting a dolphin tattoo or anything but they are pretty cool animals.  

And, just the other morning when my mom and I were walking at the beach we passed a garbage guy...you know, the kind that pull the carts and gather stuff to recycle and are usually probably homeless.  Well, anyway, we go to pass this guy on the sidewalk and he starts working up a loogie and I think "oh no, I don't want to get spit on or step in a loogie" (because there are lots of loogie spitters here and I have to constantly be looking to avoid them) so I took a big detour away from him just to avoid the whole situation.  

And guess what?...that garbage guy pushed his cart over to the edge of the boardwalk and spit off into the dirt on the side.  And I said to my mom, "you never know where you're going to find a little class."  So, let that be the lesson of the day...you never know where you might find a little class.  That garbage guy turned out to be sort of classy (FYI: really classy people don't hawk loogies AT ALL in public) and I shouldn't have pre-judged him and jumped away.  

Well, on that lovely note, I'll end.  More blogging tomorrow!