St. John, USVIs

We've spent two beautiful days in St. John hiking to various beaches so we can lounge and snorkel. We have another half day here and then Carrie and I meet up with the other 7 in the crew on Tortola and get on the 47ft Catamaran sailboat for 10 day in the British Virgin Islands. We went to Salt Pond Bay and Drunk Bay today. Drunk bay was interesting since there were these huge pieces of coral everywhere on the windward side of the ocean where the water is a little rougher....and then you looked closely and people had used these coral pieces to make little people all over the rocks. It was either wonderful spontaneous art or really creepy...we were kinda creeped out. In picture two you can barely see me swimming, picture one has the creepy guys. It's not the other way around is it?

Punta Gorda, FL

Two days of dipping in the pool and cruising on my Aunt Besty and Uncle Chucks boat in Florida brought relaxation to a new level in Punta Gorda, FL.  I learned a few things when I was there, like the fact that power catamarans can cut through an incredible amount of chop and maintain a smooth ride.  Seeing dolphins breach and play in the wild is fun even after you were able to pet their friends a day before...and on St. Patrick's Day if you give an aging singer from Boston a microphone and an extremely captive audience he becomes very hard to ignore.

Miami

After a few days in San Francisco Carrie and I flew out to Miami to meet up with some of her friends from her old job at the Miami Seaquarium.  My Sister Susie, Ed and my nieces Chloe and Maddie also made the trip and met us.  Carrie still has a good friend that runs animal training at the Seaquarium so we got some behind the scenes access with the animals getting to pet and meet dolphins, sea lions, feed seals, and get close to the killer whale.  The dolphin in the picture with us is the son of one of the 7 dolphins used in the TV show "Flipper".  Dolphin fact #1: some dolphins can swim 35mph.  Dolphin fact #2: I am smarter than most dolphins...on the other hand, they pretty much were lounging in the sun and had people feeding and stroking them all day, so in retrospect fact #2 is debatable.

Back in San Francisco

After another great day lazing on the beach in Rio and 26 hours of travel I'm back in San Francisco until Friday.  You can buy nearly anything on the beach in Rio if you just wait long enough for a guy to come around- sun glasses, sunscreen, food, drinks, towels, owl mirrors, a bow and arrow.  When I decide to start looking for a job I think I'm just going to head to the beach in Rio and wait for some guy to come by and offer me a job in San Francisco.

A month went by incredibly fast and I can't wait to start traveling again.  Carrie and I head to Florida for a few days on Friday, then St. John in the Virgin Islands for a few days followed by a week of sailing with 8 great friends in the British Virgin Islands.  It's been nice to catch up on some sleep the last couple of days...

Rio de Janeiro

Day 3 in Rio.  It's beautiful here, the mountains jutting out of nowhere are ridiculous and of course the beach scene is great...and wonderfully vain.  Eric, one of Eberly's friends flew in from his home in Sao Paulo rented a car and gave us a great tour and we caught up with Finnie again who spent some extra time in Buenos Aires.  Today we visited the Christo Redentor statue overlooking the city.  We passed some of the famous/infamous favellas, which are violent slums run basically by war/drug lords.  The land isn't legally owned, there are no official services and they happen to be on some amazing and beautiful locations on hillsides with some of the best views in the cities.  The favellas are well defined with absolute borders.  They give tours into them which we decided not to take but it did spur an interesting moral discussion about going on a tour of poverty.  We ate some great local feijoada which is a local beans, rice, and meat stew not too different from red beans and rice you might find in New Orleans, but with a lot of meat. The fruit and fruit juices are tasty, especially in the heat.  This evening will be spent going for a swim a relaxing dinner and then Finnie has concocted some nightlife plans....as Finnies are known to do.

Iguazu Falls

The last couple of days have been spent in Iguazu where there are some amazing waterfalls.  It takes a lot of time and energy to travel there, but it's a gigantic set of multiple falls with great access on the Argentina side and apparently good views on the Brazil side (which we didn't see).  In a 15 minute period is seemed like just as much water came from the sky as the falls, which seemed to add to the experience although with my travel notebook as a casualty.  Just as much fun as the falls was the hostel (Hostel Natural) where we stayed, which was basically an oasis cut into farmland and jungle.  The picture of the building is the outbuilding where our room was (pic of falls is a fraction of the total falls).  There was a big indoor outdoor common area and deck.  There were some fantastic group dinners with a dinner table that resembled the UN with all the different nationalities.  It was nice to be the only Americans and make some more one or two day friends and exchange emails.

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