Before Britt's arrival, the idea of walking around Brazil with two lovely ladies on my arm had me feeling a lot like "Kevin Long - Rock Star". In reality, the experience left me feeling a lot more like "Kevin Long - Man Purse". Honestly, there were times when those two helped ensure my cargo shorts were more loaded up than Batman's utility belt, and the combination of money, cameras and keys I was carrying probably made me the poster boy for the muggable Rio tourist. Thankfully, I was not depossessed of any belongings along the way and I got even with the girls by pretending from time to time that I wasn't carrying enough money on me for them to buy their precious caipirinhas. Passive aggressive? Maybe. Satisfying? Remarkably so.
For Britt's visit, we planned four nights in Rio de Janeiro (Kristin and I arrived a day earlier and had a fifth night), three nights on beautiful Ilha Grande and our last night in the colonial, waterside town of Paraty and its UNESCO protected historic center. It was a good itinerary with largely disappointing weather. After one rainy day in Rio, the rain started again after our first night in Ilha Grande and never stopped. I found it tough not to feel bad for Britt that so many days of her stay were marred by bad weather and even tougher not to feel bad for myself that we invited down somebody who would bring such foul weather with her from Calgary. Notwithstanding the rain, I would say (and I really hope that Britt would agree) that we still managed to have a really good time and share a lot of laughs. Britt was also a good sport about the comically small room we shared in Rio (which is one downside of letting the backpackers choose the accommodation), which probably wasn't the ideal setting for a person with an actual job to unwind during their vacation time.
Some brief Rio thoughts: If there's a more beautiful city in the world, it's hard to imagine what it would have to look like. Rio's blessed with so many beautiful features that it almost seems like an embarrassment of riches. Kristin loved the long beaches that lined the city (particularly Copacabana Beach), Britt loved the Big Jesus watching over the city, and I loved the severity of the mountains jutting out of the water or protuding alongside neighbourhoods throughout the city. We only saw a handful of the many neighbourhoods I would have liked to have visited, but I found them each to have their own character and worthy of a return visit. In addition to its physical beauty, I also felt like the city had its own pulse that seemed to strengthen with the temperature. On the day it rained, it almost seemed like the city was in a state of mourning or hibernation. The pulse, of course, is a function of the people, and watching the cariocas and their love affair with the beach was fascinating and probably would be a reason to make the trip by itself.
Like other large cities we've visited in South America, there is an obvious divide between poor and wealthy citizens, but the socioeconomic groups live in much closer proximity to one another in Rio, where favelas are built illegally on many of the mountains that I mentioned in the previous paragraph (and elsewhere around and throughout the city - approximately 900 in total). We had an opportunity to visit one of such favela - the largest in Latin America, with approximately 200,000 residents - through an organized tour. I was initially a bit reluctant to pay somebody to take us on what amounts to a tour of low-income people and their homes, but the tour was organized in a way that was not exploitative, was highly educational for outsiders, and we were given numerous opportunities to spend our money in the community and see how the tours are helping to develop social services for people in need. It truly was an eye-opening experience and the individual motor-scooter rides into and up the favelas was a pee-your-pants good time.
Finally, we end off with some unfortunate news. Some weeks ago, Kristin developed a nagging pain in her foot, likely as a result of too much walking and hiking. Sadly, it has continued to worsen and now it appears Kristin has developed a stress fracture in the foot and will be in a boot cast for the foreseeable future. The good news is that the name of the cast is the "Bota Robocop", which is super bad ass and makes me wish I too had robotic appendages. The bad news is that it isn't entirely clear at this point what the injury means to the rest of our trip. Hopefully a few days to heal and bottle of Malbec or two in Buenos Aires (where we arrive on Monday) will shed some light on the situation.Our pictures from our time with Britt are here. You'll notice that they fall off completely after the rains started.
Tired of the rivers and lakes that we were used to, we ignored TLC's well-known advice and went chasing waterfalls. What we tracked down was Iguazu Falls at the intersection of the Argentinian, Brazilian and Paraguayan borders (and visited the Argentinian side of the Falls). How good was it? Well, I love waterfalls, so I would have been school-girl giddy with whatever we happened to find there. Kristin, on the other hand, doesn't particularly care for waterfalls [Editor's note: honestly, who doesn't like waterfalls?], told me she had been unimpressed by Niagara Falls [Editor's note: tough crowd, though I note she did have good things to say about the nearby wineries] and appeared to be feigning interest prior to her arrival after I made her promise not to ruin the visit for me. When we finally got there, however, Kristin was a convert - snapping photos like a crazy person and giggling after all of the good mistings. Not even the scolding she got from a park ranger for feeding wildlife could dampen her enthusiasm. Conclusion? Either Iguazu Falls > Niagara Falls or Kristin was still loopy from the big beer I made her split with me the night before we visited. Either way, it's good to have her on our side now. On to Brazil!
Other than a couple of bus rides, five nights in Florianopolis (or "Floripa" to those of us who are in tight) was responsible for our first impression of Brazil. I think we chose wisely. The whole of Santa Catarina Island (of which Floripa is a part) has a population in the neighbourhood of 400,000, who were the fittest and, objectively, probably the most beautiful people we've come across on our trip to date. Organic and other healthy foods dominated most menus in town and visiting outside of the high-season for Brazilian tourism meant that everybody was incredibly laid back and one could find hikes and beaches without any other people during the weekdays. I'm giving the whole town one gold star since it was one of its hostels that finally granted my wish of an all-you-can-eat South American barbecue, but then taking the gold star away because board shorts in town (which I am in dire need of) cost between CDN$90-160.
By my count, it took us about three days to figure out the right mix for the Floripa coastal experience.
You can check out some of our pictures from Iguazu and Floripa 
The people in and around Cartagena could obviously tell that we were in need of some affection and we must have looked a little run down, because everywhere we've gone here people call us "friend" and try to give us stuff or massages. And since true friends know what is in your best interest even better than you do at times, our thousands of Cartagena friends simply refuse to take "no" for an answer and insist on trying to give us their things or begin massaging us even after we have declined. In all seriousness, despite what we had read prior to arriving, the level at which we are constantly badgered has been much worse than I was expecting. In contrast, likely because of all the negative things we read about them prior to arriving, I have found the beaches in Cartagena to be pretty decent, but trying to walk down one of them with white (or in my case, slighly pinkish) skin is a little like covering yourself in honey and then running through the bear enclosure at the zoo.
A more pleasant surprise in Cartagena has been that the food variety and taste in the area we are staying (outside the Old Town, where the prices also look very European to us) is probably the best we have had on the trip to date. In addition to the abundance of fruit which has been typical of our Colombian experience, we have found ethnic and vegetable dishes which we would be happy to eat back home. The ugly side to the food here and elsewhere along the coast is that it has been cutting down people we have met like crazy and sending them to the latrines like a Frank Costanza Korean War flashback. So far, we have managed to get by in this region relatively unscathed, but we are patientily awaiting our turn to suffer.