Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to drop a quick note to let you know what all I have been doing in these past two weeks here in South America. As you may already know, I arrived in Rio on February 12th. When I left from the US I was unsure if I would be able to find accomodations, because I was to arrive in Rio at when I though was the middle of Carnival. That did not turn out to be a problem though as Rio had its major carnival celebrations on February 10 and 11.

So, I missed much of the big carnival celebrations. But I at least had a bed to sleep in. Fortunately, the following Saturday was the Winners Parade, which is sort of a best of from the Carnival. I decided that since I missed the first part of Carnival, I had to at least stick around for this parade, and so I ended up staying in Rio for the next five days. During that time I did all the typical tourist things in rio, not to mention hanging out on some of the famous beaches (Copacabana, Ipanema, etc.). One of the coolest things I did though was hanggliding over the city.

Eventually Saturday came along and it was time for the Winners Parade. The parade started at around 8:00pm, and went until 4:00am. The entire time huge groups of people made their way down the Sambadrome, which is sort of a long stadium designed to accomodate these processions. The floats were immense, the costumes incredible, overall it was pretty mindblowing. The only real downside was it decided to pour down rain much of the evening, and by the time I got home I was completely soaking wet.

The next day, which was also my last day in Rio, I went to a soccer game in the Maracana stadium (one of the worlds largest), and watched the number one and two teams play each other. The following day it was off to Ilha Grande, a gorgeous tropical island off the coast of Brazil. Once I arrived, I checked into a small hotel on the water with its own private cove. The place was really tranquil and nice. I spent 4 days on the island visiting different beaches and just chilling out.

After that it was off to another beach town called Paraty, and a village outside of it called Trinidade. Both were also really nice, especially Trinidade which had an incredible natural pool with beautiful rock formations and crystal clear water. After the tropical paradise, it was time to re-enter the real world. Last night I took a bus to Sao Paulo where I am right now. I will only be staying here for one day though as I am going to catch a plane to the north of Brazil and visit Natal, Salvadore, and maybe some other cities in between.